Cubietech Cubietruck

Cubietruck is also named Cubieboard3. It is a SbC built on top of Allwinner A20 SoC, just like Cubieboard2. It is however enhanced with some features, such as 2GB memory, VGA display interface on-board, 1000M NIC, WiFi+BT on-board, support for Li-battery, RTC and SPDIF audio interface.

Specifications

 * Allwinner A20 SoC
 * 2GB DDR3@480MHz
 * HDMI and VGA 1080P display output on-board with ESD protection
 * RTL8211E 10M/100M/1G Ethernet PHY
 * AMPAK AP6210 Wifi+BT with PCB antenna, here are the guesses what exactly is inside
 * Broadcom BCM43362 + BCM20710
 * Broadcom BCM4330 / BCM40183 Based Chipset
 * Cubietech says it is BCM4329/BCM40181


 * SATA 2.0 interface support 2.5’ HDD，(for 3.5’ HDD, only need another 12V power input)
 * Storage solution：NAND+MicroSD
 * 2 x USB HOST，1 x OTG，1 x SPDIF，1 x IR，4 x LEDs，1 Headphone，3 x Keys
 * Power：DC5V @ 2.5A with HDD，support Li-battery & RTC
 * 54 extended pins including I2S, I2C, SPI, CVBS, LRADC x2,UART, PS2, PWMx2, TS/CSI, IRDA, LINEIN&FMIN&MICIN, TVINx4 with 2.0 pitch connectors
 * PCB size：11cm *8cm*1.4mm，very suitable for installing a 2.5’ HDD
 * Pre-installed Android 4.2.2 with full functionalities

Status of the community kernel (sunxi-3.4) / U-Boot
As of this writing support for Cubietruck in sunxi kernel is in progress. Problematic features (new on Cubietruck):  arokux: 432MHz. that's the speed at which my board runs with sunxi bootloader, too. but look here:http://dl.cubieboard.org/software/a20-cubietruck/common/ct-v101_sys_config.fex  arokux: I simply do not know why 432MHz if the hardware can do 480... they downclocked it for security purposes in the first batch? tomee^: sorry, I have no idea.  arokux: I've heard somewhere that someone complained about overheating of the prototype tomee^: Turl may know.  dunno, we should ask benn
 * gmac - new Gbit Ethernet
 * stage/sunxi-3.4 supports GMAC, patches are pending to let GMAC talk to MII PHY as well, see here, review is pending.
 * Patches for GMAC in U-Boot are submitted to ML, review pending.
 * u-boot does not work with gbit ethernet
 * Memory frequency

See this conversation on memory frequency problems. modprobe bcmdhd
 * WiFi - will not work with latest sunxi-3.4. On the Cubietech's kernel

There is a parameter op_mode, which allows you to enable AP mode, for example

modprobe bcmdhd op_mode=2


 * Wifi have bad effect to VGA screen, in some videomodes - due bad PCB placement, wifi is too near with VGA analog wires

The Lubuntu Desktop images has NetworkManager running. It spawns its own wpa_supplicant, which is respawned once you kill it. This wpa_supplicant will also interfere with yours, if you want to configure WLAN Adapter by yourself. I have removed NetworkManager and was able to successfully configure WiFi.

wpa_supplicant -D nl80211 -B -i wlan0 -c <(wpa_passphrase YOUR_SSID YOUR_PASSWORD)

Huang Benn said here (the cubietruck chipset AMPAK) ap6210 is a combo of wifi(bcm40181) and bt(bcm20710). the firmwares can be found here: wifi/bluetooth driver
 * BT - new or differently wired chip, status UNKNOWN, please test it!


 * Here is some info on how to get the bcmdhd compiled with workarounds / ideas how to overcome problems

 arokux:  CC [M]  drivers/net/wireless/bcmdhd/dhd_linux.o drivers/net/wireless/bcmdhd/dhd_linux.c: In function ‘dhd_os_prealloc’: drivers/net/wireless/bcmdhd/dhd_linux.c:5192:2: error: implicit declaration of function ‘wl_android_prealloc’ [-Werror=implicit-function-declaration]  arokux: I guess you should ifdef the DHD_OS_PREALLOC option for non-android builds... or I did something wrong  arokux: it comes from the bcmdhd driver compilation  arokux: when I disabled buffer preallocation for it, it went through  arokux: CONFIG_DHD_USE_STATIC_BUF=y broke the compilation. CONFIG_DHD_USE_STATIC_BUF=n made it work. maybe this flag should depend on android or some other build environment
 * Battery - new on A20
 * VGA - probably wired differently on this board - the original fex selects LCD and has VGA working with the kernel shipped in NAND

Note, there are kernels developed by Cubietech, they are supposed to have all features working
 * Kernel: https://github.com/cubieboard/linux-sunxi, fex and kernel cofig: https://github.com/cubieboard/cubie_configs
 * reportedly AP mode does not work with the WiFi driver in this kernel
 * This kernel is abandoned by Cubietech, but can still have something interesting: https://github.com/cubieboard2/linux-sunxi/tree/sunxi-3.4-ct-dev/drivers/net/ethernet/allwinner/gmac

Downloads
http://dl.cubieboard.org/software/a20-cubietruck/

Known Issues
Load is always > 1.0, if usb_detect_type = 1, see https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/cubieboard/mhb55nTj7lo This also affects cubieboard.

External

 * cubieboard.org - official homepage
 * docs.cubieboard.org - cubie's user manual
 * cubie's download site