Mainlining Linux Sunxi SoC AW USB
Subsystems (2)
Hi,
I'd like to cleanup and mainline Linux Sunxi SoC AW USB host driver [1].
What are the most ugly parts which should be replaced? Loading module does not complain about anything?
[267044.912155] awusb: loading out-of-tree module taints kernel. [267044.912257] awusb: module verification failed: signature and/or required key missing - tainting kernel [267044.913399] usbcore: registered new interface driver allwinner [267044.913401] awusb: v0.5:AW USB driver
BTW should it go to the host/Kconfig or misc/Kconfig or elsewhere?
Thanks for info.
Kind regards,
Petr
[1] https://github.com/linux-sunxi/sunxi-livesuite/blob/master/awusb/awusb.c
Greg KH
maintainerQuoted 3 lines · Petr Vorel
Hi,
I'd like to cleanup and mainline Linux Sunxi SoC AW USB host driver [1].
Great!
Quoted 3 lines
What are the most ugly parts which should be replaced? Loading module does not complain about anything?
[267044.912155] awusb: loading out-of-tree module taints kernel.
That will be fixed by moving it into the tree.
Quoted 1 line
[267044.912257] awusb: module verification failed: signature and/or required key missing - tainting kernel
That shows a mis-match between you building a kernel and what keys were used to build the distro kernel you are using.
Quoted 2 lines
[267044.913399] usbcore: registered new interface driver allwinner [267044.913401] awusb: v0.5:AW USB driver
Looks fine.
Quoted 1 line
BTW should it go to the host/Kconfig or misc/Kconfig or elsewhere?
No idea, is this a host driver or does it control a USB device you plug into the system?
I looked at this, and it's a device driver, not a host controller driver.
But it looks to need a userspace program for the ioctls, where is that code at? And why does it need any ioctls at all?
Why is this even a driver at all, it looks like you can write a small userspace program using libusb to do everything it does, right? What exactly is this driver needed for?
thanks,
greg k-h
Hi Greg,
[ Cc: [email protected] and [email protected], which I should have done before ]
Quoted 15 lines · Petr Vorel
Quoted 3 lines
Hi,
I'd like to cleanup and mainline Linux Sunxi SoC AW USB host driver [1].
Great!
Quoted 3 lines
What are the most ugly parts which should be replaced? Loading module does not complain about anything?
[267044.912155] awusb: loading out-of-tree module taints kernel.That will be fixed by moving it into the tree.
Quoted 1 line
[267044.912257] awusb: module verification failed: signature and/or required key missing - tainting kernel
Quoted 7 lines
That shows a mis-match between you building a kernel and what keys were used to build the distro kernel you are using.
Quoted 2 lines
[267044.913399] usbcore: registered new interface driver allwinner [267044.913401] awusb: v0.5:AW USB driverLooks fine.
Yep, I meant by this, that I see nothing serious (i.e. agree with you).
Quoted 10 lines
Quoted 1 line
BTW should it go to the host/Kconfig or misc/Kconfig or elsewhere?
No idea, is this a host driver or does it control a USB device you plug into the system?
I looked at this, and it's a device driver, not a host controller driver.
Quoted 6 lines
But it looks to need a userspace program for the ioctls, where is that code at? And why does it need any ioctls at all?
Why is this even a driver at all, it looks like you can write a small userspace program using libusb to do everything it does, right? What exactly is this driver needed for?
I'm sorry for not providing more info at the beginning. This is a driver for host computer (i.e. developers laptop) used by LiveSuit tool [2] to flash Images to the NAND of Allwinner devices. LiveSuit itself [3] is unfortunately provided only in binary form. The only open source code with GPL v2 license is awusb driver. Thus I thought I could ease my life with upstreaming at least the kernel driver. But maybe it's not a good idea. I'm using LiveSuit for flashing Allwinner A31, but it requires quite old distro due libqtgui4. Maybe sunxi folks use something newer nowadays, but I haven't found anything in their wiki.
Kind regards,
Petr
[2] https://github.com/linux-sunxi/sunxi-livesuite
[3] https://github.com/linux-sunxi/sunxi-livesuite/tree/master/x86-64
Quoted 3 lines
thanks,
greg k-h
Greg KH
maintainerQuoted 4 lines · Petr Vorel
Quoted 3 lines
Why is this even a driver at all, it looks like you can write a small userspace program using libusb to do everything it does, right? What exactly is this driver needed for?
Quoted 8 lines
I'm sorry for not providing more info at the beginning. This is a driver for host computer (i.e. developers laptop) used by LiveSuit tool [2] to flash Images to the NAND of Allwinner devices. LiveSuit itself [3] is unfortunately provided only in binary form. The only open source code with GPL v2 license is awusb driver. Thus I thought I could ease my life with upstreaming at least the kernel driver. But maybe it's not a good idea. I'm using LiveSuit for flashing Allwinner A31, but it requires quite old distro due libqtgui4. Maybe sunxi folks use something newer nowadays, but I haven't found anything in their wiki.
Ah, that's not going to be good then. Really, this doesn't seem to need to be a driver at all, and the ioctls are really strange so we would need to change them anyway before it could be merged. But with no access to userspace code, that will be quite difficult, so I would push back on allwinner and have them work on resolving this.
thanks,
greg k-h
Hi Greg,
Quoted 14 lines · Petr Vorel
Quoted 4 lines
Quoted 3 lines
Why is this even a driver at all, it looks like you can write a small userspace program using libusb to do everything it does, right? What exactly is this driver needed for?
Quoted 8 lines
I'm sorry for not providing more info at the beginning. This is a driver for host computer (i.e. developers laptop) used by LiveSuit tool [2] to flash Images to the NAND of Allwinner devices. LiveSuit itself [3] is unfortunately provided only in binary form. The only open source code with GPL v2 license is awusb driver. Thus I thought I could ease my life with upstreaming at least the kernel driver. But maybe it's not a good idea. I'm using LiveSuit for flashing Allwinner A31, but it requires quite old distro due libqtgui4. Maybe sunxi folks use something newer nowadays, but I haven't found anything in their wiki.
Quoted 5 lines
Ah, that's not going to be good then. Really, this doesn't seem to need to be a driver at all, and the ioctls are really strange so we would need to change them anyway before it could be merged. But with no access to userspace code, that will be quite difficult, so I would push back on allwinner and have them work on resolving this.
Understand, it makes sense. Thanks for your time!
@Sunxi community: am I missing something? Using LiveSuit with old distro chroot and Xephyr with out-of-tree module isn't fun :(.
Kind regards,
Petr
Quoted 3 lines
thanks,
greg k-h
Jernej Škrabec
maintainerDne sobota, 24. julij 2021 ob 16:22:16 CEST je Petr Vorel napisal(a):
Quoted 22 lines
Hi Greg,
Quoted 14 lines · Petr Vorel
Quoted 4 lines
Quoted 3 lines
Why is this even a driver at all, it looks like you can write a small userspace program using libusb to do everything it does, right? What exactly is this driver needed for?
Quoted 9 lines
I'm sorry for not providing more info at the beginning. This is a driver for host computer (i.e. developers laptop) used by LiveSuit tool [2] to flash Images to the NAND of Allwinner devices. LiveSuit itself [3] is unfortunately provided only in binary form. The only open source code with GPL v2 license is awusb driver. Thus I thought I could ease my life with upstreaming at least the kernel driver. But maybe it's not a good idea. I'm using LiveSuit for flashing Allwinner A31, but it requires quite old distro due libqtgui4. Maybe sunxi folks use something newer nowadays, but I haven't found anything in their wiki.>
Quoted 5 lines
Ah, that's not going to be good then. Really, this doesn't seem to need to be a driver at all, and the ioctls are really strange so we would need to change them anyway before it could be merged. But with no access to userspace code, that will be quite difficult, so I would push back on allwinner and have them work on resolving this.
Quoted 4 lines
Understand, it makes sense. Thanks for your time!
@Sunxi community: am I missing something? Using LiveSuit with old distro chroot and Xephyr with out-of-tree module isn't fun :(.
Community is mostly concerned with mainline kernel nowadays and thus with standard tools. Few people still use vendor (BSP) kernel and most of those use it without LiveSuit (like custom distro images).
Now and then people ask about LiveSuit on IRC, but they usually get little response.
Best regards,
Jernej
Quoted 7 lines
Kind regards,
PetrQuoted 3 lines
thanks,
greg k-h
Hi Jernej,
[ Dropping Greg and [email protected] ]
Quoted 23 lines
Dne sobota, 24. julij 2021 ob 16:22:16 CEST je Petr Vorel napisal(a):
Quoted 21 lines
Hi Greg,
Quoted 19 lines · Petr Vorel
Quoted 4 lines
Quoted 3 lines
Why is this even a driver at all, it looks like you can write a small userspace program using libusb to do everything it does, right? What exactly is this driver needed for?
Quoted 9 lines
I'm sorry for not providing more info at the beginning. This is a driver for host computer (i.e. developers laptop) used by LiveSuit tool [2] to flash Images to the NAND of Allwinner devices. LiveSuit itself [3] is unfortunately provided only in binary form. The only open source code with GPL v2 license is awusb driver. Thus I thought I could ease my life with upstreaming at least the kernel driver. But maybe it's not a good idea. I'm using LiveSuit for flashing Allwinner A31, but it requires quite old distro due libqtgui4. Maybe sunxi folks use something newer nowadays, but I haven't found anything in their wiki.>
Ah, that's not going to be good then. Really, this doesn't seem to need to be a driver at all, and the ioctls are really strange so we would need to change them anyway before it could be merged. But with no access to userspace code, that will be quite difficult, so I would push back on allwinner and have them work on resolving this.
Quoted 8 lines
Quoted 4 lines
Understand, it makes sense. Thanks for your time!
@Sunxi community: am I missing something? Using LiveSuit with old distro chroot and Xephyr with out-of-tree module isn't fun :(.
Community is mostly concerned with mainline kernel nowadays and thus with standard tools. Few people still use vendor (BSP) kernel and most of those use it without LiveSuit (like custom distro images).
Understand. LiveSuit is for me a way back to original firmware.
Kind regards,
Petr
Quoted 5 lines
Now and then people ask about LiveSuit on IRC, but they usually get little response.
Best regards,
Jernej
Peter,
Quoted 22 lines · Petr Vorel
Hi Greg,
Quoted 14 lines · Petr Vorel
Quoted 4 lines
Quoted 3 lines
Why is this even a driver at all, it looks like you can write a small userspace program using libusb to do everything it does, right? What exactly is this driver needed for?
Quoted 8 lines
I'm sorry for not providing more info at the beginning. This is a driver for host computer (i.e. developers laptop) used by LiveSuit tool [2] to flash Images to the NAND of Allwinner devices. LiveSuit itself [3] is unfortunately provided only in binary form. The only open source code with GPL v2 license is awusb driver. Thus I thought I could ease my life with upstreaming at least the kernel driver. But maybe it's not a good idea. I'm using LiveSuit for flashing Allwinner A31, but it requires quite old distro due libqtgui4. Maybe sunxi folks use something newer nowadays, but I haven't found anything in their wiki.
Quoted 5 lines
Ah, that's not going to be good then. Really, this doesn't seem to need to be a driver at all, and the ioctls are really strange so we would need to change them anyway before it could be merged. But with no access to userspace code, that will be quite difficult, so I would push back on allwinner and have them work on resolving this.
Quoted 4 lines
Understand, it makes sense. Thanks for your time!
@Sunxi community: am I missing something? Using LiveSuit with old distro chroot and Xephyr with out-of-tree module isn't fun :(.
Suggest you take a look at sunxi-tools - specifically the sunxi-fel tool. This is a libusb-based userland tool to talk to these devices. I'm not sure if it supports flashing to nand on A31 - never tried it - but have used it to flash to eMMC and SPI flash on their other chips.
hth,
Chris
Quoted 12 lines
Kind regards,
PetrQuoted 3 lines
thanks,
greg k-h
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Hi Chris, all,
[ Dropping Greg and [email protected] ]
Quoted 27 lines
Peter,
Quoted 22 lines · Petr Vorel
Hi Greg,
Quoted 14 lines · Petr Vorel
Quoted 4 lines
Quoted 3 lines
Why is this even a driver at all, it looks like you can write a small userspace program using libusb to do everything it does, right? What exactly is this driver needed for?
Quoted 8 lines
I'm sorry for not providing more info at the beginning. This is a driver for host computer (i.e. developers laptop) used by LiveSuit tool [2] to flash Images to the NAND of Allwinner devices. LiveSuit itself [3] is unfortunately provided only in binary form. The only open source code with GPL v2 license is awusb driver. Thus I thought I could ease my life with upstreaming at least the kernel driver. But maybe it's not a good idea. I'm using LiveSuit for flashing Allwinner A31, but it requires quite old distro due libqtgui4. Maybe sunxi folks use something newer nowadays, but I haven't found anything in their wiki.
Quoted 5 lines
Ah, that's not going to be good then. Really, this doesn't seem to need to be a driver at all, and the ioctls are really strange so we would need to change them anyway before it could be merged. But with no access to userspace code, that will be quite difficult, so I would push back on allwinner and have them work on resolving this.
Understand, it makes sense. Thanks for your time!
Quoted 7 lines
Quoted 2 lines
@Sunxi community: am I missing something? Using LiveSuit with old distro chroot and Xephyr with out-of-tree module isn't fun :(.
Suggest you take a look at sunxi-tools - specifically the sunxi-fel tool. This is a libusb-based userland tool to talk to these devices. I'm not sure if it supports flashing to nand on A31 - never tried it - but have used it to flash to eMMC and SPI flash on their other chips.
Thanks for a tip. Looking into sources it does not look like sunxi-fel supports NAND.
Also from Debian wiki [1] (which describes bootable SD Card) it looks like only old Allwinner u-boot supported access to NAND, thus I'd be surprised if sunxi-tools supported it. sunxi-bootinfo does not implement NAND, sunxi-nand-image-builder (which is not built by default) creates raw NAND images, but now word about flashing.
I wonder why NAND is (probably) not supported by sunxi? Lack of documentation?
Kind regards,
Petr
[1] https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Allwinner
Quoted 15 lines
hth,
ChrisQuoted 11 lines
Kind regards,
PetrQuoted 3 lines
thanks,
greg k-h
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On Sat, 24 Jul 2021 18:27:53 +0200
Petr Vorel <[email protected]> wrote:
Hi Petr,
Quoted 38 lines
[ Dropping Greg and [email protected] ]
Quoted 27 lines
Peter,
Quoted 22 lines · Petr Vorel
Hi Greg,
Quoted 14 lines · Petr Vorel
Quoted 4 lines
Quoted 3 lines
Why is this even a driver at all, it looks like you can write a small userspace program using libusb to do everything it does, right? What exactly is this driver needed for?
Quoted 8 lines
I'm sorry for not providing more info at the beginning. This is a driver for host computer (i.e. developers laptop) used by LiveSuit tool [2] to flash Images to the NAND of Allwinner devices. LiveSuit itself [3] is unfortunately provided only in binary form. The only open source code with GPL v2 license is awusb driver. Thus I thought I could ease my life with upstreaming at least the kernel driver. But maybe it's not a good idea. I'm using LiveSuit for flashing Allwinner A31, but it requires quite old distro due libqtgui4. Maybe sunxi folks use something newer nowadays, but I haven't found anything in their wiki.
Quoted 5 lines
Ah, that's not going to be good then. Really, this doesn't seem to need to be a driver at all, and the ioctls are really strange so we would need to change them anyway before it could be merged. But with no access to userspace code, that will be quite difficult, so I would push back on allwinner and have them work on resolving this.
Understand, it makes sense. Thanks for your time!
Quoted 7 lines
Quoted 2 lines
@Sunxi community: am I missing something? Using LiveSuit with old distro chroot and Xephyr with out-of-tree module isn't fun :(.
Suggest you take a look at sunxi-tools - specifically the sunxi-fel tool. This is a libusb-based userland tool to talk to these devices. I'm not sure if it supports flashing to nand on A31 - never tried it - but have used it to flash to eMMC and SPI flash on their other chips.
Thanks for a tip. Looking into sources it does not look like sunxi-fel supports NAND.
Quoted 7 lines
Also from Debian wiki [1] (which describes bootable SD Card) it looks like only old Allwinner u-boot supported access to NAND, thus I'd be surprised if sunxi-tools supported it. sunxi-bootinfo does not implement NAND, sunxi-nand-image-builder (which is not built by default) creates raw NAND images, but now word about flashing.
I wonder why NAND is (probably) not supported by sunxi? Lack of documentation?
Pure NAND is getting rarer these days, on modern boards we see mostly eMMC now (maybe SPI NAND). So NAND is only a concern for older SoCs.
There is (limited) NAND support for mainline U-Boot on the C.H.I.P. boards[1], which use an A13 (derivative). But reliable operation is only possible with SLC NAND, which means only on the Chip Pro board, IIUC. Most boards will probably utilise MLC (or worse) NAND these days, where effects like write and read disturb make operation more complicated. Maxime has some stories to tell about this.
So it would be first good to know if you have SLC NAND or not.
Because of this direct support for NAND in the tools is understandably "limited" (as in: non-existent). Except for SPI NOR flash there is no "direct" flashing support (for eMMC) in the tools anyway, it just relies on U-Boot support.
How this works is that you use sunxi-fel to upload a (mainline) U-Boot binary directly into DRAM, and launch that. Then you can use the full functionality of U-Boot to load your image. Most popular for NAND support seems to be U-Boot's Android Fastboot implementation over a USB gadget device, so you can use the off-the-shelf fastboot tool on your host computer to flash the NAND. Other possibilities would be to use USB host support or TFTP to first load an image into DRAM, then use U-Boot commands to write that into the NAND flash.
To my knowledge NAND flash in U-Boot *only* works on the A13/R8/GR8 chips with SLC NAND, and is only enabled and tested on the Chip boards. Every other combination would require some work; much more work the farther you move from there (other SoC, MLC, ...).
Cheers,
Andre
Hi Andre,
Quoted 54 lines
On Sat, 24 Jul 2021 18:27:53 +0200
Petr Vorel <[email protected]> wrote:Hi Petr,
Quoted 38 lines
[ Dropping Greg and [email protected] ]
Quoted 27 lines
Peter,
Quoted 22 lines · Petr Vorel
Hi Greg,
Quoted 14 lines · Petr Vorel
Quoted 4 lines
Quoted 3 lines
Why is this even a driver at all, it looks like you can write a small userspace program using libusb to do everything it does, right? What exactly is this driver needed for?
Quoted 8 lines
I'm sorry for not providing more info at the beginning. This is a driver for host computer (i.e. developers laptop) used by LiveSuit tool [2] to flash Images to the NAND of Allwinner devices. LiveSuit itself [3] is unfortunately provided only in binary form. The only open source code with GPL v2 license is awusb driver. Thus I thought I could ease my life with upstreaming at least the kernel driver. But maybe it's not a good idea. I'm using LiveSuit for flashing Allwinner A31, but it requires quite old distro due libqtgui4. Maybe sunxi folks use something newer nowadays, but I haven't found anything in their wiki.
Quoted 5 lines
Ah, that's not going to be good then. Really, this doesn't seem to need to be a driver at all, and the ioctls are really strange so we would need to change them anyway before it could be merged. But with no access to userspace code, that will be quite difficult, so I would push back on allwinner and have them work on resolving this.
Understand, it makes sense. Thanks for your time!
Quoted 7 lines
Quoted 2 lines
@Sunxi community: am I missing something? Using LiveSuit with old distro chroot and Xephyr with out-of-tree module isn't fun :(.
Suggest you take a look at sunxi-tools - specifically the sunxi-fel tool. This is a libusb-based userland tool to talk to these devices. I'm not sure if it supports flashing to nand on A31 - never tried it - but have used it to flash to eMMC and SPI flash on their other chips.
Thanks for a tip. Looking into sources it does not look like sunxi-fel supports NAND.
Quoted 7 lines
Also from Debian wiki [1] (which describes bootable SD Card) it looks like only old Allwinner u-boot supported access to NAND, thus I'd be surprised if sunxi-tools supported it. sunxi-bootinfo does not implement NAND, sunxi-nand-image-builder (which is not built by default) creates raw NAND images, but now word about flashing.
I wonder why NAND is (probably) not supported by sunxi? Lack of documentation?
Pure NAND is getting rarer these days, on modern boards we see mostly eMMC now (maybe SPI NAND). So NAND is only a concern for older SoCs.
Quoted 7 lines
There is (limited) NAND support for mainline U-Boot on the C.H.I.P. boards[1], which use an A13 (derivative). But reliable operation is only possible with SLC NAND, which means only on the Chip Pro board, IIUC. Most boards will probably utilise MLC (or worse) NAND these days, where effects like write and read disturb make operation more complicated. Maxime has some stories to tell about this.
So it would be first good to know if you have SLC NAND or not.
I have no idea which type of NAND device has.
It's device based on low end tablet. Can I find this info on running system (sysfs, /proc, ...). dmesg does not say anything special.
Or is it possible to find it in source code? nand.ko module is some out of tree code in modules/nand (kernel 3.3):
description: Generic NAND flash driver code author: nand flash groups
But nothing mentions SLC or MLC. Or do I have to have HW spec?
Quoted 8 lines
Because of this direct support for NAND in the tools is understandably "limited" (as in: non-existent). Except for SPI NOR flash there is no "direct" flashing support (for eMMC) in the tools anyway, it just relies on U-Boot support.
How this works is that you use sunxi-fel to upload a (mainline) U-Boot binary directly into DRAM, and launch that. Then you can use the full functionality of U-Boot to load your image. Most popular for NAND support seems to be U-Boot's Android Fastboot implementation over a USB
Quoted 8 lines
gadget device, so you can use the off-the-shelf fastboot tool on your host computer to flash the NAND. Other possibilities would be to use USB host support or TFTP to first load an image into DRAM, then use U-Boot commands to write that into the NAND flash.
To my knowledge NAND flash in U-Boot *only* works on the A13/R8/GR8 chips with SLC NAND, and is only enabled and tested on the Chip boards. Every other combination would require some work; much more work the farther you move from there (other SoC, MLC, ...).
Thanks for detailed info. It seems I'll just accept that for mainline my A31 needs sd-card.
Kind regards,
Petr
Quoted 4 lines
Cheers,
Andre
Hi,
Quoted 75 lines · Andre Przywara
On Sat, 24 Jul 2021 18:27:53 +0200
Petr Vorel <[email protected]> wrote:Hi Petr,
Quoted 38 lines
[ Dropping Greg and [email protected] ]
Quoted 27 lines
Peter,
Quoted 22 lines · Petr Vorel
Hi Greg,
Quoted 14 lines · Petr Vorel
Quoted 4 lines
Quoted 3 lines
Why is this even a driver at all, it looks like you can write a small userspace program using libusb to do everything it does, right? What exactly is this driver needed for?
Quoted 8 lines
I'm sorry for not providing more info at the beginning. This is a driver for host computer (i.e. developers laptop) used by LiveSuit tool [2] to flash Images to the NAND of Allwinner devices. LiveSuit itself [3] is unfortunately provided only in binary form. The only open source code with GPL v2 license is awusb driver. Thus I thought I could ease my life with upstreaming at least the kernel driver. But maybe it's not a good idea. I'm using LiveSuit for flashing Allwinner A31, but it requires quite old distro due libqtgui4. Maybe sunxi folks use something newer nowadays, but I haven't found anything in their wiki.
Quoted 5 lines
Ah, that's not going to be good then. Really, this doesn't seem to need to be a driver at all, and the ioctls are really strange so we would need to change them anyway before it could be merged. But with no access to userspace code, that will be quite difficult, so I would push back on allwinner and have them work on resolving this.
Understand, it makes sense. Thanks for your time!
Quoted 7 lines
Quoted 2 lines
@Sunxi community: am I missing something? Using LiveSuit with old distro chroot and Xephyr with out-of-tree module isn't fun :(.
Suggest you take a look at sunxi-tools - specifically the sunxi-fel tool. This is a libusb-based userland tool to talk to these devices. I'm not sure if it supports flashing to nand on A31 - never tried it - but have used it to flash to eMMC and SPI flash on their other chips.
Thanks for a tip. Looking into sources it does not look like sunxi-fel supports NAND.
Quoted 7 lines
Also from Debian wiki [1] (which describes bootable SD Card) it looks like only old Allwinner u-boot supported access to NAND, thus I'd be surprised if sunxi-tools supported it. sunxi-bootinfo does not implement NAND, sunxi-nand-image-builder (which is not built by default) creates raw NAND images, but now word about flashing.
I wonder why NAND is (probably) not supported by sunxi? Lack of documentation?
Pure NAND is getting rarer these days, on modern boards we see mostly eMMC now (maybe SPI NAND). So NAND is only a concern for older SoCs.
There is (limited) NAND support for mainline U-Boot on the C.H.I.P. boards[1], which use an A13 (derivative). But reliable operation is only possible with SLC NAND, which means only on the Chip Pro board, IIUC. Most boards will probably utilise MLC (or worse) NAND these days, where effects like write and read disturb make operation more complicated. Maxime has some stories to tell about this.
So it would be first good to know if you have SLC NAND or not.Because of this direct support for NAND in the tools is understandably "limited" (as in: non-existent). Except for SPI NOR flash there is no "direct" flashing support (for eMMC) in the tools anyway, it just relies on U-Boot support.
How this works is that you use sunxi-fel to upload a (mainline) U-Boot binary directly into DRAM, and launch that. Then you can use the full functionality of U-Boot to load your image. Most popular for NAND support seems to be U-Boot's Android Fastboot implementation over a USB gadget device, so you can use the off-the-shelf fastboot tool on your host computer to flash the NAND. Other possibilities would be to use USB host support or TFTP to first load an image into DRAM, then use U-Boot commands to write that into the NAND flash.
Quoted 4 lines
To my knowledge NAND flash in U-Boot *only* works on the A13/R8/GR8 chips with SLC NAND, and is only enabled and tested on the Chip boards. Every other combination would require some work; much more work the farther you move from there (other SoC, MLC, ...).
It works on the A33 as well (the Nintendo board has support for it). And I guess it works with virtually any SoC, the culprit really is MLC vs SLC, the NAND controller hasn't really changed.
Maxime
Hi,
Quoted 6 lines · Petr Vorel
Quoted 5 lines
Why is this even a driver at all, it looks like you can write a small userspace program using libusb to do everything it does, right? What exactly is this driver needed for?
Quoted 8 lines
I'm sorry for not providing more info at the beginning. This is a driver for host computer (i.e. developers laptop) used by LiveSuit tool [2] to flash Images to the NAND of Allwinner devices. LiveSuit itself [3] is unfortunately provided only in binary form. The only open source code with GPL v2 license is awusb driver. Thus I thought I could ease my life with upstreaming at least the kernel driver. But maybe it's not a good idea. I'm using LiveSuit for flashing Allwinner A31, but it requires quite old distro due libqtgui4. Maybe sunxi folks use something newer nowadays, but I haven't found anything in their wiki.
looks like you could implement that entirely in userspace with libusb ;-)
Signature · 1 line
balbi
Hi Felipe,
[ Dropping Greg and [email protected] ]
Quoted 18 lines
Hi,
Quoted 6 lines · Petr Vorel
Quoted 5 lines
Why is this even a driver at all, it looks like you can write a small userspace program using libusb to do everything it does, right? What exactly is this driver needed for?
Quoted 8 lines
I'm sorry for not providing more info at the beginning. This is a driver for host computer (i.e. developers laptop) used by LiveSuit tool [2] to flash Images to the NAND of Allwinner devices. LiveSuit itself [3] is unfortunately provided only in binary form. The only open source code with GPL v2 license is awusb driver. Thus I thought I could ease my life with upstreaming at least the kernel driver. But maybe it's not a good idea. I'm using LiveSuit for flashing Allwinner A31, but it requires quite old distro due libqtgui4. Maybe sunxi folks use something newer nowadays, but I haven't found anything in their wiki.
Quoted 1 line
looks like you could implement that entirely in userspace with libusb ;-)
Thanks for a hint. Yes, whole thing should be able to implement in userspace. I'll have look if I'm able to reveal what current userspace code (LiveSuit) does. The goal is to have simple command line tool (no GUI).
Kind regards,
Petr