IMX6 beta builds ?!

General Discussion
1

Continuing the discussion from I.MX6 support in the future?:

so now its a month later and no beta test bulid :frowning:

how is the process going on ?

2

Slowly.

We have other things to address in the roadmap first

3

alright sam, i just wanna ask for the temporary status :smile:
a cleared 8 gb ultra sd card is waiting for the image :stuck_out_tongue:

4

Which imx6 device do you own ?
It’s possible to run the vero image on a cuboxi-i, for example.
I have it running on a TBS-Matrix imx6 Box.
Works very well !

5

:hushed: without compiling or anything else ?

i got a cubox i4pro …just installing the vero image, i cant believe that this will work … :hankey:

6

Well,
the user Toast on a Solidrun forum has written a script to make a sdcard for cubox-i, but it doesn’t work for me, so i modified his script and made it work.
You can download it here.

Be absolutely sure what device your sdcard is, otherwise you can harm your hdd.
You need a linux PC to run the script.
It will download the newest vero image, a bootloader for cubox-i and hummingbird, and create a bootable
SDcard for you.
First check which device you sdcard is ,with:
sudo fdisk -l
this will show your devices. If you only have one hd in your pc the sdcard is mostly /dev/sdb.
Be sure to choose the right one.
Then start the script with :
sudo ./osmc_installer.sh -i
it will ask for your sdcard, enter your device
this will create a bootable sdcard. Put it in your cubox-i and let osmc install it’s filesystem and prepare the sdcard. After this power off the cubox-i and put your sdcard back in your pc, because osmc overwrites the bootloader files while installing, we have to rewrite them with:
sudo ./osmc_installer.sh -b
after this you will have a bootable osmc sdcard for your cubox-i.

1 Like
7

Thats awesome. I was considering buying a cubox. Does anyone know how it performs compared with a 1st gen raspberry pi B? I have one now and it does everything I want, it’s just very slow to scrub through media (maybe because no gigabit ethernet?).

Cheers,
Chris.

8

I have here a Raspberry Pi Model2 with 512mb, a Raspberry Pi 2 Model B (the quadcore) and a TBS-Matrix (it’s the same hardware like a cubox-i 4 pro) and i can say the Quadcore models are a lot quicker, the gui is much more responsive, processes run faster. The media scanning can be a problem with your media files, i had a directory with some corrupted files, the scan lasts forever.

9

Thanks for the reply.
When you say the quad core models are you referring to both the Pi 2 Model B and the TBS-Matrix or just the Pi?

By scrubbing I mean using the fast-forward function to skip ahead. I use PlexBMC for local media but I primarily use the box to watch online content, Twitch etc.

Chris.

10

I mean both the Pi 2 Model B and the TBS-Matrix.
I have no problems to fast-forward in burning series for example. I think it’s related on the servers where the content comes from.

11

OK thanks.

12

@franky384 your version is now on gitlab just give me a heads up if you modify it

13

OK, but this version works perfect now for me. No matter if the sdcard is /dev/sdb, …sdc, …
No need to update again.

14

I would prefer waiting for an official IMX6 release (beta would be fine!). I am hoping, since OSMC is based on Debian, I will be able to use the Cubox-i4 Pro to its full potential:

  • running OSMC
  • enjoying the Media Center experience with Kodi

—> ability to install any Debian compatible applications like Flexget, Transmission but also BittorrentSync or Syncthing and Owncloud.

That is the main reason I bought the uber fast Cubox-i4 Pro. Currently there is no OS that is stable enough for Cubox-i4 to do this.

15

In my experience thus far running the Vero RC2 release on my Cubox i4 Pro, it’s been smooth sailing. I would recommend against using the updater past RC2 however, as it seems to break… Well just about anything graphical. I’m not the least bit technical enough to troubleshoot the RC3 updates, but I know they aren’t stable for the Cubox-i4 Pro.

I however would love an official IMX6 build that can fully utilize all 4 cores and the massive memory it comes with. Agreed, there are only a few builds out there for the cubox that run, none of which are considerably stable.

16

Keep in mind that if you are running on a Cubox i4 Pro that not only is this unsupported and untested, you are not really running OSMC RC2 or RC3 as you are not using the same bootloader or kernel, and the custom kernel is a big part of OSMC.

Stability has nothing to do with it - if you try to update to RC3 it will replace your custom kernel with a standard OSMC Vero kernel which will not work for you.

17

@DBMandrake: He is fully using the same kernel!. Only difference is the uboot, where osmc patches out general imx support. This btw. is really patching out - not patching in of some vero specifics, as all other distributions for imx out there boot on the vero without any issue nor limitation.

@DBMandrake: Btw. you should know that, as you commited the patch to forcefully remove the old uboot-img present in installations - do you? [package] [vero1-bootloader-osmc] Package script fixes. · osmc/osmc@de5930d · GitHub

And something else: the u-boot, that you reflash(!) is from March … so uboot does not even need to be touched … that reflash is done on purpose to overwrite custom installations … - which is okay - as it seems another business decision and vero users paid a lot of money for vero + osmc - so other imx users should be left out. Not nice, but yeah - not my decision.

1 Like
18

Actually, the UBoot was updated on several occasions:

  • To disable front LED (21st March)
  • To not delay the boot (12th April)
  • To remove L3 address setting (14th April)
  • To not enable USB for faster boot (14th April)

And many upstream fixes in between this.

Not quite the whole story. The Vero is the flagship device and the images released are for the Vero unit. It is therefore fair to assume that OSMC’s responsibility is to support the hardware as best as it can. This includes updating the bootloader when necessary. Until an official i.MX6 build is released, users are warned that the Vero builds are not stable for other devices as witnessed by a user above. We reserve the right to update software for our device – and those that are running an unofficial build will have to work around it. It’s not a business decision because that would imply other devices out there offer the same experience as the Vero, which in my opinion they don’t, and by the looks of our sales. Further, we’ve not removed any of these workaround threads: if they’ve already bought the hardware, it’s not a lost sale.

S

19

Thanks for your detailed reply, was just saying, that the u-boot.img on your github is from 22nd March of this year - so there was no need to flash it since first release - or did I overlook something? Here, was commited by you: [package] [vero1-bootloader-osmc] Allow bootloader updates (2/2) · osmc/osmc@725f2a8 · GitHub

20

There was: early devices had old U-Boot. As it is written at the block level and not as a file, it is persistent across the install. We needed to add this package at some point and create it as a dependency of the device metapackage so we would have the ability to update it in the future. We did not do it earlier as we did not have any necessary changes that needed to be pushed then. When we did start pushing bootloader updates, we did so to address the issues outlined above. It seems @Toast’s script actually has a re-install bootloader flag, so it seems that users are aware of the potential pitfalls of using this image on other hardware.

S