[Buildroot] RPi B+ update

[Buildroot] RPi B+ update

[Marco Trapanese]

Hi!
A couple of years ago (it was in 2015) I built a buildroot environment 
for RPi B+. We ended up with an sd-card image that was cloned for every 
installation.
This months we've bought some other RPi B+ but with this batch the 
system refuses to boot: it hangs with black screen and the raspberry 
icon at the top-left corner.

We're aware they have changed the RAM chips (from Samsung to Elpida) and 
likely we should update the drivers with the new ones.

Here the buildroot related question: is it possible to change something 
in the current sd-card image instead of updating and rebuilding the 
whole system?

This is because if we need to go with the second option we're going to 
deeply upgrade the application and this is not affordable right now.

Of course, feel free to ask any details you need to try to help me!

Thanks in advance!
Marco

[Buildroot] RPi B+ update

[Peter Seiderer]

Hello Marco,

On Tue, 16 May 2017 21:32:26 +0200, Marco Trapanese <marcotrapanese@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi!
> A couple of years ago (it was in 2015) I built a buildroot environment 
> for RPi B+. We ended up with an sd-card image that was cloned for every 
> installation.
> This months we've bought some other RPi B+ but with this batch the 
> system refuses to boot: it hangs with black screen and the raspberry 
> icon at the top-left corner.
> 
> We're aware they have changed the RAM chips (from Samsung to Elpida) and 
> likely we should update the drivers with the new ones.
> 
> Here the buildroot related question: is it possible to change something 
> in the current sd-card image instead of updating and rebuilding the 
> whole system?

You can try to exchange only the firmware, device tree and the linux
kernel files on the first partition of the sd-card image with ones from
an actual build (after testing if the actual complete sd-card image
boots well)...

Regards,
Peter

> 
> This is because if we need to go with the second option we're going to 
> deeply upgrade the application and this is not affordable right now.
> 
> Of course, feel free to ask any details you need to try to help me!
> 
> Thanks in advance!
> Marco
> 
> _______________________________________________
> buildroot mailing list
> buildroot at busybox.net
> http://lists.busybox.net/mailman/listinfo/buildroot

[Buildroot] RPi B+ update

[Marco Trapanese]

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[Buildroot] RPi B+ update

[Marco Trapanese]

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[Buildroot] RPi B+ update

[Waldemar Brodkorb]

Hi,

what happens if you keep your old kernel and dtb and just update the firmware (start.elf, fixup.dat and the other file)?

I think new firmware can handle dt and non-dt kernel. You might need to add the trailer magic to the old kernel with mkknlimg.

best regards
 Waldemar 

> Am 17.05.2017 um 17:28 schrieb Marco Trapanese <marcotrapanese@gmail.com>:
> 
> Il 17/05/2017 08:05, Marco Trapanese ha scritto:
>> I'm trying to do what you suggested. By the way the br version was 2014.11-git-00057-g86b4d75-dirty.
>> Updating firmware and device tree should not be a pain.
>> 
>> I'm afraid about the kernel because I had to use a custom repository version (353043394c99ed37a4075da228af64468fdf6c06) and I changed some settings to fit my application.
> 
> 
> Well, some good news. 
> Using the latest versions of buildroot (2017.05-rc1-00062-g4b4fc27) and kernel (4.9.21) I built an "empty" environment (without any additional package but the rpi-firmware). Copying both zImage and the fw files into the boot partition of the existing sd-card, leads to boot-up again!
> 
> The problem now is related to the kernel drivers (wifi, rtc, cdc, etc...) that I manually selected using make linux-menuconfig and that were available (in the old rootfs) under /lib/modules/3.12.26. I'm afraid the new kernel doesn't know where to find them - and perhaps it cannot use them anyway because they are related to a different version.
> 
> It seems I need to update the whole system...
> 
> _______________________________________________
> buildroot mailing list
> buildroot at busybox.net
> http://lists.busybox.net/mailman/listinfo/buildroot

[Buildroot] RPi B+ update

[Marco Trapanese]

Il 17/05/2017 19:36, Waldemar Brodkorb ha scritto:
> what happens if you keep your old kernel and dtb and just update the firmware (start.elf, fixup.dat and the other file)?
>
> I think new firmware can handle dt and non-dt kernel. You might need to add the trailer magic to the old kernel with mkknlimg.


Il 17/05/2017 21:29, Peter Korsgaard ha scritto:

>
> Unless the system boots with new fw and the old zImage. Did you try that
> combination?


Hi both!
I've just tried to boot with the old zImage and the new firmware: it 
hangs on the colored background on power up. The same happens using 
mkknlimg on the old kernel.

Marco

[Buildroot] RPi B+ update

[Peter Korsgaard]

>>>>> "Marco" == Marco Trapanese <marcotrapanese@gmail.com> writes:

Hi,

 > Well, some good news. 
 > Using the latest versions of buildroot (2017.05-rc1-00062-g4b4fc27)
 > and kernel (4.9.21) I built an "empty" environment (without any
 > additional package but the rpi-firmware). Copying both zImage and the
 > fw files into the boot partition of the existing sd-card, leads to
 > boot-up again!

Great!

 > The problem now is related to the kernel drivers (wifi, rtc, cdc,
 > etc...) that I manually selected using make linux-menuconfig and that
 > were available (in the old rootfs) under /lib/modules/3.12.26. I'm
 > afraid the new kernel doesn't know where to find them - and perhaps it
 > cannot use them anyway because they are related to a different
 > version.

Yes, reusing the old kernel drivers with a new kernel is not going to
work.

 > It seems I need to update the whole system...

Unless the system boots with new fw and the old zImage. Did you try that
combination?


-- 
Bye, Peter Korsgaard

[Buildroot] RPi B+ update

[Peter Korsgaard]

>>>>> "Marco" == Marco Trapanese <marcotrapanese@gmail.com> writes:

 > Hi!
 > A couple of years ago (it was in 2015) I built a buildroot environment
 > for RPi B+. We ended up with an sd-card image that was cloned for
 > every installation.
 > This months we've bought some other RPi B+ but with this batch the
 > system refuses to boot: it hangs with black screen and the raspberry
 > icon at the top-left corner.

 > We're aware they have changed the RAM chips (from Samsung to Elpida)
 > and likely we should update the drivers with the new ones.

 > Here the buildroot related question: is it possible to change
 > something in the current sd-card image instead of updating and
 > rebuilding the whole system?

 > This is because if we need to go with the second option we're going to
 > deeply upgrade the application and this is not affordable right now.

If it doesn't boot at all (E.G. no output on the serial port), then the
problem is most likely in the rpi-firmware and/or Linux kernel, so you
could try updating those and leaving the rootfs as is.

-- 
Bye, Peter Korsgaard