H3Droid - Android image developed specifically to work on Allwinner H3 devices

dsfgear · Published in 2017-5-7 14:56:11

Doesn't seem to work on orange pi plus2, as the board will stuck at a black screen after uboot. Tried to install on both onboard emmc and sd card, neither worked. The patch I used was orangepiplus.

TheLinuxBug · Published in 2017-5-7 16:33:58

Edited by TheLinuxBug at 2017-5-7 16:37

Hello @c0013r ,

Can you please see our F.A.Q., it already provides answers to most of your questions.  More specifically I believe it addresses the resolution issues, why direct root is not possible and how you can implement additional WiFi adapters...

If you see our F.A.Q. you will see there is a part on how to add WiFi for a few of the boards.  You would need to update this variable in wifi_hardware_info most likely to fit your adapter, much like: 'realtek:rtl8192cu' as Realtek 8188cu = 8192cu drivers.  I can not promise this will work, as we have not tested it, but this may get you closer in the meantime.

You can also login to the board as root with SSH once setup over Ethernet or using ABD shell via OTG cable and navigate to the /vendor/modules folder and you can manually test inserting modules if needed until you find the one you need.  You will however have to make sure the module is initiated at boot using the above method for it to enable and give you the ability to connect and configure wifi in the GUI Android interface.

Hopefully in the future we will be able to provide a better reference/how-to for setting up WiFi.  If you get really stuck and would like help working through it you can always visit our IRC channel on Freenode IRC Network.

Also, the image uses mainline u-boot and you can update the FEX file on the first partition or previous to installation onto your SDcard ( more information on FEX here: Fex Guide ).

To all viewing this thread, we did try to take our time to outline most of the common questions in the F.A.Q. so please do read it first!

Hope this helps!

Cheers!

pmpp · Published in 2017-5-8 02:02:49

Edited by pmpp at 2017-5-8 02:04

JRios replied at 2017-5-7 19:44
Hi, I have tested H3Droid a bit, on my OPi PC, and looks great!

However, something that I really mi ...

Hi JRios,
aifk there's no poweroff on these H3 boards as power go directly in regulators with no powerswitch.I think the 'poweroff state' you may have seen with various img is just *ultra* low power mode with all led turned off, if you really want to save power or the board, you'd better cut power from supply.

The deep sleep you can go in & out from with the gpio/fel button is working quite well and turn off hdmi screens correctly : is it not enough in your case ?

pmpp · Published in 2017-5-8 19:25:55

Edited by pmpp at 2017-5-8 19:27

JRios replied at 2017-5-8 18:20
Well, when I said, "turn off the system" I was referring to shutdown the Android OS, not the complet ...

I see your point, seems it may be possible to had a option in boot.cmd to prevent the board from *restarting* after pseudo-android poweroff and wait for you to either pull the plug ( this is totally safe while in u-boot) and move the board, or allow continue starting with a push of fel button ( as you may have noticed push at start enter rescue mode by default ), would it be ok ?

TheLinuxBug · Published in 2017-5-8 21:58:30

Edited by TheLinuxBug at 2017-5-9 02:53

Hello again All!

We are looking for a few people who have the time to test new images before we release them to public, what we will call 'untested' images. To really help us the people who volunteer would need to meet the following criteria:
1. Be able to come on Freenode IRC and join our channel to help communicate issues
2. Have at least one of the following boards: Orange Pi PC, Orange Pi Lite, Orange Pi PC Plus, Orange Pi Plus 2E, Orange Pi Plus 2, Orange Pi One, etc.
3. Have a high quality SDcard and a method to reliably write new images
4. Be contactable by e-mail or IRC to alert you of updates
5. Be able to test with-in 12-24 hours of a new release and give feedback

If you can meet these criteria and are interested in helping, please send me a message here or join us on IRC and we will be happy to get you started!

Thanks again for all your support!

Cheers!

meglad · Published in 2017-5-9 20:38:08

This is awesome news!!Thank you guys so much!
Been waiting for this!pls give is way to write this in windows to sdcard?

once again-awesome work!!

TheLinuxBug · Published in 2017-5-9 23:53:33

Hello All!

Things have been moving quickly the past few days with this project and we are about ready to push out version 1.2.3 which should provide a good amount of fixes based on feedback!

The following updates/fixes/changes will be in version 1.2.3:
- initscripts call /data/rc.local for user's convenience
- updated default wallpaper
- recompiled sunxi-ir-rx.ko with full input range (all ir-remote codes should show with evtest now)
- added aoe.ko kernel module
- few changes to the installer scripts
- hdmi-dvi fixes (some users were having issues with DVI, this should help with that)

Keep an eye out towards the end of the day/tomorrow morning for the update showing the new version has been released!

A big thank you to all who have tested and provided feedback, please keep it coming. We can only fix or change things we know about, so the more feedback you can provide, the better our updates will be!

Cheers!

RagnerBG · Published in 2017-5-10 05:03:39

Edited by RagnerBG at 2017-5-10 05:05

Hello. First of all thank's for the good work done.
I have some issues with installing into image file, not directly to sdcard. According to your description, i have to uncomment this line - OUTDEV=/some/path/to/somefile.img? This is what is do in 00_conf file:

# h3droid_installer (c) 2017 KotCzarny (meet me on #linux-sunxi @ irc.freenode.com)
# either define OUTDEV in your script or add it here:
# OUTDEV=/dev/sdb
# OUTDEV=/dev/mmcblkX
OUTDEV=/home/xubuntu/Share/h3droid.img
#if [ "x$OUTDEV0" != "x" ]; then OUTDEV=$OUTDEV0; fi
if [ "x$OUTDEV" = "x" ]; then echo "please configure device to work on in 00_conf"; exit 1; fi
echo "target device: $OUTDEV"
mkdir 2>/dev/null fs_tmp

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But when i execute the script, i got this:

root@xubuntu-desktop:/home/xubuntu/Share/h3droid_installer-1.2.2# ./10_init_new_card.sh
target device: /home/xubuntu/Share/h3droid.img
target device: /home/xubuntu/Share/h3droid.img
can't get size of /home/xubuntu/Share/h3droid.img
target device: /home/xubuntu/Share/h3droid.img
sfdisk: --Linux option is unnecessary and deprecated
sfdisk: cannot open /home/xubuntu/Share/h3droid.img: No such file or directory
/home/xubuntu/Share/h3droid.img: No such file or directory
mke2fs 1.42.13 (17-May-2015)
The file /home/xubuntu/Share/h3droid.img2 does not exist and no size was specified.
mount: special device /home/xubuntu/Share/h3droid.img2 does not exist
mkdir: cannot create directory ‘fs_tmp/tmp’: File exists
if you want to login via ssh please copy your PUBLIC key to this directory, rename it to h3droid.pub and press ENTER ..
mkdir: cannot create directory ‘fs_tmp/ssh’: File exists
h3droid.pub not found, to enable ssh, you can always add your keys to ssh/authorized_keys on partition 2
mkdir: cannot create directory ‘fs_tmp/misc’: File exists
mkdir: cannot create directory ‘fs_tmp/misc/wifi’: File exists
umount: fs_tmp: not mounted
mke2fs 1.42.13 (17-May-2015)
The file /home/xubuntu/Share/h3droid.img16 does not exist and no size was specified.
mkfs.fat 3.0.28 (2015-05-16)
mkfs.fat: warning - lowercase labels might not work properly with DOS or Windows
/home/xubuntu/Share/h3droid.img11: No such file or directory
mkfs.fat 3.0.28 (2015-05-16)
mkfs.fat: warning - lowercase labels might not work properly with DOS or Windows
/home/xubuntu/Share/h3droid.img12: No such file or directory
mke2fs 1.42.13 (17-May-2015)
The file /home/xubuntu/Share/h3droid.img1 does not exist and no size was specified.
target device: /home/xubuntu/Share/h3droid.img
mount: special device /home/xubuntu/Share/h3droid.img1 does not exist
./40_init_uboot_fex.sh: line 11: ./change-uboot: No such file or directory
./40_init_uboot_fex.sh: line 12: ./change-fex: No such file or directory
umount: fs_tmp: not mounted

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What am i doing wrong? Writing directly to sd is working fine, but only on blank sdcard.
Also could you please give some more info about u-boot files:

u-boot-sunxi-with-spl.bin-opipc
u-boot-sunxi-with-spl.bin
u-boot-sunxi-with-spl.bin-opip2e
u-boot-sunxi-with-spl.bin-opip2e-nodisp-nousb-nonet-gpios
u-boot-sunxi-with-spl.bin-opip2e-nousb-nonet
u-boot-sunxi-with-spl.bin-opip2e-usb-nonet
u-boot-sunxi-with-spl.bin-opip2e-usb-nonet-gpios

What is the difference in opip2e u-boots for example? "nonet" = no LAN/Wifi? It's not clear for me, i simply used u-boot-sunxi-with-spl.bin-opip2e .

TheLinuxBug · Published in 2017-5-10 06:25:32

Edited by TheLinuxBug at 2017-5-10 06:44

Hello All!

H3Droid Version 1.2.3 is now up and available for download!

The following updates/fixes/changes are in version 1.2.3:
- Initscripts calls /data/rc.local for user's convenience
- Updated default wallpaper
- Recompiled sunxi-ir-rx.ko with full input range (all ir-remote codes should show with evtest now)
- Added aoe.ko kernel module
- Made a few changes to the installer scripts
- Hdmi-dvi fixes (some users were having issues with DVI, this should help with that)

Also wanted to mention we have been working to add some more support for things such as WiringPi and gpio, you will note in this post another member of our team has started to discusses this.

Please check it out and provide us feedback!

Cheers!

TheLinuxBug · Published in 2017-5-10 06:38:23

Edited by TheLinuxBug at 2017-5-10 07:16

Hello @RagnerBG

It seems you may have misunderstood the installers instructions. This is for directly writing the H3Droid installation to your SDcard, this is not used to output an image which can then later be dd/burned.

The OUTPUT variable is supposed to be a Block Device (such as /dev/mmcblk0, /dev/mmcblk1, /dev/sda1, etc) which you wish H3Droid to be installed to.

In the future we do plan to release some additional methods of installing our image, we have discussed several options including images, Windows based installer and also possibly a MacOS based installer, however, these will happen in later versions as things near ready for a stable version release (this is still considered 'beta' currently as we seek to clean up some more bugs).

So, for now, you would want to run the installer on a Linux system where you have a SDcard reader/writer present and the SDcard inserted. You would then change OUTDEV to the block device name of your SDcard and run the installer.

My appologies for missing your second question, your post was kinda busy and didn't see it at the bottom till later.

What is the difference in opip2e u-boots for example? "nonet" = no LAN/Wifi? It's not clear for me, i simply used u-boot-sunxi-with-spl.bin-opip2e .

I think you pretty much nailed it in your assesment. The default has all the options, and choosing the alternate u-boot files you can choose what other parts of the device are initialized or enabled. Using the versions without some of the options can lead to lower power usage as the devices are not enabled.

So:

nonet - no wifi/network
usb-nonet - usb is enabled and network is disabled
nousb-nonet - no USB or network
nodisp-nousb-nonet-gpios - no display, no usb, no network but GPIO is enabled

I hope this helps to clarify this for you and thanks for your interest in our project!

Cheers!