Hello,
I’d like to apologize for my bad knowledge with embedded linux, I’ve only recently found interest.
I’m trying to compile mainline U-Boot for my i96’s so I can get them to boot Alpine.
Sadly I can’t seem to find anything relating to RDA8810 or the i96 in the U-Boot GitLab.
I’m also unable to get orangepi-xunlong/OrangePiRDA_uboot to compile, even then I’d prefer a mainline version of U-Boot.
I managed to compile U-Boot for some other SBC’s I have but I’m not sure what to do with this one.
Best Regards!
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Hello Julia,
did you have any luck finding a bootloader for your opi?
@Julia I managed to compile the official U-Boot image with the help of an ancient ubuntu VM (*sigh*) but I had no luck booting Arch with it.
Yeah, I also managed compiling it with like ubuntu 12 but to be honest I just left the boards aside to rot now, I couldn’t get anything other than their old distro to boot… which is broken as hell…
My goal is to get mainline u-boot (something newer, atleast with defconfigs, preferably getting it merged into denx’s repo since IMO this would make quite a nice board for simple IoT stuff) to compile, but I’m still looking at porting it, which can take long as I’m new to embedded linux stuff.
My main issue with their U-Boot is it’s from 20 fucking 12 which means it’s missing a LOT of features, some of which I really need…
It’s pretty sad that OrangePi didn’t care enough to get all of their boards they manufacture atleast a basic config the community can build upon into U-Boot, Linux and Buildroot…
Instead of Alpine and Debian I’ll try buildroot, since my specific goal is a simple IP camera… If I manage to get it to work I’ll post updates here
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I’ll try to get in touch with RDAMicro (their webpage degraded more and more) or OrangePi and ask if they can help me as I don’t have too much free time on my hand and they still sell it, so it would atleast be nice to have some recent (~5 years old max) software
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Good luck… I’m also kinda frustrated with this board. No surprise they have sold these things for less than ten bucks recently 
I still have a Rock Pi S here but I honestly don’t want to waste it for a simple network audio streaming appliance -.-
Yeah, I got mine for like 11€ a piece with a few € shipping… I would have atleast wished for them to like, put up an EOL or LTS warning (which they did with some boards like the 3G and 4G IoT IIRC) instead of just selling it like it’s being actively supported (COUGH OrangePiRDA_uboot/Makefile: VERSION = 2012)
My current attempt (mostly just merging the closest official U-Boot with RDA’s so I can start on updating it step by step and then hopefully getting it mainline) is here:
If anyone reads this that wishes to compile their really old version some info is here:
https://repo.julias.zone/precompiled/u-boot/rda8810/README.txt
Maybe if someone that knows more than me stumbles across this they can make use of this…
Thanks, I registered an account on your gitea if you don’t mind. I don’t think I’ll be much of a help there but I’d like to take a look at it when I’ve got more “spoons” left…
Yeah, feel free to open issues if you have any idea or anything, it’s an open gitea instance, I assume I might be able to make progress in a few months, sadly, as really low level development like bootloaders is really new stuff to me (oh and also school lmao), but it’s pretty interesting
The more painful thing will probably be drivers, etc… as RDA pretty much dropped off the internet…
