Allwinner Sun4i/5i/6i/7i (sunxi)
Various vendors are offering development boards / single-board computer based on the Allwinner SoCs. These are running various flavors of the A1x/A20 SoCs, with different buildouts. The mach is called "sunxi".
For some specs rather see Allwinner_Technology#A-Series.
Supported Versions
| Model Version | Launch Date | OpenWrt Version Supported | Model Specific Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| A10 | - | trunk | Single Cortex-A8 |
| A10s | - | trunk | Single Cortex-A8 |
| A13 | - | trunk | Single Cortex-A8 |
| A20 | - | trunk | Dual Cortex-A7 |
| A23 | - | na | Dual Cortex-A7 |
| A31 | - | na | Quad Cortex-A7 |
| A33 | - | na | Quad Cortex-A7 |
| A80 | - | na | 8-core big.LITTLE (4x A15 + 4x A7) |
Hardware Highlights
| Model | SoC | RAM | Storage | Network | USB | Serial | JTAG | UEXT | Other | linux-sunxi page |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BananaPi | A20 | 1024MiB | μSD | Gigabit Ethernet | 2x USB2 | yes | n/a | n/a | HDMI, SATA, audio, IR, RCA video out, CSI | Page |
| Cubieboard | A10 | 1024MiB | μSD, 4GB NAND | Fast Ethernet | 2x USB2 | yes | n/a | yes | HDMI, SATA, audio | Page |
| Cubieboard2 | A20 | 1024MiB | μSD, 4GB NAND | Fast Ethernet | 2x USB2 | yes | n/a | yes | HDMI, SATA, audio | Page |
| Cubietruck | A20 | 2048MiB | μSD, 8GB NAND | BCM WiFi, Gigabit Ethernet | 2x USB2 | yes | n/a | n/a | HDMI, VGA, SATA, audio, IR, TOSlink | Page |
| Lamobo R1 | A20 | 1024MiB | μSD | RTL8192CU 802.11bgn 2T2R WiFi BCM53125 Gigabit Ethernet switch with 5 ports |
1x USB2 Host, 1x USB2 OTG | yes | n/a | n/a | HDMI, SATA, audio, IR, CSI | Page |
| Olimex A10-OLinuXino-LIME | A10 | 512MiB | μSD | Fast Ethernet | 2x USB2 | yes | n/a | yes | HDMI, SATA | Page |
| Olimex A13-OLinuXino-WIFI | A13 | 512MiB | μSD | RTL WiFi | 3x USB2 | yes | n/a | yes | VGA | Page |
| Olimex A13-SOM | A13 | 256/512MiB | μSD, 4GB NAND | RTL WiFi | n/a | yes | n/a | n/a | n/a | |
| Olimex A20-OLinuXino-MICRO | A20 | 1024GiB | SD, μSD, 4GB NAND | Fast Ethernet | 2x USB2 | yes | n/a | yes | HDMI, SATA, audio | Page |
| pcDuino/pcDuinoV2 | A10 | 1024MiB | μSD, 2GB NAND | Fast Ethernet | 2x USB2 | yes | n/a | n/a | HDMI / Arduino headers | Page |
| pcDuino3 | A20 | 1024MiB | μSD, 4GB NAND | Fast Ethernet, RTL8188EU WiFi | 1x USB2 | yes | n/a | n/a | HDMI / Arduino headers, SATA, IR | Page |
UEXT is an open standard port to provide serial, I²C and SPI expansion ports.
Installation
This section details what is required to install and upgrade OpenWrt. The generic procedure is described here: generic.flashing; this devices don't have a flash chip soldered to the PCB but an SD-Card slot.
Status
Patches have been back-ported from the http://linux-sunxi.org/ community, including device trees, clocks, timers, PIO, ethernet, USB, and, MMC. These patches are currently being mainlined - eta. Linux 3.14 and 3.15 - by the community.
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SPL: done
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u-boot: done
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kernel: done
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rootfs: done
You have the option to boot the board from initramfs, SD card (recommended), USB storage, or NFS.
Working
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SD/MMC
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USB EHCI/OHCI
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EMAC (10/100 Mbps)
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A20 GMAC (10/100/1000 Mbps)
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SATA
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Clocks
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Timers
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SMP with HYP patches for 2014.04 u-boot
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Various devices, GPIO, IR
Being worked on
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NAND (have some snippets already)
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SPI (need integration)
Not being worked on
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Sound - need bump to 3.18
Installation process
Pre-built SD card images
You can build an SD card image directly from buildroot for your device.
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Check out trunk - https://dev.openwrt.org/wiki/GetSource
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Run make menuconfig
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Select device profile - f.e. BananaPi
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Start the build
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The built SD card images will be in bin/sunxi
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dd if=bin/sunxi/openwrt-sunxi-Bananapi-sdcard-vfat-ext4.img of=/dev/sdc
Assembling the SD card image yourself
OpenWrt trunk images are located in snapshots/trunk/sunxi/ folder.
For example if you have Cubieboard3/Cubietruck then download these files from the server:
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openwrt-sunxi-Cubietruck-u-boot-with-spl.bin
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openwrt-sunxi-Cubietruck-uEnv.txt
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sun7i-a20-cubietruck.dtb
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openwrt-sunxi-uImage
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openwrt-sunxi-root.ext4
SD layout
SD layout with 512 byte blocks:
| NAME | start block | size |
| MBR | 0 | 1 block |
| u-boot-with-spl.bin | 16 (8 KB) | ~250 KB |
| FAT | 2048 (1 MB) | 15 MB |
| EXT4 | 32768 (16 MB) | rest |
SD preparation
We assume /dev/mmcblk0 is the SD card and Cubietruck is the board.
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Partition the SD card. Two partitions are created. The first is the boot partition, /dev/mmcblk0p1. The second is the root partition, /dev/mmcblk0p2.
# fdisk /dev/mmcblk0
Command (m for help): n
Partition type:
p primary (0 primary, 0 extended, 4 free)
e extended
Select (default p): p
Partition number (1-4, default 1): 1
First sector (2048-15523839, default 2048): 2048
Last sector, +sectors or +size{K,M,G} (2048-15523839, default 15523839): +15M
Command (m for help): n
Partition type:
p primary (1 primary, 0 extended, 3 free)
e extended
Select (default p): p
Partition number (1-4, default 2): 2
First sector (32768-15523839, default 32768): 32768
Last sector, +sectors or +size{K,M,G} (32768-15523839, default 15523839): +240M
Command (m for help): p
Disk /dev/mmcblk0: 7948 MB, 7948206080 bytes
4 heads, 16 sectors/track, 242560 cylinders, total 15523840 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x17002d14
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/mmcblk0p1 2048 32767 15360 83 Linux
/dev/mmcblk0p2 32768 524287 245760 83 Linux
Command (m for help): w
The partition table has been altered!
Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.
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Re-read the new partition table layout (e.g. by removing and re-inserting the SD card).
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Copy the SPL + U-boot image to the card
# dd if=bin/sunxi/uboot-sunxi-Cubietruck/openwrt-sunxi-Cubietruck-u-boot-with-spl.bin of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=1024 seek=8
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Create a boot (FAT32) partition.
# mkfs.vfat /dev/mmcblk0p1
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Mount the boot partition.
# mount -t vfat /dev/mmcblk0p1 /mnt
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Copy the U-Boot environment file uEnv.txt to the boot partition.
# cp bin/sunxi/uboot-sunxi-Cubietruck/openwrt-sunxi-Cubietruck-uEnv.txt /mnt/uEnv.txt
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Copy the device tree data to the boot partition.
# cp bin/sunxi/sun7i-a20-cubietruck.dtb /mnt/dtb
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Copy the kernel image to the boot partition.
# cp bin/sunxi/openwrt-sunxi-uImage /mnt/uImage
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Resize the root filesystem image to match the partition size.
# resize2fs bin/sunxi/openwrt-sunxi-root.ext4 240M
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Create the root filesystem.
# dd if=bin/sunxi/openwrt-sunxi-root.ext4 of=/dev/mmcblk0p2 bs=128k
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Wrap up (flush buffers and unmount boot partition).
# sync # umount /mnt
Upgrading OpenWrt
→generic.sysupgrade
*WiP*
If you have already installed OpenWrt and like to reflash for e.g. upgrading to a new OpenWrt version you can upgrade using the mtd command line tool. It is important that you put the firmware image into the ramdisk (/tmp) before you start flashing.
Links
For further information about the SoCs, go to http://linux-sunxi.org/Main_Page
How can you help
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We're looking for any A31 / A80 hardware at the moment
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Hardware donations - https://dev.openwrt.org/wiki/WantedHardware
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Test GPIOs and peripherals on A13/A20 and provide feedback