On 01/22/2015 07:49 AM, Siarhei Siamashka wrote:
Hello,
This is a somewhat long e-mail.
Yes it is. Thank you for this detailed introduction to the problem and
solutions. As a semi-skilled user and proponent of armv7, I really
welcome all the work you and others have done. Just wish it was done 6
months ago! :)
2. A possible solution
=====================================================================
== 2. A possible solution
=====================================================================
For example, the UART serial console is not really used by BROM, and
this was a kind of hack in the previous demo. At that time it looked
like the serial console could be configured correctly according to
some heuristic rules. However later it turned out that the heuristics
does not really work on some A13 devices and they may have mutually
incompatible UART configurations:
...
Anyway, the really missing part was the user friendly output and user
friendly input for generic u-boot binaries. HDMI is widely used in
Allwinner hardware and it supports autoconfiguration. USB host ports
use dedicated pins and only enabling/disabling power can be device
specific. The missing USB power can be solved by using a powered USB
hub, which is not very convenient, but still a workable solution.
...
It is a demo of a universal SD card image, which should be bootable
on any Allwinner A10/A10s/A20 device. With an installer of u-boot
v2015.01-rc3 as the initial demo simple payload. By using a
HDMI monitor for output and a USB keyboard or FEL button for input,
it offers a menu based user interface. The menu allows to select
the exact type of the user's Allwinner device and install the
right bootloader for it.
This is all great with one possible exception: server setups with no
monitor/kybd.
Take a look at: http://medon.htt-consult.com/~rgm/cubieboard/
You will see 5 cubieboard2 + drives in a nice tower arrangement. These
are powered by one Anker 40W 5-port USB power supply. Note that every
board has a 'dedicated' UART/USB serial console. These are < $2 each
compared to the cost of HDMI cables and an HDMI KVM switch (cheapest 4
porter I have found is $100; no cheap 8 porter). All I need to do is
connect my USB extension cable to one, connect to a notebook and run
'screen /dev/ttyUSB0 115200' and I have the console for booting/configs.
So I would want the option of a serial console menu. I suspect that
screen supports VT-100 style menu controls, just have not had a
situation to tried it.
I am excited about the prospect that installing your Linux distro of
choice on your Allwinner board of choice for a desktop system will soon
be achievable. In May I will be visiting my parents for their 70th
wedding anniversary, and would love to set them up with a system on
their TV.
But please consider the server use and the serial console.
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