Template:H3 Support status

Sunxi support

Current status

The H3 SoC support has matured since its introduction in kernel 4.2. Most of the board functionality for boards such as {{{board}}} are available with current mainline kernels. Some features (hw accelerated crypto, hw spinlocks, and thermal) are still being worked on. For a more comprehensive list of supported features, see the status matrix for mainline kernels. In addition, legacy 3.4 kernels are available in various work-in-progress git branches.

See the Manual build section for more details.

Manual build

You can build things for yourself by following our Manual build howto and by choosing from the configurations available below.

U-Boot

Mainline U-Boot

Use the {{{uboot_defconfig}}} build target. The U-Boot repository and toolchain is described in the Mainline U-Boot howto.

The H3 boards can boot from SD cards, eMMC, NAND or SPI NOR flash (if available), and via FEL using the OTG USB port. In U-Boot, loading the kernel is also supported from USB or ethernet (netboot). HDMI support in U-Boot is still WIP.

Linux Kernel

Sunxi/Legacy Kernel

The 3.4 kernel from the official Allwinner's git repository does not support H3 yet. But it is possible to use one of the kernel forks, based on the lichee H3 SDK tarball:

• Siarhei Siamashka's branch '20151207-embedded-lima-memtester-h3'
• Yann Dirson's fork added a few more fixes and adopted most of
• Boris Lovosevic' great initial work on Allwinner's H3 kernel

Configure this kernel using sun8i_h3_defconfig, the rest is explained in the kernel compilation guide.

Use the .fex file for generating script.bin. {{{legacy_instructions}}}

When booting the legacy 3.4 kernel with the mainline U-Boot, add the following line to boot.cmd:

  setenv machid 1029
  setenv bootm_boot_mode sec

Some other legacy kernel repositories:

• 3.4-lichee-based kernel, based on work by ssvb and loboris
• Yocto support here glues together all the required parts to get this kernel to work with mainline u-boot, as well as accelerated X11/GLES support
• A newer H3 BSP variant appeared with tons of fixes which has been made available by FriendlyARM.
• A cleaned up fork has been adopted by Armbian project. On top of that Armbian maintains a bunch of 3.4.x patches for H3 devices.

Mainline kernel

The mainline kernel has good support for the H3 SoC. Please refer to the status matrix for a more detailed list of the development process, links to patches and links to kernel fork repositories. Minor drivers that are currently work-in-progress may require a) third party patches (see also arm-linux mailing list) or b) a pre-patched distro (e.g. Armbian).

Repositories with H3 patches:

• Ondřej Jirman's branch for H3 based orange Pi (kernel 4.19) (work-in-progress DVFS)
  • Thermal regulation (if CPU heats above certain temperature, it will try to cool itself down by reducing CPU frequency)
  • HDMI audio support (from Jernej Skrabec)
  • Configure on-board micro-switches to perform system power off function
  • Wireguard (https://www.wireguard.com/)
• Philipp Rossak's THS patches (in the sunxi-ths- branches)
• Corentin Labbe's HW Crypto and spinlock patches (in respective branches)

Use the {{{kernel_dtb}}} device-tree binary.