Bug#883549: Debian Installer Buster Alpha 1 release - Hardware support of Xunlong Orange Pi zero
On Tue, Dec 05, 2017 at 03:37:00AM +0000, Vasilis wrote:
> Package: debian-installer-9-netboot-armhf
> Version: 20170615+deb9u2
>
> Tested the netinstall version
> (debian-buster-DI-alpha1-armhf-netinst.iso) in a Xunlong Orange Pi zero
> device and it seems that the board is not booting up --both ethernet
> LEDs are on. I attached a serial cable to troubleshot the installation
> but I don't see any output (perhaps the serial console is disabled).
>
> According to the 'Hardware support changes' section
> (https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/News/2017/20170903) in
> the release post the Orange Pi zero system seems to be supported:
> "Add machine db entries for various sunxi-based systems that are (at
> least partially) supported in kernel 4.12 and u-boot v2017.07-rc3:
> Banana Pi BPI-M2-Plus, FriendlyArm NanoPi M1, FriendlyARM NanoPi NEO
> Air, Lichee Pi Zero, NextThing C.H.I.P. Pro, Xunlong Orange Pi Zero."
>
> Does this mean that these boards be supported by the installer and if
> yes how one can test the installation on these boards?
Hello,
the installer itself has some basic/partial support for the
Orange Pi Zero, but there are a number of open issues (which is
why the changelog you have quoted says "partially supported").
The first thing to note is that the SoC that is used on the
Orange Pi Zero (H2+) doesn't support direct boot from a USB mass
storage device like a USB CDROM drive or a USB stick. For the
basic variant of the Orange Pi Zero (the one without an SPI NOR
flash) the only device from which the system can be booted is the
MicroSD slot, so there is no way to directly boot a netinstall
ISO.
ARM-based systems like this one have a different boot process
than what you might be used to from the i386/amd64 PC world.
The Orange Pi Zero doesn't have any form of on-board BIOS,
so it needs to load it's BIOS-equivalent (u-boot) from a
MicroSD card, and u-boot then provides various ways to
boot the actual installer, be it over the network (similar
to PXE on PCs), from the MicroSD card or from a USB stick
(although not directly from an ISO image written to the stick).
As u-boot is platform-dependent, one needs a separate u-boot
build for each platform. Debian provides u-boot builds for
a number of systems (for a list please cf.
https://d-i.debian.org/daily-images/armhf/daily/u-boot/),
but the Orange Pi Zero isn't yet among them as none of the
developers involved has such a board and nobody else has
offered to test u-boot on this board (which is prerequisite
for Debian providing u-boot images).
Once the actual installer has been loaded from u-boot, the
installation should work normally, but again there is one caveat:
the mainline Linux kernel doesn't _yet_ support the ethernet
controller on the Orange Pi Zero. A driver for the wired
ethernet is work-in-progress and will hopefully be available in
kernel 4.15, but until then, the only way to have network access
from the Orange Pi Zero would be a supported USB ethernet
adapter. Another developer is also working on supporting the
XR819 WiFi module on the board, but proper mainline kernel
support for it probably won't be available for quite some time.
So it is possible to use the Debian installer on the board, but
it currently requires building u-boot yourself and plugging in a
supported USB-ethernet-adapter for network access.
> Happy to do any further tests.
If you would be willing to commit to more or less regularly test
the Debian u-boot package on the board, the Debian u-boot
maintainer (Vagrant Cascadian, in CC) would probably be happy to
add u-boot images for the Orange Pi Zero to the Debian u-boot
package, which would then allow the installer developers to
provide ready-made SD card images with u-boot and the installer
in the future (that is, once the wired ethernet is supported in
the mainline kernel).
Regards,
Karsten
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