Category Archives: ArchLinux

Firsts experiments with RK3588 in december 2022 to january 2023, install an ARMbian and chroot Arch Linux ARM for some updated (less buggy) application

WARNING, THE FIREWALL DOESN’T WORK ON DEFAULT ARMBIAN IMAGE FOR RADXA SO DISABLE IPV6 (and verify in network-manager) AND USE YOUR INTERNET BOX NAT

root@rock-5b:~# lsmod | grep tabl
ip_tables              24576  0
x_tables               32768  1 ip_tables
root@rock-5b:~# iptables-save 
iptables-save v1.8.7 (nf_tables): Could not fetch rule set generation id: Invalid argument

To resolve this (and use iptables, (g)ufw still unusable):

update-alternatives --set iptables /usr/sbin/iptables-legacy
update-alternatives --set ip6tables /usr/sbin/ip6tables-legacy

Table of Content

First boot with HDMI working on the Radxa Rock5 Model B
Introduction
ARMbian base installation
activate the PPA
Chrooted Arch Linux

Introduction

I Just bought few weeks ago a Radxa Rock5 Model B, based on Rockchip RK3588 powerful and energy efficient SoC. It costs around 250 $ with 16GB, I added a 128GB (pluggable) eeprom for 72$ and few accessories (thermal disspator I still didn’t need to use, PD (USB-C) power supply and a light box (the metal box was no more available), and the more important, a USB< ->UART (serial) wire. You will see later that it is today (january 2023) needed to be able to install some distribution as ARMbian (at least my model, it looks like provided kernel had HDMI output on older one).

Received the board
The default Radxa proviced image, use ARM made, closed source Mali driver, that is quite limited (including no desktop OpenGL, only GL ES), I so installed an ARMbian, and needed to tune a lot to have working one.

ARMbian, made a great work at integrating the closed source patched Linux (5.10) kernel with some flavours of preinstalled Debian and Ubuntu GNU/Linux distributions.

I choose Ubuntu flavour, as first test, as it provides the liujianfeng1994 PPA to obtain GPU (via Panfork, a fork on panfost, using some ARM binaries) and video (via Rockchip multimedia libs) acceleration.

I tried Xubuntu flavoour without success with 2 included kernel (no HDMI output), the default GNOME version, doesn’t have either HDMI output with the default kernel (5.10.110), but can be easily switched to 5.10.72 that works just fine. Continue reading

Utiliser VMPK et Cardinal avec PIpeWire, Jack et les baies de brassage Helvum et Qpwgraph

Sommaire
VMPK, clavier de piano MIDI virtuel
Cardinal, fork de VCV Rack, synthétiseur modulaire Eurorack
PipeWire et les baies de brassage
Petit ensemble simple sous Cardinal

Arch Linux, ainsi que de nombreuses autres distributions Linux, ont définitivement basculé la pile audio sous PipeWire. Celui-ci à l’avantage de centraliser de façon simple Jack (temps réel pour l’audio de qualité studio, nécessite des réglages en fonction des besoins) et PulseAudio (plus simple, pour l’utilisation en informatique de bureau ou de jeu). PipeWire, permet aussi de synchroniser plusieurs sources et destinations video de différentes tailles et format, en même temps que le son. Les baies de brassage Helvum et Qpwgraph permettent d’établir simplement à la souris les connexions. QJackCtl ne semble plus fonctionner pour cette tâche. Continue reading

Installing Apache NuttX POSIX embedded OS on RISC-V based ESP32-C3 with Arch Linux

Table of content

Apache NuttX logo
* Introduction
* System packages
* NuttX sources and tools
* Configuration of devkit project, compilation and flash
* Connexion to NSH via (USB) serial
* The ostest and other basic sets (UPDATE)
* The apps examples (UPDATE)
* GPIO (UPDATE)
* SPIflash, SMARTFS and file fsystems (UPDATE)
* TMPFS (UPDATE)
* NSH scripting (UPDATE)

Introduction

Apache NuttX is a POSIX embedded system available on a lot of microcontrollers boards and architectures. After seeing some articles from Lup Yuen Lee, installing and working with NuttX on Bouffalo BL602 and BL604 RISC-V microcontroller boards, I discovered it can be installed on one of my boards. So I tried and managed to install it this evening on my recently acquired 3.5€ ESP32-C3S SoC nodeMCU board. ESP32-C3 is a SoC with RISC-V RV32IMC microcontroller, integrated 2.4GHz WiFi and Bluetooth LTE. The board contains a CH340 serial-USB converter, so it can easily be used/flashed/debugged from a computer. I already made a post about installing ESP-IDF tools and flashing examples on this RISC-V board.

For people that already know Espressif SoCs, here is a table of the power usage of some of their ESP models:

SoC        Modem sleep  Light sleep mode  Deep sleep mode
ESP8266          20 mA          2,000 µA            20 µA
ESP32            20 mA            800 µA            20 µA
ESP32-C3         20 mA            130 µA             5 µA

This article explains the procedure to prepare environment, on Arch Linux in November 2021. This is for x86_64, but should work on ARM too, only RISC-V toolchains are missing on ALARM, can be compiled, by using x86_64 versions of PKGBUILD (riscv32-elf-binutils, riscv64-elf-gcc). You can find the pricompiled binaries in my ArchLinux ARM archives including a little text about the order of compilation (binlib, gcc-bootstrap, newlib, gcc (and optionnaly, gcc and newlib again). Direct link to the three most usefull archives:
* riscv32-elf-binutils-2.36.1-2-armv7h.pkg.tar.xz
* riscv64-elf-gcc-11.1.0-1-armv7h.pkg.tar.xz
* riscv64-elf-newlib-4.1.0-1-any.pkg.tar.xz

Latest GIT version is needed In November 2021 for ESP32-C3, some other RISC-V architectures are already in stable releases. This is followed by an example of flashing and connect to the NSH shell, via serial on USB terminal. The dependencies for Debian based Linux on the official page, some parts could be incomplete. Some aspects of the NuttX, POSIX compatible Filesystem. OStest, GPIO and SPIflash included examples are also shortly described. Continue reading

Using ESP-IDF with RISC-V ESP32-C3 nodeMCU module on a Linux system

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<h2 id=Table of Content

* Introduction
* Step 1, install dependencies
* Step 2, install ESP-IDF
* Step 3, setup working environment
* Step 4, test “Hello World” example
* Step 5, tune the target, if needed
* Step 6, flash the project
* Step 7, viewing the output
* Troubleshooting
** Invalid value for ‘{esp32|esp32s2}’: ‘esp32c3′ is not one of ‘esp32′, ‘esp32s2′
** libsodium/crypto_box/curve25519xchacha20poly1305/box_seal_curve25519xchacha20poly1305.c
** Flashing errors
*** Detection, power, and device that disappear
*** usbfs: interface 0 claimed by ch341 while ‘brltty’ sets config #1
** Problem with CA certificates bundle

Introduction

The list of existing ESP32-C3 SoC modules (with their specs) is very interesting, This one RISC-V core SoC has lower computing power than the ESP32-S3 (dual-core Xtensa ISA based, with a RISC-V co-processor core for “ultra low power” (ULP) mode), but RISC-V architecture is also far more efficient and will for sure have longer lifetime support and evolution due to its openness. ESP32-C3 use an RV32IMC (Integer, Multiplication/division and Compressed extensions) core.

I bought for my test a ESP-C3-32S-Kit on AliExpress (for ~3.4€). There is also an interesting option, where you can use really tiny 3~4 € ESP-C3-01M-Kit programmer interface/mother board, with a SoC included alone on a daughter (ESP32-C3M with an on PCB antenna). This allows, to flash several pads one only one programmer board. This reduce size of the needed system for final application to just the SoC and it’s power supply and peripherals. Pads of the SoC daughter board are wide enough to be easily soldered.

ESP-IDF is a tool to develop in C language on Espressif platforms, including ESP8266 and ESP32 series. It uses FreeRTOS free and open source embedded real-time OS for its SoCs. Sadly the official documentation for installing it is incomplete with the current state (November 2021) of GIT repository. Here is the mean to install a working ESP-IDF for this SoC series on Linux. This will be more compact and straight forward that the official with Linux+Windows installation.

About RISC-V more generally, I created this week a list of available Open Source RISC-V implementations, and open sources tools to build them or work with them. Continue reading

64x64x16colours (Sweetie16) PixelArt with Pixelorama “β-karoten – We know whom will be eat”

→ Version en français ici

β-karoten - We know whom will be eat

I participated to the LoveByte Battleground demoparty> that runned this week-end, by posting a drawing last week. Sadly/funnily , there was few mistake ^^:
* I made a 64×64 pixels picture instead of a 128×128 one. The palette for the competition was 16 colours Sweetie16 (the default one on FOSS, TIC-80 fantasy console (Source code)).
* My second mistake is I’ve uploaded a first version, and few hours later another one using (FOSS) source code) on Debian on (FOSH) RISC−V (Specifications, there are lot of free or not implementations) emulator of FOSS Qemu (Source code, Git instance), the first upload worked fine but the second one didn’t work (maybe because my installation of Netsurf doesn’t manage javascript)^^. I also performed in a livecoding match (256 bytes and 25 minutes limits). Result of my poor production, Commented Live coding session record.

This is made with FOSS Pixelorama (Source code), itself made on FOSS Godot game engine (Source code). I use FOSS Arch Linux OS. Also made a ArchLinux AUR package pixelorama-git after pixelorama package (for git version, I would like to use v0.9, still not out, only v0.8 was available). There are pixelorama package (last stable, compiling from source), and pixelorama-bin package (from developers binary tarball). Pixelorama is a Pixel art picture and animation editor. I believe I discovered Pixelorama thanks to blog Librearts.org.

The name is “β-karoten – We know whom will be eat”.

Pixelorama editor screenshot
Screenshot of Pixelorama