Updated to the latest VMware Workstation Pro version – 12.5.0, and it compiles OK with kernel.org kernel 4.7 (4.7.3) and also with 4.8 (4.8-rc6).
Release notes here: http://pubs.vmware.com/Release_Notes/en/workstation/12pro/workstation-125-release-notes.html
Nice to see that they have actually fixed quite a lot of Linux-related ‘issues’, this time..
Robert Gadsdon. September 14, 2016
I tried the latest ‘Linux-Next’ version, from https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/next/linux-next.git/log/?id=refs/tags/next-20160913 and the C2 booted OK, but the Ethernet problem still persists..
......... eth0: device MAC address 00:1e:06:33:13:6e meson6-dwmac c9410000.ethernet eth0: Link is Up - 1Gbps/Full - flow control rx/tx Fedora 24 (Workstation Edition) Kernel 4.8.0-rc6-next-20160913 on an aarch64 (ttyAML0) ..................... # uname -a Linux rgc2 4.8.0-rc6-next-20160913 #2 SMP PREEMPT Tue Sep 13 22:35:01 PDT 2016 aarch64 aarch64 aarch64 GNU/Linux
I had tried all the latest patched versions of 4.8-rc4/5/6 for the C2, and all of them still suffer from this problem.. ETH0 is present, and there are no errors shown, but network traffic stops after a short time.. Dropping the link to 100Mbps gives slightly better results, with a longer delay before traffic stops..
Now that this code is in the mainline tree, there is a better chance that this can be fixed.. I have read some reports that the C2 Ethernet link was OK with a certain patched kernel, but I have tried over eight different patch versions, and none of them worked correctly, on my system..
Robert Gadsdon. September 13, 2016.
NVIDIA have release driver version 370.28, and it compiles OK with Kernel 4.8, without any patches.. Tested with 4.8-rc5:
....................... Building modules, stage 2. MODPOST 4 modules CC /home/rgadsdon/kernel/rgtest_kernel-sept2016/kernel/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-370.28/kernel/nvidia-drm.mod.o LD [M] /home/rgadsdon/kernel/rgtest_kernel-sept2016/kernel/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-370.28/kernel/nvidia-drm.ko CC /home/rgadsdon/kernel/rgtest_kernel-sept2016/kernel/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-370.28/kernel/nvidia-modeset.mod.o LD [M] /home/rgadsdon/kernel/rgtest_kernel-sept2016/kernel/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-370.28/kernel/nvidia-modeset.ko CC /home/rgadsdon/kernel/rgtest_kernel-sept2016/kernel/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-370.28/kernel/nvidia-uvm.mod.o LD [M] /home/rgadsdon/kernel/rgtest_kernel-sept2016/kernel/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-370.28/kernel/nvidia-uvm.ko CC /home/rgadsdon/kernel/rgtest_kernel-sept2016/kernel/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-370.28/kernel/nvidia.mod.o LD [M] /home/rgadsdon/kernel/rgtest_kernel-sept2016/kernel/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-370.28/kernel/nvidia.ko make[2]: Leaving directory '/usr/src/linux-4.8-rc5' make[1]: Leaving directory '/usr/src/linux-4.8-rc5' [rgadsdon@rglinux kernel]$ uname -a Linux rglinux 4.8.0-rc5 #1 SMP Tue Sep 6 13:27:47 PDT 2016 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
Robert Gadsdon. September 9, 2016.
Decided to try the Odroid C2 with the latest Kernel, and recently-released patches for MMC support..
Used the (patched) version of 4.8-rc4 from here: https://github.com/ioft/linux/tree/c2 Thanks to umiddelb for producing this, which incorporates the (e)MMC support patches, and also includes patches providing the latest version of the dwmac_meson8b Ethernet driver, and associated mods to the device tree files, etc.. More details in the Odroid Forum discussions: http://forum.odroid.com/viewtopic.php?f=135&t=22717#p157817
The C2 booted OK, once I had modified the boot parameters and /etc/fstab to take account of the fact that the eMMC module (which I use) is /dev/mmcblk1, and not (as previously) /dev/mmcblk0.. An SDCard would now be /dev/mmcblk0..
............ Fedora 24 (Workstation Edition) Kernel 4.8.0-rc4-c2 on an aarch64 (ttyAML0) ............ [root@rgc2 ~]# uname -a Linux rgc2 4.8.0-rc4-c2 #1 SMP PREEMPT Wed Aug 31 02:20:44 EDT 2016 aarch64 aarch64 .........
I soon encountered a problem with the Ethernet connection, and although eth0 was present, and there were no errors logged, network traffic stopped after a short time, and could only be re-started by removing and reinstalling the dwmac_meson8b driver module – and then traffic stopped again after a short time…..
The Ethernet driver patches for the C2 are still very much a work-in-progress, and I would hope that this is fixed in a later release.. More details here: http://www.mail-archive.com/netdev@vger.kernel.org/msg123923.html
Robert Gadsdon. August 31, 2016.
The only missing OS component on the new UP Board (x5-Z8350) was that sound (HDMI) was not present.. After a bit of digging, I found some patches for Kernel 4.5, and a later patched kernel version that was supposed to work..
I tried the patched version of 4.7.0 from here: https://github.com/plbossart/sound/tree/byt-cht-hdmi-v4.7 but found that the compile failed:
............................... CC [M] sound/hdmi_audio/intel_mid_hdmi_audio_if.o In file included from sound/hdmi_audio/intel_mid_hdmi_audio_if.c:31:0: sound/hdmi_audio/intel_mid_hdmi_audio_if.c: In function ‘had_chk_intrmiss’: sound/hdmi_audio/intel_mid_hdmi_audio.h:730:12: error: inlining failed in call to always_inline ‘snd_intelhad_read_len’: function body not available inline int snd_intelhad_read_len(struct snd_intelhad *intelhaddata); ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ sound/hdmi_audio/intel_mid_hdmi_audio_if.c:203:13: note: called from here intr_count = snd_intelhad_read_len(intelhaddata); ~~~~~~~~~~~^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In file included from sound/hdmi_audio/intel_mid_hdmi_audio_if.c:31:0: sound/hdmi_audio/intel_mid_hdmi_audio.h:738:12: error: inlining failed in call to always_inline ‘had_write_register’: function body not available inline int had_write_register(uint32_t reg_addr, uint32_t data); ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ .................................
After more ‘research’, it seemed that this might possibly be due to the ‘later’ gcc compiler provided with Fedora 24 (6.1.1)..? I found some older articles that referenced this particular error, and these suggested that the fix was simply to remove references to ”inline” in the affected code.. So, I modified ~/sound/hdmi_audio/intel_mid_hdmi_audio.h and removed references to ‘inline‘ from the code, and re-compiled the kernel, and it compiled OK, and when booted, sound (via HDMI) actually worked..
[rgadsdon@rgup ~]$ uname -a Linux rgup 4.7.0-up #2 SMP Thu Aug 25 18:28:44 PDT 2016 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux ............ [rgadsdon@rgup ~]$ ll /dev/snd total 0 drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 60 Aug 25 18:54 by-path crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116, 2 Aug 25 18:54 controlC0 crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116, 3 Aug 25 19:02 pcmC0D0p crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116, 1 Aug 25 18:54 seq crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116, 33 Aug 25 18:54 timer
Not sure when this will all be incorporated in mainline kernel code, and the patches still include at least one #Fixme..
Robert Gadsdon. August 25, 2016.
NVIDIA have released their latest driver – 370.23 – which (finally!) works with Kernel 4.7, without any patches..
The driver fails to compile with Kernel 4.8, but the previous 367.35 patch fixes this (See article here: http://rglinuxtech.com/?p=1788).
Tested with 4.8-rc2:
.............. ld -r -o /home/rgadsdon/kernel/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-370.23-patched/kernel/nvidia-modeset/nv-modeset-interface.o /home/rgadsdon/kernel/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-370.23-patched/kernel/nvidia-modeset/nvidia-modeset-linux.o Building modules, stage 2. MODPOST 4 modules CC /home/rgadsdon/kernel/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-370.23-patched/kernel/nvidia-drm.mod.o LD [M] /home/rgadsdon/kernel/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-370.23-patched/kernel/nvidia-drm.ko CC /home/rgadsdon/kernel/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-370.23-patched/kernel/nvidia-modeset.mod.o LD [M] /home/rgadsdon/kernel/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-370.23-patched/kernel/nvidia-modeset.ko CC /home/rgadsdon/kernel/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-370.23-patched/kernel/nvidia-uvm.mod.o LD [M] /home/rgadsdon/kernel/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-370.23-patched/kernel/nvidia-uvm.ko CC /home/rgadsdon/kernel/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-370.23-patched/kernel/nvidia.mod.o LD [M] /home/rgadsdon/kernel/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-370.23-patched/kernel/nvidia.ko make[2]: Leaving directory '/usr/src/linux-4.8-rc2' make[1]: Leaving directory '/usr/src/linux-4.8-rc2'
Robert Gadsdon. August 16, 2016.
Just taken delivery of the Up Board – an Intel Acorn powered SoC system, with the same form factor as a Pi..
UP Board Intel SoC
It was quite a novelty to be able to plug a Fedora 24 Live USB stick in, and install directly to the device.. I booted the Live system first, and then used the ‘install to hard drive’ option.. For some reason, the install only worked if I unmounted the main eMMC partition (/dev/mmcblk0p2) first..
When it came to partitioning, the on-board eMMC (32GB) already had a 128MB partition as ‘Microsoft hidden’ and the other 29GB partition as NTFS, so I just changed the 128MB partition to ‘EFI System’ and mounted it as /boot/efi, and made the 29GB partition the standard EXT4-formatted rootfs..
It even has a real bios interface, from another blast-from-the-past – American Megatrends.. In case you were wondering – I left the OS IMAGE ID parameter at ‘Windows 8.1’, as it was working fine, and I didn’t want to mess with anything that worked OK! Interesting that it had – apparently – detected the Boot Option #1 as ‘Fedora’?
UP Board BIOS
The install completed OK, and even the standard Fedora 24 kernel sort-of worked, although the display was a bit quirky, and attempts to switch out of the HDMI monitor connection caused the system to die.. I decided to try an upgrade to a compiled Kernel 4.8-rc2, and this was much better, with stable display, and ability to operate ‘headless’ if needed..
.... Fedora 24 (Workstation Edition) Kernel 4.8.0-rc2 on an x86_64 (tty1) ..... $ uname -a Linux rgup 4.8.0-rc2 #1 SMP Mon Aug 15 15:16:23 PDT 2016 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
My only real mistake was not ordering the rather proprietary micro-ten-pin UART+USB combo connector at the same time as the rest of the system.. I thought I could modify an existing USB/UART connector, but the on-board connection is really tiny, and the ten-pin connector itself seems very hard to find… I ended up ordering the combo connector separately, but shipping costs to the USA are rather steep for such an inexpensive item!
The device seems – so far – to be quite powerful, but runs a bit hot, although it is capable of running a full multi-cpu kernel compile onboard, so hopefully the main heatsink – and metal plate attached under the board, will be sufficient..
Robert Gadsdon. August 15, 2016
Kernel 4.8-rc1 is out, and brief details are here: http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1608.0/04804.html
VMware 12.1.1 – with the previous 4.6/4.7 patches, fails to compile vmmon:
/tmp/modconfig-gfkQLR/vmmon-only/linux/hostif.c: In function ‘HostIF_EstimateLockedPageLimit’: /tmp/modconfig-gfkQLR/vmmon-only/linux/hostif.c:1597:47: error: ‘NR_ANON_PAGES’ undeclared (first use in this function)
Further research revealed that NR_ANON_PAGES has been changed to NR_ANON_MAPPED in 4.8, and so the fix is quite simple..
In ~/vmmon-only/linux/hostif.c, around line 1594, change
unsigned int anonPages = global_page_state(NR_ANON_PAGES);
to
unsigned int anonPages = global_page_state(NR_ANON_MAPPED);
With this change, vmmon compiles OK again..
For NVIDIA driver 367.35 – with the 4.7 patches – the compilation fails with 4.8-rc1:
/home/rgadsdon/kernel/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-367.35-patched/kernel/nvidia-drm/nvidia-drm-drv.c: In function ‘nvidia_drm_migrate_modeset_ownership’: /home/rgadsdon/kernel/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-367.35-patched/kernel/nvidia-drm/nvidia-drm-drv.c:455:26: error: ‘struct drm_minor’ has no member named ‘master’ !file_priv->minor->master) ^~ /home/rgadsdon/kernel/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-367.35-patched/kernel/nvidia-drm/nvidia-drm-drv.c:476:5: error: implicit declaration of function ‘drm_master_put’ [-Werror=implicit-function-declaration] drm_master_put(&file_priv->minor->master); ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~ /home/rgadsdon/kernel/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-367.35-patched/kernel/nvidia-drm/nvidia-drm-drv.c:476:37: error: ‘struct drm_minor’ has no member named ‘master’ drm_master_put(&file_priv->minor->master);
The fix is already documented, thanks to m00ster and andresu on the Devtalk forum, and details are here: https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/topic/954279/linux/nvidia-367-35-dkms-build-errors-for-a-4-7-0-kernel/
I have been running driver 367.35 without these particular patches on 4.7 Final, for some time.. I applied the changes – manually – and now 367.35, with the original 4.7 patches plus these patches, compiles OK on 4.8-rc1:
Building modules, stage 2. MODPOST 4 modules CC /home/rgadsdon/kernel/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-367.35-patched/kernel/nvidia-drm.mod.o LD [M] /home/rgadsdon/kernel/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-367.35-patched/kernel/nvidia-drm.ko CC /home/rgadsdon/kernel/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-367.35-patched/kernel/nvidia-modeset.mod.o LD [M] /home/rgadsdon/kernel/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-367.35-patched/kernel/nvidia-modeset.ko CC /home/rgadsdon/kernel/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-367.35-patched/kernel/nvidia-uvm.mod.o LD [M] /home/rgadsdon/kernel/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-367.35-patched/kernel/nvidia-uvm.ko CC /home/rgadsdon/kernel/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-367.35-patched/kernel/nvidia.mod.o LD [M] /home/rgadsdon/kernel/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-367.35-patched/kernel/nvidia.ko make[2]: Leaving directory '/usr/src/linux-4.8-rc1' make[1]: Leaving directory '/usr/src/linux-4.8-rc1'
Robert Gadsdon. August 8, 2016.
Managed to update the Hikey ARM64 SoC to the latest kernel – 4.7 Final.
Fedora 24 (Twenty Four) Kernel 4.7.0 on an aarch64 (ttyAMA0) ............................ # uname -a Linux rghikey 4.7.0 #1 SMP PREEMPT Sun Jul 24 19:53:54 EDT 2016 aarch64 aarch64 aarch64 GNU/Linux
On boot, and when the network initialised, polkitd segfaulted again, the same as when I booted a version of 4.7-next..http://rglinuxtech.com/?p=1767 After a bit of research, I found that this was a userland problem with mozjs17 on ARM64: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/arm/2015-July/009639.html
As this had not been fixed for over a year, I went ahead and applied the patch to the latest mozjs17 source rpm, and rebuilt/updated, and the problem has gone away..
So.. this is (so far..) the only ARM64 device I have that works (headless..) with the mainstream Linux kernel..
Robert Gadsdon. July 25, 2016.
Kernel 4.7 has been released – slightly later than usual – and brief details are here: http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1607.3/00150.html
$ uname -a Linux rglinux-i7 4.7.0 #1 SMP Sun Jul 24 14:34:37 PDT 2016 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
Neither VMware nor NVIDIA have drivers that work with this kernel version, but the 4.7-rc patched versions of VMware 12.1.1 and NVIDIA 367.35 both work OK with 4.7-Final.. For details on these patches, see earlier articles on 4.7-rc1.. http://rglinuxtech.com/?p=1746 http://rglinuxtech.com/?p=1750
I had already created a patched version of the NVIDIA installer (see previous article), and applied it to 4.7:
./NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-367.35-custom.run -s --install-libglvnd --glvnd-glx-client
Robert Gadsdon. July 24, 2016.