ROC-RK3328-CC (Renegade) | Overview Resources and Guides*

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https://hub.libre.computer/t/troubleshooting-general-boot-issues/47

 

To get the exact errors causing boot issues, we recommend getting an UART cable: Libre Computer Board Debug Serial UART Connection and Setup Guide

Top 5 Gotchas

  1. Get a good power supply 60 capable of 1.5A or higher. Our CC boards typical use around 1.0A, each USB device use somewhere between 0.1A to 1A. The cable and connector quality and seating is as important as the power supply. If your board spontaneously reboots without any error message, it’s a power problem. a) If planning to use a spinning hard drive or SSD, put a powered hub between the board and the device as they exceed normal USB power budget. b) For power supplies where the cable is not integrated and requires a USB Type A cable, there may be a sufficiently high voltage drop over the wire depending on the wire gauge to affect deliverable power. c) Transient voltage drops will cause stability issues when running system loads. If your application or system is unstable, check the 5V pin with an oscilloscope. Voltage swings indicate poor power delivery.
  2. Get a good MicroSD card 137 with at least 20MB/s sequential write speed. Slow MicroSD cards will result in a poor experience. Sometimes a slow MicroSD card means the flash cells are dying and the card needs to be replaced. Our software will check for MicroSD card data corruption and switch to read-only mode to prevent further damage to your data. It is recommended to backup your data and replace the card when this happens.
  3. Make sure you use proper tools 811 to flash correctly. Incorrect images or incomplete flash will not boot. We recommend running a verify pass to make sure the data is correctly written. Also make sure that the image file matches your board model. On Windows, make sure to show file extensions so you can tell if the file has been decompressed. Flashing a compressed image will not boot.
  4. Each image lists the username and password in the release notes on the download page. We spent time to write them, read them.
  5. Most of our images will update in the background (unattended-upgrade service from the distributions) on first boot so performance will be slow until the updates complete. You can speed this up by manually running sudo eatmydata apt dist-upgrade in a terminal before the update service runs.
  6. Failure to do these will result in a lot of wasted time as they account for 99% of user problems.

If you’re new to single board computers or coming from Raspberry Pi, there can be a few gotchas or conceptual differences to be aware of. We outline how the process works and how you can quickly figure out what the issue is.

The normal process flow is as follows:

  1. Download Compressed Image (eg. file+model.img.xz)
  2. Extract Compressed Image (eg. file.img)
  3. Flash Extracted Decompressed Image to Bootable Storage Medium (MicroSD card)
  4. Insert Bootable Storage Medium into Board
  5. Provide Sufficient Power to Board
  6. Board Boots u-boot Bootloader from Storage Medium
  7. u-boot Bootloader Loads EFI Bootloader (GRUB)
  8. EFI Bootloader Boots Linux
  9. Linux Boots systemd
  10. systemd starts services and applications
  1. Download Compressed Image a. Make sure to download the correct file for your board to get the correct bootloader. The +model suffix on the file name should match your board or it will not work. b. Make sure to check the SHA256SUM of the downloaded file to verify correctness.
  2. Extract Compressed Image a. Use a decompression tool to extract the uncompressed image. b. Skipping this step will result in an image that will not boot.
  3. Flash Extracted Decompressed Image to Bootable Storage Medium a. Make sure the bootable medium is glitch free by running verify on written data. b. Make sure flashing tool 811 does not perform any skips or write optimizations. c. Flashing is not copying the file! Flashing writes the raw data to the disk while copying writes the data on top of a filesystem. Copying files will result in the board not booting at all. d. Etcher or Raspberry Pi Imager are known to not produce bit accurate data on occasion. If the MicroSD card is not flashed correctly, you will not get any HDMI output. See the individual board behavior guide at the bottom.
  4. Insert Bootable Storage Medium into Board a. Make sure the storage medium is not damaged. MicroSD cards can break if the board is installed or removed from cases without removing the card first. Hair-line fractures will cause short-circuit so do not try to use them if you notice any fractures or damage! Short-circuit can cause the card to get really hot and burn your skin. b. We recommend SanDisk and Samsung MicroSD because those brands have a history of making reliability products. There are knockoffs that appear on Amazon. Kingston, PNY, and other brands have put out unreliable products in the past so we do recommend them. 137
  5. Provide Sufficient Power to Board a. Make sure your power supply provides enough voltage and current for the board you are using. Boards cannot be powered from computer USB ports which usually only provide 500mA or 0.5A. Most boards need a minimum of 1.5A. b. Do not trust the label unless the power supply is from a reputable brand. c. Certain power supplies can cause problems if they exceed 5.5V and cause certain board features to stop working. d. Check for bent, damaged, or corroded pins and loose connections. They reduce deliverable power.
  1. Board Boots u-boot Bootloader from Storage Medium a. If you followed steps 1 through 5 correctly, the board should boot up. LEDs on the board will change if the bootloader is successfully loaded from the storage medium.

Please reference board specific guides for additional information and steps:

 

 

https://hub.libre.computer/t/troubleshooting-boot-issues-on-libre-computer-roc-rk3328-cc-renegade/647

 

Please first reference Troubleshooting General Boot Issues 189.

  1. After attaching power, the Green and Red LEDs should light up. This indicates that the board is powered. Nothing will show up on HDMI or CVBS yet.
  2. At no point after attaching power should the Red LED blink or turn off. If this happens, it means that your power supply is inadequate. Please make sure that you are using a 5V power supply capable of supplying at least 1.5A (1500mA). Not having enough power could cause spontaneous reboots or software errors.
  3. The board will try to read the bootloader from the eMMC and then the MicroSD card from sector 64 (32KB). If the correct signed bootloader is detected, the board will begin loading it.
  4. After 30 seconds, Linux should be loaded and the Green LED should begin to heartbeat. You should see video on your HDMI display. Certain types of displays with odd resolutions are not supported at this stage and it might not display anything during this step and the next steps. If the Green LED turns green and nothing shows on your screen, please post your screen brand, model, and EDID here 106.
  5. The bootloader will attempt to EFI boot from a list of block devices:
  • eMMC
  • MicroSD
  • USB Flash Drive It looks for an FAT/EFI partition with /boot/bootaa64.efi, loads the file into memory, and executes the it. On our images, bootaa64.efi is GRUB.

 

 

 

https://hub.libre.computer/t/roc-rk3328-cc-renegade-overview-resources-and-guides/322+

 

ROC-RK3328-CC (Renegade) Overview Resources and Guides

StartBoard

roc-rk3328-cc

 

img

librecomputer

13

Nov 2022

 

  1. Get a good power supply > 5.0V < 5.5V
  1. Get a good MicroSD card
  2. If not, you’re going to waste a lot of time.

Boot

GPIO Header

Board Hardware

Peripheral Hardware Guides

 

 

 

 

 

Ubuntu Server images use cloud-init 637 to setup the system on first boot including setting up the user password. Please wait a minute after the console appears to login with the following crudentials:

Username: ubuntu Password: ubuntu

If you attempt to log in before cloud-init has finished, you will get an incorrect login response. It will prompt you to change the password after login for security reasons.

Image Layout

  1. Board specific bootloader which not listed in partition table
  2. FAT32 EFI partition 1 with cloud-init settings and GRUB (/boot/efi)
  3. BTRFS root partition 2 (/)

In the first partition, there are two files, user-data and network-config that will be applied only on first boot of the image.

Configuring System Settings such as First User or Hostname

File: user-data Default user is ubuntu. To change the password and expiration, edit the lines below:

chpasswd:
  expire: true
  list:
  - ubuntu:ubuntu

Setup additional users and groups by editing the lines below:

## Add users and groups to the system, and import keys with the ssh-import-id
## utility
#groups:
#- robot: [robot]
#- robotics: [robot]
#- pi
#
#users:
#- default
#- name: robot
#  gecos: Mr. Robot
#  primary_group: robot
#  groups: users
#  ssh_import_id: foobar
#  lock_passwd: false
#  passwd: $5$hkui88$nvZgIle31cNpryjRfO9uArF7DYiBcWEnjqq7L1AQNN3

Hostname: uncomment and change the desired hostname

#hostname: ubuntu

Configuring Network Settings such as WiFi or Wireless

The server images do not use an active network manager like the desktop images. Initial network configuration is set in the network-config file on the first partition which is FAT32 and accessible on Mac/Windows machines. The image network settings can preconfigure by modifying this file after burning it and before booting the system for the first time.

  1. cloud-init renders a netplan file once on the image’s first boot
  2. netplan applies the network settings through systemd-networkd

To modify the network settings on a booted system, modify /etc/netplan/50-cloud-init.yaml.

By default, the file looks like this:

network:
    ethernets:
        eth0:
            dhcp4: true
            optional: true
    version: 2

After plugging in a WiFi dongle, find the name via cat /proc/net/wireless. Change the netplan file /etc/netplan/50-cloud-init.yaml to something this:

network:
    ethernets:
        eth0:
            dhcp4: true
            optional: true
    wifis:
        NETWORK DEVICE:
            optional: true
            access-points:
                "NETWORK SSID":
                    password: "NETWORK PASSWORD"
            dhcp4: true
    version: 2

Replace NETWORK SSID with the wireless network name you would like to connect to. Replace NETWORK PASSWORD with the password to the wireless network. Change NETWORK DEVICE to your wireless device interface name. To get a list of wireless device interface names:

iw dev

Reboot the system or sudo netplan apply.

Server images include weston for testing advanced board graphical capabilities on wayland. We recommend trying the following:

  1. weston 104
  2. chromium-browser sudo snap install chromium 2.a. 720P60/1080P30 YouTube playback (active cooling recommended) 2.b. ad block recommended for reduced resource use
  3. gstreamer (gst123) for HW accelerated playback of 4K videos
  4. glmark2-es2-wayland OpenGL ES2 demo
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