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Install Armbian Ubuntu Desktop With Kernel 5.0 onto Banana Pi M3

Orange Pi M3

Hello, everybody. I'm now back in ShenZhen, China, and testing several types of Single Board Computers. I've got to say: Made In China is amazing. Banana Pi M3 is a SBC with AllWinner A83T ARM CPU, which is also of credit-card size. Some detailed features can be found on the open source technical supporter Sunxi. Please pay attention to the following key points:

  • A83T SoC's CPU is of 32-bit address
  • A83T SoC comes with Power VR SGX544MP1 GPU
  • Current Linux Kernel 5.X ALREADY provides support for A83T, please refer to Github

Now, we follow our previous blog Install Armbian Ubuntu Desktop onto Banana Pi Pro to install Armbian Ubuntu Desktop onto Banana Pi M3.

PART A: Install Ubuntu Desktop Built By Armbian onto Banana Pi M3

1. Download Armbian Ubuntu Desktop for Banana Pi M3

We FIRST go visiting the website https://www.armbian.com/bananapi-m3/ and click Armbian Bionic icon, a file named Armbian_5.83_Bananapim3_Ubuntu_bionic_next_4.19.38_desktop will be automatically downloaded.

Then, we extract this .7z file by

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➜  operatingsystems 7z x Armbian_5.83_Bananapim3_Ubuntu_bionic_next_4.19.38_desktop.7z -oArmbian_5.83_Bananapim3_Ubuntu_bionic_next_4.19.38_desktop 

7-Zip [64] 16.02 : Copyright (c) 1999-2016 Igor Pavlov : 2016-05-21
p7zip Version 16.02 (locale=en_CA.UTF-8,Utf16=on,HugeFiles=on,64 bits,8 CPUs Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700HQ CPU @ 2.60GHz (506E3),ASM,AES-NI)

Scanning the drive for archives:
1 file, 441800089 bytes (422 MiB)

Extracting archive: Armbian_5.83_Bananapim3_Ubuntu_bionic_next_4.19.38_desktop.7z
--
Path = Armbian_5.83_Bananapim3_Ubuntu_bionic_next_4.19.38_desktop.7z
Type = 7z
Physical Size = 441800089
Headers Size = 308
Method = LZMA2:25
Solid = +
Blocks = 1

Everything is Ok

Files: 4
Size: 1946176594
Compressed: 441800089
➜ operatingsystems ll Armbian_5.83_Bananapim3_Ubuntu_bionic_next_4.19.38_desktop
total 1.9G
-rw-rw-r-- 1 jiapei jiapei 1.9G Feb 10 22:50 Armbian_5.83_Bananapim3_Ubuntu_bionic_next_4.19.38_desktop.img
-rw-rw-r-- 1 jiapei jiapei 833 Feb 10 22:50 Armbian_5.83_Bananapim3_Ubuntu_bionic_next_4.19.38_desktop.img.asc
-rw-r--r-- 1 jiapei jiapei 19K Feb 10 22:50 armbian.txt
-rw-rw-r-- 1 jiapei jiapei 129 Feb 10 22:50 sha256sum.sha

2. Install Armbian Ubuntu Desktop for Banana Pi M3

After the extracted image file is prepared, it's the time to install the Armbian Ubuntu Desktop onto our TF card. We FIRST format the TF card:

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➜  ~ sudo umount /dev/mmcblk0p1
umount: /dev/mmcblk0p1: not mounted.
➜ ~ sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/mmcblk0
mke2fs 1.44.1 (24-Mar-2018)
Found a gpt partition table in /dev/mmcblk0
Proceed anyway? (y,N) y
Discarding device blocks: done
Creating filesystem with 7579648 4k blocks and 1896832 inodes
Filesystem UUID: 5c3be436-4e8c-43e4-ab21-6d5232420881
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208,
4096000

Allocating group tables: done
Writing inode tables: done
Creating journal (32768 blocks): done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done

Afterwards, use dd to install the downloaded Armbian Ubuntu Desktop image.

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➜  Armbian_5.83_Bananapim3_Ubuntu_bionic_next_4.19.38_desktop sudo dd bs=4M if=Armbian_5.83_Bananapim3_Ubuntu_bionic_next_4.19.38_desktop.img of=/dev/mmcblk0 conv=fsync
464+0 records in
464+0 records out
1946157056 bytes (1.9 GB, 1.8 GiB) copied, 258.486 s, 7.5 MB/s

PART B: SSH Into Armbian, Update & Upgrade, Network Configuration, Locale Configuration

NOTE: Whenever you met some unsolvable issue after you boot into Armbian, please use the command armbianmonitor -U to log the issue.

1. SSH Into Banana Pi M3

We now unplug the TF card from the host and put it into the Banana Pi M3, Armbian Ubuntu Desktop boots successfully. The default username and password are respectively: root and 1234. In our case, Banana Pi M3 is connected to a network cable first, and it's NOT hard for us to get the IP address of Banana Pi M3 by using command line nmap (Details can be checked via Google). After setting up a NEW user as well as password by following the previous blog Install Armbian Ubuntu Desktop onto Banana Pi Pro, you should be able to log into Banana Pi M3 with account root:

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➜  ~ ssh root@192.168.1.80
The authenticity of host '192.168.1.80 (192.168.1.80)' can't be established.
ECDSA key fingerprint is SHA256:xLRt0ppGzbutHHcE3JRyaKw9A0baub3MDAxFF9GNfdk.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes
Warning: Permanently added '192.168.1.80' (ECDSA) to the list of known hosts.
root@192.168.1.80's password:
____ ____ _ __ __ _____
| __ ) __ _ _ __ __ _ _ __ __ _ | _ \(_) | \/ |___ /
| _ \ / _` | '_ \ / _` | '_ \ / _` | | |_) | | | |\/| | |_ \
| |_) | (_| | | | | (_| | | | | (_| | | __/| | | | | |___) |
|____/ \__,_|_| |_|\__,_|_| |_|\__,_| |_| |_| |_| |_|____/


Welcome to ARMBIAN 5.83 stable Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS 4.19.38-sunxi
System load: 0.08 0.10 0.08 Up time: 33 min
Memory usage: 12 % of 2013MB IP: 192.168.1.80
Usage of /: 6% of 29G

[ General system configuration (beta): armbian-config ]

Last login: Thu Apr 18 08:53:31 2019 from 192.168.1.21

root@bananapim3:~#

2. Kernel Doublechecking

Finally, we have the system and kernel doublechecked.

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root@bananapim3:~# uname -r
4.19.38-sunxi
root@bananapim3:~# uname -a
Linux bananapim3 4.19.38-sunxi #5.83 SMP Sun Feb 10 21:36:17 CET 2019 armv7l armv7l armv7l GNU/Linux
root@bananapim3:~# lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS
Release: 18.04
Codename: bionic

3. Update & Upgrade

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root@bananapim3:~# sudo apt update
Get:1 https://apt.armbian.com bionic InRelease [18.9 kB]
Get:2 https://apt.armbian.com bionic/main armhf Packages [288 kB]
Hit:3 http://ports.ubuntu.com bionic InRelease
Get:4 http://ports.ubuntu.com bionic-security InRelease [88.7 kB]
Get:5 http://ports.ubuntu.com bionic-updates InRelease [88.7 kB]
Get:6 http://ports.ubuntu.com bionic-backports InRelease [74.6 kB]
Get:7 http://ports.ubuntu.com bionic-security/main armhf Packages [216 kB]
Get:8 https://apt.armbian.com bionic/bionic-utils armhf Packages [4767 B]
Get:9 http://ports.ubuntu.com bionic-security/restricted armhf Packages [3968 B]
Get:10 http://ports.ubuntu.com bionic-security/universe armhf Packages [238 kB]
Get:11 http://ports.ubuntu.com bionic-security/multiverse armhf Packages [1924 B]
Get:12 http://ports.ubuntu.com bionic-updates/main armhf Packages [452 kB]
Get:13 http://ports.ubuntu.com bionic-updates/restricted armhf Packages [6488 B]
Get:14 http://ports.ubuntu.com bionic-updates/universe armhf Packages [713 kB]
Get:15 http://ports.ubuntu.com bionic-updates/multiverse armhf Packages [3592 B]
Get:16 http://ports.ubuntu.com bionic-backports/main armhf Packages [1020 B]
Get:17 http://ports.ubuntu.com bionic-backports/universe armhf Packages [3468 B]
Fetched 2203 kB in 45s (48.6 kB/s)
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
155 packages can be upgraded. Run 'apt list --upgradable' to see them.
root@bananapim3:~# apt list --upgradable
Listing... Done
......
root@bananapim3:~# sudo apt upgrade
.....
Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.27-3ubuntu1) ...
Processing triggers for resolvconf (1.79ubuntu10.18.04.3) ...
Processing triggers for initramfs-tools (0.130ubuntu3.7) ...
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-4.19.25-sunxi
update-initramfs: Converting to u-boot format
root@bananapim3:~# uname -a
Linux bananapim3 4.19.25-sunxi #5.78 SMP Mon Apr 8 07:46:22 CEST 2019 armv7l armv7l armv7l GNU/Linux

4. Locale Configuration

Clearly, from the above login info, our timezone seems to be wrong. Command dpkg-reconfigure tzdata is able to reset our timezone.

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root@bananapim3:~# dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

Current default time zone: 'Asia/Shanghai'
Local time is now: Thu Apr 18 18:47:22 CST 2019.
Universal Time is now: Thu Apr 18 10:47:22 UTC 2019.

During the above process, you'll set the following 2 pages correspondingly:

System Locale Asia
System Locale Shanghai

By using the command date, we'll see the timezone has been successfully reset.

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root@bananapim3:~# date
Tue Apr 18 18:49:25 CST 2019

5. Network Configuration

1). How to connect to wireless?

Please refer to Armbian docs - How to connect to wireless?,

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root@bananapim3:~$ nmtui-connect SSID

However, according to my CURRENT issue posted at Build NEWEST Linux Kernel 5.0.9 on Banana Pi M3, AllWinner A83T's Wifi module does NOT function well.

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lvision@bananapim3:~$ ip -c address
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN group default qlen 1000
link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
inet6 ::1/128 scope host
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
2: dummy0: <BROADCAST,NOARP> mtu 1500 qdisc noop state DOWN group default qlen 1000
link/ether 5a:cb:89:ad:49:96 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
3: eth0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc mq state UP group default qlen 1000
link/ether 02:01:06:95:68:df brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
inet 192.168.1.80/24 brd 192.168.1.255 scope global dynamic noprefixroute eth0
valid_lft 3069140548sec preferred_lft 3069140548sec
inet6 fe80::8ea3:62cb:7b8b:e872/64 scope link noprefixroute
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever

Clearly, wlan0 does NOT exist.

PART C: Upgrade Linux Kernel From 4.XX To 5.XX

1. Generate Configure File

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lvision@bananapim3:~/Downloads/linux-5.1.7$ make sunxi_defconfig
HOSTCC scripts/basic/fixdep
HOSTCC scripts/kconfig/conf.o
HOSTCC scripts/kconfig/confdata.o
HOSTCC scripts/kconfig/expr.o
LEX scripts/kconfig/lexer.lex.c
YACC scripts/kconfig/parser.tab.h
HOSTCC scripts/kconfig/lexer.lex.o
YACC scripts/kconfig/parser.tab.c
HOSTCC scripts/kconfig/parser.tab.o
HOSTCC scripts/kconfig/preprocess.o
HOSTCC scripts/kconfig/symbol.o
HOSTLD scripts/kconfig/conf
#
# configuration written to .config
#

2. Browse Configure File

Then, we can take a look at our configuration content by using:

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lvision@bananapim3:~/Downloads/linux-5.1.7$ less .config

which is pasted at my pastebin sunxi_defconfig.

3. make menuconfig

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lvision@bananapim3:~/Downloads/linux-5.1.7$ make menuconfig
UPD scripts/kconfig/mconf-cfg
HOSTCC scripts/kconfig/mconf.o
HOSTCC scripts/kconfig/lxdialog/checklist.o
HOSTCC scripts/kconfig/lxdialog/inputbox.o
HOSTCC scripts/kconfig/lxdialog/menubox.o
HOSTCC scripts/kconfig/lxdialog/textbox.o
HOSTCC scripts/kconfig/lxdialog/util.o
HOSTCC scripts/kconfig/lxdialog/yesno.o
HOSTLD scripts/kconfig/mconf
scripts/kconfig/mconf Kconfig


*** End of the configuration.
*** Execute 'make' to start the build or try 'make help'.
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lvision@bananapim3:~/Downloads/kernel/linux-5.1.7$ make -j 4 Image modules dtbs
...
LD [M] sound/soc/tegra/snd-soc-tegra-trimslice.ko
LD [M] sound/soc/tegra/snd-soc-tegra-utils.ko
LD [M] sound/soc/tegra/snd-soc-tegra-wm8753.ko
LD [M] sound/soc/tegra/snd-soc-tegra-wm8903.ko
LD [M] sound/soc/tegra/snd-soc-tegra-wm9712.ko
LD [M] sound/soc/tegra/snd-soc-tegra20-ac97.ko
LD [M] sound/soc/tegra/snd-soc-tegra20-das.ko
LD [M] sound/soc/tegra/snd-soc-tegra20-i2s.ko
LD [M] sound/soc/tegra/snd-soc-tegra20-spdif.ko
LD [M] sound/soc/tegra/snd-soc-tegra30-ahub.ko
LD [M] sound/soc/tegra/snd-soc-tegra30-i2s.ko
LD [M] sound/soundcore.ko
LD [M] sound/usb/snd-usb-audio.ko
LD [M] sound/usb/snd-usbmidi-lib.ko

Appendix

We can of course follow our previous blog Install Armbian Ubuntu Desktop with the Newest Supported Mainline Linux Kernel onto Orange Pi Plus 2 to upgrade the NEWEST U-Boot and Linux Kernel for Banana Pi M3, which is NOT going to be discussed here again.