[[!meta title="NetBSD/evbarm on Allwinner Technology SoCs"]]
NetBSD 7.0 has support for A20 and A31 SoCs. NetBSD -current adds support for A80 SoCs.
[[!toc levels=2]]
# Supported boards
- [Banana Pi](http://www.bananapi.org/p/product.html) (BPI)
- Cubieboard 2 (CUBIEBOARD)
- [Cubieboard 4](http://cubieboard.org/model/cb4/) (ALLWINNER_A80) *NetBSD-current*
- Cubietruck (CUBIETRUCK)
- [Merrii Hummingbird A31](http://www.merrii.com/en/pla_d.asp?id=172) (HUMMINGBIRD_A31)
# Supported hardware
- SoCs
- Cortex-A7: A20 (2-core), A31 (4-core), A80
- Cortex-A7/A15: A80 (4-core A7 + 4-core A15)
- SD/MMC controller (DMA)
- DMA controller
- GPIO
- Configuration using FEX scripts is supported
- UART
- I2C
- P2WI (A31) / RSB (A80)
- PMU
- AXP209 (A20)
- AXP221 (A31)
- AXP806 (A80)
- AXP809 (A80)
- Watchdog timer
- RTC
- A20/A31: integrated RTC, PCF8563
- A80: AC100
- Audio codec (A20/A31)
- USB host
- OHCI
- EHCI
- OTG (A20)
- SATA (A10/A20)
- Gigabit Ethernet (GMAC)
- HDMI
- DDC / EDID mode detection (A20/A31)
- Audio support (A20/A31)
- Framebuffer (A20/A31/A80)
- IR receiver (A20/A31/A80)
# TODO
- A10
- Interrupt controller
- EMAC
- A31
- OTG
- IR transmitter
- 3G module
- TV input
- A80
- MP
- big.LITTLE support
- USB3 (OTG and XHCI)
- IR transmitter
- HDMI (DDC and mode setting; currently relies on U-Boot for setup)
- Audio codec
- All
- USB device mode
- SD/MMC UHS-I support (needs sdmmc(4) changes)
- SDIO (Bluetooth / WiFi)
- NAND
- VGA (Cubietruck, Hummingbird A31, Cubieboard4)
# Installation
## A20 / A31 based boards
* Start with an ARMv7 image from *evbarm-earmv7hf/binary/gzimg/* such as *beagleboard.img* from netbsd-7, or *armv7.img* from HEAD
* Download a U-Boot build for your board
* Download the correct build from the linux-sunxi web site <http://dl.linux-sunxi.org/nightly/u-boot-sunxi/u-boot-sunxi-mainline/u-boot-sunxi-mainline-latest/>.
* Write the *u-boot-sunxi-with-spl.bin* loader to the empty space at the start of the base image:
[[!template id=programlisting text="""
# dd if=u-boot-sunxi-with-spl.bin of=beagleboard.img bs=1k seek=8 conv=notrunc
"""]]
* Write the image to an SD card.
* Copy the kernel (netbsd.ub) for your board to the root of the MS-DOS partition on the SD card.
* Create or edit uEnv.txt on the MS-DOS partition:
[[!template id=programlisting text="""
bootargs=root=ld0a
uenvcmd=mmc dev 0; mmc rescan; fatload mmc 0:1 82000000 netbsd.ub; bootm 82000000
"""]]
## A80 based boards
* Cubieboard 4 U-Boot for SD card: <http://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/misc/jmcneill/allwinner/a80/cubieboard4-uboot.tgz>
[[!template id=programlisting text="""
# dd if=u-boot-spl.bin of=/dev/sdd bs=1k seek=8
# dd if=u-boot-sun9iw1p1.bin of=/dev/sdd bs=1k seek=19096
"""]]
* First partition needs to be at +20MB offset. Format it as MSDOS, copy 'netbsd.ub' to it as 'uImage'.
# Big (endian) fun
You can run this boards with a little endian (this is the default and implied by above install instructions)
or with a big endian kernel and userland. However, kernel and userland endianness needs to match.
To build a big endian release (or sets) use
[[!template id=programlisting text="""
./build.sh -m evbearmv7hf-eb
"""]]
where -eb means endianness big, hf is hardware floating point support, and earm is the modern "extended" ABI for ARM CPUs, and finally v7 is version 7 of the supported instruction set.
# FEX scripts
Board configuration scripts can be found here: <https://github.com/linux-sunxi/sunxi-boards/blob/master/sys_config>. You can compile them with the "fex2bin" tool found here: <https://github.com/linux-sunxi/sunxi-tools>.
To use, copy the compiled FEX to your MS-DOS partition, load it with U-Boot, and then tell the kernel where to find it with the "sysconfig=" boot option. For example, uEnv.txt on a Cubieboard2 might look like this:
[[!template id=programlisting text="""
bootargs=root=ld0a sysconfig=0x43000000
uenvcmd=mmc dev 0; mmc rescan; fatload mmc 0:1 43000000 cubieboard2.bin; fatload mmc 0:1 82000000 netbsd.ub; bootm 82000000
"""]]
Some pre-compiled .bin files can be found here: <http://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/misc/jmcneill/allwinner/fex/>
# Framebuffer console
To use HDMI for the console device, add *console=fb* to bootargs in uEnv.txt.
If the connected display does not let you disable overscan, you can add a margin to the framebuffer by with the *fb.margin* bootargs option. For example, to set a 25-pixel margin around the screen, add *fb.margin=25* to uEnv.txt
# HDMI audio
The default audio device is the analog audio codec. To change the default device, use the *audiocfg* command:
[[!template id=programlisting text="""
a31# audiocfg list
0: [*] audio0 @ awinac0: Allwinner CODEC A31, 2 playback channels
1: [ ] audio1 @ awinhdmiaudio0: Allwinner HDMI 1.4, 2 playback channels
a31# audiocfg default 1
setting default audio device to audio1
a31# audiocfg list
0: [ ] audio0 @ awinac0: Allwinner CODEC A31, 2 playback channels
1: [*] audio1 @ awinhdmiaudio0: Allwinner HDMI 1.4, 2 playback channels
"""]]
# MAC address
On boards where the ethernet MAC address cannot be determmined, a random MAC address will be generated every boot. You can override this behaviour by specifying a MAC address in *uEnv.txt*:
[[!template id=programlisting text="""
bootargs=root=ld0a awge0.mac-address=02:a0:3d:88:1a:1e
"""]]
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