Exit BeagleBone Black, hello Cubieboard2!

September 17, 2013 jeremya20, allwinner, armhf, audio, bbb, beaglebone, beagleboneblack, black, cubieboard, cubieboard2, debian, edirol, kernel, linux, patchset, pi, raspberry, raspberrypi, realtime, rpi, rt, ua25, usb, wheezy20 Comments

Put up my BeagleBone Black for sale. It was gathering dust, somehow this board doesn’t appeal to me. Biggest drawback is that it seems to be very picky with power adapters. If you don’t use a linear power adapter USB devices might not work properly. And that was exactly the issue I was facing, I just couldn’t get my USB audio interfaces to work on the BBB. So I lost interest because well, that’s what I bought the device for, to get sound out of it with the help of an USB audio interface. Add to this that there is no realtime kernel or RT patchset available for the BBB and that the BBB is quite a complex little device (it’s actually a REAL dev board). It would’ve cost me too much time to completely fathom it. No bad feelings though, the BBB is a very nice product and it sure has the slickest looks of all ARM SoC dev boards around.

Also I got a Cubieboard2 in recently. And that board has absorbed me for the last week and a half. It’s quite easy to set up (not as easy as the RPi though), has a lot of IO (yes, it has audio in and out!) and it blows both the RPi and BBB away when it comes to performance with its dual core A20 Allwinner SoC that can easily be overclocked to 1.2 GHz. Alas, no realtime kernel or RT patchset either but hey, I managed to get a RT kernel running on a Rockchip RK3066 based device so I could at least give it a try. And it worked out well. I’m now running a 3.4.61-rt77 kernel on it with a custom Debian Wheezy installation. This time I used git to keep track of the modifications I made so it was a lot easier to create a usable diff. I also patched the driver for the onboard audio codec because the hardcoded defaults were just unusable for realtime audio. Minimum number of periods was 4 and minimum buffer size was 1024. Don’t ask me why. So I’ve changed these to 2 and 16 respectively and managed to get JACK running at a respectable -p64 -n2 -r44100. Fired up some JACK clients and this little monster keeps up very well. USB audio interfaces are no problem either, I can run my Edirol UA25 in Advanced mode with -p64 -n3 -r48000 without any hitch. This is probably because the Cubieboard2 doesn’t use a Synopsys DesignWare OTG controller with out-of-tree dwc_otg drivers like the RPi but a better supported USB controller. At the moment the Cubieboard2 is the nicest ARM dev board I have laid my hands on so far.

Cubieboard2

RT patchset 3.4.61-rt77 for linux-sunxi, sunxi-3.4 branch

Low latency defaults patch for sunxi-codec driver

More ARM goodies II

July 9, 2013 jeremyarm, audio, bbb, beaglebone, black, debian, kernel, latency, linux, low, lowlatency, mk808, pi, raspberry, raspberrypi, real, realtime, rk3066, rockchip, rpi, time, ug80x, wheezy2 Comments

Received the BeagleBone Black (BBB) and the MK808 with a RK3066 SoC. My first impressions are really positive. Especially the BBB is quite an awesome device that I’m probably going to use a lot in favor of the Raspberry Pi. At first glance I had something like, the BBB blows the RPi away, but as soon as I started looking for documentation on how to put Debian on it for instance it became clear that the RPi is still the device to beat. The RPi community is huge, documentation for it is well laid out and working with the RPi is just so easy. The BBB on the other hand lacks a vivid community, is $10 more expensive and a lot more difficult to work with. Take the Debian install for example, seems quite some work to get that going.

The MK808 is surely an improvement over the UG80X I already own. It comes with a HDMI port instead of a HDMI plug, has an extra USB OTG port, a heatsink, hardware serial console access, a reset button and a power indicator LED. The pre-installed Android version looks better too. I flashed my RT kernel recovery image on it, inserted the Micro SD from my UG80X and it booted without any issues. So I’m going to pursue my goal to get a real-time, low-latency environment running on a RK3066 based device on the MK808 and find another purpose for the UG80X.

Edit: Getting Debian to work on the BBB is actually quite easy: http://elinux.org/BeagleBoardDebian#Demo_Image
Next time I’ll promise to make better use of my Google skills.

Hacking an Android TV stick, the sequel

July 4, 2013 jeremyamsynth, android, audio, jack, jackd, kernel, linux, patch, patchset, pi, raspberry, raspberrypi, real, real_time, realtime, rk3066, rockchip, rpi, rt, stick, time, tv, xrun, xruns3 Comments

jeremy@rk3066:~$ uname -a
Linux rk3066 3.0.36-rt58 #1 SMP PREEMPT RT Thu Jul 4 13:18:23 CEST
2013 armv7l GNU/Linux

Managed to compile and run a real-time kernel on the Android TV stick with the RK3066 SoC. Packaged the latest version of amSynth (1.4.0 which has been released recently), installed it, fired up JACK and amSynth and so far no xruns, nothing. And this is with -p64!

jackd -P84 -p32 -t2000 -dalsa -dhw:Device -n3 -p64 -r44100 -s -P

I should measure the latency of the $2 USB audio interface I’m using to find out what the total latency of this set-up is. Well, at least I got the system latency for usage with softsynths like amSynth down to 64/44100*2=3ms. Now that’s a usable situation.

jeremy@rk3066:~$ lsusb | grep -i c-media
Bus 002 Device 006: ID 0d8c:000e C-Media Electronics, Inc. Audio Adapter (Planet 
UP-100, Genius G-Talk)
jeremy@rk3066:~$ cat /proc/asound/cards
 0 [RK29RK1000     ]: RK29_RK1000 - RK29_RK1000
                      RK29_RK1000
 1 [HDMI           ]: ROCKCHIP_HDMI - ROCKCHIP HDMI
                      ROCKCHIP HDMI
 2 [Device         ]: USB-Audio - Generic USB Audio Device
                      Generic USB Audio Device at usb-usb20_host-1.1, full speed

A big pro of this stick is that it suffers less from SD card corruption than my RPi. Yesterday evening I wrecked up yet another SD card when testing my RPi with a real-time kernel, it’s getting a bit cumbersome. Speaking of real-time kernels, it was quite some work to apply the RT patchset to the RockChip kernel source. Had to add stuff by hand and when I finally got everything in place it wouldn’t compile. But I managed to solve all the build errors. After flashing the kernel image the TV stick wouldn’t boot of course, it hung at some point. But I quickly saw that the issue was with the SD card reader and that it was similar to the SD card reader issue on the RPi for which I found a workaround. So I added an #ifdef clause to the RockChip SD card reader driver, recompiled, reflashed and wham, it continued booting. Now I have to clean up my build directory and get a usable diff of it against the pristine RK3066 kernel sources.

More ARM goodies

July 3, 2013 jeremyandroid, arm, audio, beagleboard, beaglebone, black, board, cape, cubieboard, dev, development, embedded, geekbuying, guitarix, jack, jackd, linux, mk808, pcduino, pi, raspberry, raspberrypi, rk3066, rockchip, rpi, stick, tv, tweakers.netLeave a comment

Bought another Android TV stick based on the RK3066 SoC, the MK808 which is as far as I’ve understood kind of the default board to hack on.

MK808 Android TV stick

Also bought a BeagleBone Black development board. Why? Because apparently JACK runs well on it, also with USB interfaces (no need for the ALSA softmode option!) so I assume the USB implementation is better than those of the Raspberry Pi and the RK3066 based board I currently own. And I could get it cheaper over here in The Netherlands than other viable alternatives like the pcDuino or Cubieboard, also because of a coupon code I found on tweakers.net so I got a price reduction of a few Euros. Another reason why I bought it are the so-called capes that are available for this board. These capes are basically add-on boards and the cape that has my most attention is the audio cape. I’m thinking about buying that specific cape, solder two Neutriks on the audio in and out and turn it into the easiest DIY guitar effect box ever. Of course with guitarix loaded on it, the devs have done an incredible amount of work recently to get guitarix running flawlessly and painlessly on ARM dev boards like the BeagleBone Black.

BeagleBone Black

BeagleBone Audio Cape

Good buy, or not?

July 3, 2013 jeremyaluminium, aluminum, dealextreme, dx, metal, pick, picks, plectrum, plectrumsLeave a comment

My latest DealExtreme order also contained a bunch of these: 0.3mm Metal Guitar Picks (24-Piece)
They we’re only a couple of bucks so I thought why not, let’s give it a shot. And I actually like them. These picks add a slight bit of high to my guitar sound and they give me some more control. But they’re metal picks so they’re pretty ruthless. Ruthless yes. Yesterday during rehearsal I spent more time replacing strings than actually rehearsing. One string after the other simply snapped. So with respect to string wear these picks are apparently not such a good buy.

Bricking the UG802 Android TV stick

June 20, 2013 jeremyandroid, audio, custom, finless, irq, jack, jack1, jackd, kernel, linux, pi, raspberry, raspberrypi, rk3066, rom, rpi, stick, tv, ug802, usbLeave a comment

Pulled out my soldering iron, soldered a reset button and a switch to boot into recovery on the PCB and connected my UG802 clone/revision to my TV. Nothing. lsusb. Crap, it boots in flash mode. Let’s try reflashing the whole bloody thing. Well that works so the NAND is not defective or anything. Reboot. Nothing, lsusb still reports the device is in flash mode. So I removed all my soldering efforts which I really regretted because it was quite nicely done given my poor soldering skills and tried again. Still nothing. Arrrggghhhh. Enjoyed a cold Warsteiner and let it rest.

Today I brought the device with me to the office. Hooked it up to a Windows machine, ran the ROM flash tool from Finless’ custom ROM package for this device and powered it up. I was greeted with the most ugly Android boot animation I had ever seen. But at least the device works again so thanks Finless!

So now I can move on again. I had Jack1 running on it so it should be possible to turn this device into a very cheap, yet powerful alternative to do real-time, low-latency audio. Compared to the Raspberry Pi JACK already consumed way less CPU (12% on the RPi compared to 2% on the RK3066 device with the same JACK settings) and I noticed the device has some more IRQ’s so if I could get all of those threaded that should give me some more flexibility to get everything working in a more stable way. I did have to disable WiFi otherwise the whole USB stack crashed after starting JACK. Also tried with an external WiFi dongle, same issue. I can even generate xruns when pressing keys on an attached keyboard. So it’d be really nice if I had serial console access to this thing. But I’ll figure that out too. And maybe the USB part of the kernel can be tweaked to improve things on the USB level.

New notebook: minor issues

June 17, 2013 jeremybto, card, cardreader, clevo, dkms, horus, notebook, reader, realtek, system76, udisksLeave a comment

“My keyboard seems a bit loose on the lower left side, is that something that could be fixed?”
“We’ll take a look at it, should be no problem.”

So I paid a visit to BTO again, had to be at a Horus meeting anyway, and within 15 minutes the tech guy returned with my notebook from the workshop.

“Could you try it out?”
“It’s perfect, no loose spots anymore, what did you do?”
“Oh, I just replaced the keyboard with a new one.”

He just replaced the keyboard with a new one. Now that’s what I call service. With any mainstream brand you will have to do without your notebook for at least 3 weeks and in the worst case they’ll start nagging the faulty keyboard is not a warranty case. Not at BTO. Fixed within 15 minutes, ready while you wait.

At the Horus meeting one of the items on the agenda was “Jeremy’s new monster notebook”. Did I really have to show off my notebook? Yes I had and soon 2 or 3 people were like I’m going to get a BTO too and told me I should become a sales rep. More on the Horus meeting in a separate blog post.

I did find out the card reader doesn’t work. But fortunately System76 apparently uses Clevo parts too so after installing their dkms package the reader immediately started working as the udisks package already contains the needed udev rule for this card reader.

Hacking the UG802 Android TV stick

June 16, 2013 jeremyandroid, galland, howto, linux, manual, mk808, rk3066, rk3188, rockchip, stick, tutorial, tv, ug8024 Comments

Lucky me. Brought the Android TV stick with me to work after I got it in the mail. Showed it to my boss and he immediately ordered one too, not a UG802 though but a RK3188 based device. The RK3188 is a quad core ARM CPU while the UG802 comes with a RK3066 dual core CPU. The goal is to hack this RK3188 based device to see if it can be used for one of the projects we’re working on. Only very recently (about two weeks ago) the kernel source has been released and people managed to run Linux on it just a few days ago. Can’t wait to hack it. During working hours. Awesome.

Unlucky me. Apparently the TV stick I purchased is some kind of UG802 revision or clone. Very confusing. But I can boot Linux on it as it’s a RK3066 based device so I’m ok. I think I’ll order another TV stick but then one with better community support, like the MK808.

Unlike the RK3188 based devices the RK3066 based devices have been available a while longer so there is quite some useful information available on how to get Linux running on it. First thing is to get a Linux kernel on it that allows you to boot into a Linux rootfs that resides on a MicroSD card. For the Linux rootfs I’ve chosen to use Debian Wheezy. For the kernel I used Galland’s concise yet effective howto. All the details on how I set up the TV stick in order to boot it with Linux can be found on the Installing Linux on a RK3066 based device page.

More DX goodies!

June 11, 2013 jeremy400, a9, android, beitai, cortex, cortexa9, dealextreme, dx, hdmi, mali, mali400, mini, pc, picuntu, rk3066, rockchip, stick, tv3 Comments

Just in, a Beitai SNT-D06 mini PC which set me back a whopping €33,-! What do you get for this price:

Chipset	Rockchip RK3066
CPU	CORTEX-A9
Processor Frequency	1.2GHz
GPU	Mali 400
Memory	DDR3 1GB
Storage	4GB
Wi-Fi	IEEE 802.11b/g/n
Video Output	HDMI
Audio Output	HDMI
Other Interface	1 x USB host, 1 x Mini USB port, 1 x TF card slot

Let’s see if we can get Picuntu running on it and turn this baby into a Raspberry Pi killer.

Edit: I could’ve just bought an UG802 but at least I got it with an EU adapter. Other than that the device seems exactly the same. Debian Wheezy runs like a charm on it. More on that later.

New notebook: BTO P•BOOK 17CL45-GT650 i7 QUAD

May 31, 2013August 29, 2015 jeremy12.04, 17cl45, audio, bto, clevo, express, expresscard, firewire, gt650m, laptop, linux, lts, lubuntu, notebook, nvidia, optimus, pangolin, pci, precise, ubuntu, w170er2 Comments

Yay, got a new notebook, a BTO P•BOOK 17CL45-GT650 i7 QUAD! I visited BTO last Tuesday and placed an order for a custom built notebook and it arrived yesterday. It’s quite a monster if you ask me:

Intel Core i7-3630QM Quad Core Processor (6MB Cache, 2.3 GHz, Turbo Mode 3.3GHz)
16GB RAM
120GN SSD
1TB HDD
Nvidia GT650M

One of the reasons I chose BTO besides the fact that they offer custom built notebooks is that they also offer the choice to have your custom built notebook come without an OS. Unfortunately it came without a license, in other words, when I first started the notebook it booted into a Windows 7 installation procedure. No biggie, created a bootable USB stick with the Ubuntu 12.04 mini ISO and wiped all partitions. 20 minutes later I could boot into a fresh Lubuntu installation. And you know what? All the essential stuff worked out of the box! So far the following things just work:

Network, both WiFi and wired
Sound
Webcam
Fn buttons
Display
Suspend to RAM

The only real challenge is probably getting the Nvidia Optimus configuration to work but I already found some very specific documentation. Yes, the BTO is actually a Clevo W170ER housing with custom hardware.

BTO P•BOOK 17CL45-GT650 i7 QUAD/Clevo W170ER

Other than that the BTO was a breeze to set up and it happily runs Lubuntu 12.04. Booting into a complete desktop takes less than 15 seconds at the moment. Next up is configuring it properly for real-time, low-latency audio. If I want to get the most out of it I’ll probably have to start looking for a decent USB2.0 audio interface. The BTO has no FireWire or PCI Express ports. A sign of the times, guess FireWire is basically dead technology.

autostatic.com

Linux Audio Ramblings

hardware