Bug#885462: Installation completely failed at Banana Pi M3
On Wed, Dec 27, 2017 at 02:07:39PM +0100, Bernhard wrote:
> Package: installation-reports
>
> Boot method: SD-Card-Image
> Image version: https://d-i.debian.org/daily-images/armhf/20171227-00:09/netboot/SD-card-images/
> Date: 2017-12-27
>
> Machine: Banana Pi M3
> Processor: A83T
> Memory: 2GB
> Partitions: -
[...]
> The SD-card-image created as described in the manual, booting completely fails.
> I have connected the Banana Pi with HDMI to a television.
> I used concatenated with the installer:
> - - firmware.BananaPi.img.gz + partition.img.gz
> - - firmware.none.img.gz + partition.img.gz
Hello,
the Banana Pi M3 is unsupported for the time being;
firmware.BananaPi.img.gz is for the original Banana Pi (i.e.
without any Mx or Rx). The Banana Pi M1 should be compatible to
the original Banana Pi, but the M3 is a completely different
hardware platform, so the boot code for the original Banana Pi
definitely cannot work on it.
> Please create a firmware for the Banana Pi M3 that is usable
> with a keyboard and a HDMI connected monitor.
That isn't really possible right now as the Debian installer
always uses mainline u-boot and mainline Linux kernels and
support for the Banana Pi M3 in mainline is still extremely
limited. Linux Kernel 4.15 (which will be released in some
weeks) will bring some small enhancements in this regard, but
even then we are still quite far away from having similar kernel
support for the M3 as we have for the original Banana Pi. In
particular, AFAIK there is still no SMP support for the A83T SoC,
i.e. one can currently only use one of the 8 cores of the A83T
with mainline, and AFAIK ethernet support as well as support for
HDMI on the M3 is being worked on, but not ready yet. Even when
SMP will be technically possible there is the issue of DVFS
(dynamic voltage and frequency scaling) that needs to be solved,
as without that there is the danger of frying the chip due to
overheating when running multiple cores - the A83T cannot run all
cores at full power for prolonged periods of time without active
cooling, but the Banana Pi M3 doesn't come with active cooling,
so the core speeds and supply voltages need to be dynamically
limited by software.
I therefore don't expect proper support for the M3 to be
available in Debian in the nearer future. AFAIK also no Debian
developer actually has an M3, so our possibilities of
experimenting with M3 support are rather limited.
Regards,
Karsten
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