Phytium-based ARM PC


Yes, the RTC is read while booting and written at shutdown. One small correction, you don't want an NTP server to set your system clock correctly, you want an NTP client which can read the time from an internet server and use that to set your system clock. An NTP server is the thing that broadcast the time over the internet for NTP clients to read.
systemd's timesyncd is a NTP client (and only a client), chrony/ntpd are both a client AND server implementation. Both are actively used on clients. ntpd not so much, since it can't do super well without other NTP peers, but one of chrony's intended use cases IS being used on "clients".
On my eeepc, hwclock (provided I run it with root privs) reports more or less the current time and does advance. Note in linux your hwclock should be set to GMT and the difference between that and local time worked out using time zones. That's different to the default way which windows does it, which complicates dual booting, and means your file times are mostly wrong if you ever move continents.
Well, your eeepc does have a RTC which is not buggy. The Phytium PC on the other hand currently has a buggy chip or software implementation. And I don't think I have ever said that one should set the RTC to local time (as Windows requires)
 
Yes, that wasn't in contradiction to anything you wrote. It was more or less me following on from my statement of my clock containing more of less the current time, which of course it shouldn't unless you live in British Isles (GB and Ireland) or I think Portugal in winter (as well as parts of Greenland and various other islands)
 
I decided to first read me in to linux, stepp by stepp, bevor i will make more whit Wine and Box86, my Knowledge Level is still quite low
Pandora and Pyra had this Luxus of PND or DBP Files, (Download, put in Folder, Click on, -> Profit) , or the Package Manager in Ubuntu or Debian, nothing that difficult..
To get Wine Running on Phytian, i just copy and paste the Commands from @ptitSeb in my Terminal, whitout that much knowing what it makes..

So at the Moment, its an Office PC whit 1080p Youtube but will also used to learn linux and other stuff
 
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I installed a new SSD and put the original in a USB enclosure.
Now I can quickly switch back to Ubuntu Kylin, without opening the machine.

Any suggestions where to look for log files on my Debian install?
After Grub I only get a black screen with a blinking cursor.
 
I installed a new SSD and put the original in a USB enclosure.
Now I can quickly switch back to Ubuntu Kylin, without opening the machine.

Any suggestions where to look for log files on my Debian install?
After Grub I only get a black screen with a blinking cursor.

After Grub you should see something like "loading linux image/loading initrd from" and then around 4 lines "EFI-Stub:"

If you don't get anything of this: Start over, something went wrong. If you know what you are doing, you can try to repair via a rescue boot (or kylin).

Try a minimum (CLI) install with the default TUI installer and as soon this boots correctly install what you need.
 
After Grub you should see something like "loading linux image/loading initrd from" and then around 4 lines "EFI-Stub:"

If you don't get anything of this: Start over, something went wrong. If you know what you are doing, you can try to repair via a rescue boot (or kylin).

Try a minimum (CLI) install with the default TUI installer and as soon this boots correctly install what you need.
I already tried the installation twice.
After Grub I get some output, last line is: Loading initial Ram Disk and the screen goes black with a blinking cursor.
Would be nice to know if there is a log file somewhere or do I need to add something in Grub to activate it?
 
I already tried the installation twice.
After Grub I get some output, last line is: Loading initial Ram Disk and the screen goes black with a blinking cursor.
Would be nice to know if there is a log file somewhere or do I need to add something in Grub to activate it?

At his stage there is not even a full kernel running. So no log files, every thing goes to the console. Boot the kernel without "quiet" and add

earlycon=efifb,mem console=tty0

so you can see what the kernel might be logging.
 
At his stage there is not even a full kernel running. So no log files, every thing goes to the console. Boot the kernel without "quiet" and add

earlycon=efifb,mem console=tty0

so you can see what the kernel might be logging.
Thanks for the help.

I have the feeling I'm cursed.
I see the following warning: random: 7 urandom warning(s) missed due to ratelimiting
Lot's of hits when I search on that. Some are mentioning that there is not enough entropy.
Some are suggesting haveged, but so far I really wouldn't know how to install that, when I can't even boot.
Or should I try waiting for an hour?

Perhaps I can try to install it on Kylin and let it fill up the entropy and try booting Debian after a while.
Although I'm really curious where the entropy gets stored.
Or the entropy can't be passed from one boot image to the other?


When I tried CTRL-ALT-DEL after a while, I also saw once that it was stopping the random seed: stopped load/save random seed

One more question, anybody knows any other ARM distro I can try?
 
Thanks for the help.

I have the feeling I'm cursed.
I see the following warning: random: 7 urandom warning(s) missed due to ratelimiting
Lot's of hits when I search on that. Some are mentioning that there is not enough entropy.
Some are suggesting haveged, but so far I really wouldn't know how to install that, when I can't even boot.
Or should I try waiting for an hour?

Perhaps I can try to install it on Kylin and let it fill up the entropy and try booting Debian after a while.
Although I'm really curious where the entropy gets stored.
Or the entropy can't be passed from one boot image to the other?


When I tried CTRL-ALT-DEL after a while, I also saw once that it was stopping the random seed: stopped load/save random seed

One more question, anybody knows any other ARM distro I can try?

Well it seems the system boots and you just can't see anything. Did you install the firmware for the GPU (enable non-free repository, install firmware-amd-graphics)? Do you have a monitor, which supports a vertical refresh rate of more than 60 Hz (Look at the forum history)? Does the system get an IP address (Look at your router/dhcp server)? When it does, login with ssh and then try to get some clues (you did select the ssh daemon while you installed Debian, did you?).

Debian *works* on this machine. Eiher your's has a problem or you clearly are doing something wrong. @KidPaddle hat 970 Evo Plus in use too. It did not end well. Try the original SSD or another one, which is not completely overpowered for this tiny system. Of course you could try Arch Linux, which has a aarch64 port, but don't expect things to be easier with Arch...
 
This is a new discord link and it will never be outdated.
Sorry we offered a time-limited link before.
after you have entered this chatting room, jump to the OTHER CHANNELS - Phytium-based-pc child channel. thanks
 
Well, it seems Discord flagged me as "bot" and forces me to provide a mobile number to "verify" my (temporary) account. Won't happen. Seems I'm too old and privacy counscious for all those new hipster services out there...

Update:
Just for the record: I tried with a "permanent" account. Of course that did not change anything, I'm stiil required to "verify" with a valid mobile number. And as a bonus: Talking with the so called "support" feels a bit like talking to an imbecilic AI that can't read or do shit. Getting them to delete the unverified account and my email address is, up to this point in time and after three emails with clear "instructions", an unsuccessful endeavor.

Oh, do I miss the usenet/irc times. That wasn't perfect, but with those "new" services, it's getting ridiculous
 
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Debian 11.1.0 on Phytium after changing the SSD by a Gigabyte's one

Screenshot_2022-02-25_08-14-22.png


Seems to work with this one.
IMG_20220225_082337279.jpg


Have to build the Phytium kernel or something else to test for stability
 
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I just used the SSD That came in the Phytium..
What was the Proplem whit it?

And what for a Window Manager do you use, this dosnt look like the Mate or KDE i use..

Whit Airpods Max, the Jet Engine isnt that loud anymore ^^
 
I just used the SSD That came in the Phytium..
What was the Proplem whit it?

And what for a Window Manager do you use, this dosnt look like the Mate or KDE i use..
No problem with the SSD included with the Phytium. I prefer to keep it unchanged.

I installed XFCE.
 
Ah ok, make sense, and you could then just put in the Stock SSD if the Debian on the Custom SSD not works..
My Attempt was to use the Stock SSD as this Ubuntu Kylin got too much Chinese Bookmarks, so i wantet it to overwrite anyway whit my own Plaine Debian..

I have Mate and KDE installed, and im now using KDE..

I think on Weekend i will try to install some Windows Stuff, Zoom and Itunes or i use it like the last 2 Weeks for Fullscreen Youtube, allthough whit 1080p 60 and the Play Speed on 1,5 times, it might get some issues, or its because of my DSL.. ^^
 
It seems that the 60W powerbrick supplied can be a little short under heavy load. And it's probably even more true when changing some of the internal part (like the SSD?). I would advised everyone to use a 90W powerbrick if possible.

@shouhuanxiaoji : 60W is not enough, lanefu from Armbian dev. team. measure a bit more than 70W under full load.
 
It seems that the 60W powerbrick supplied can be a little short under heavy load. And it's probably even more true when changing some of the internal part (like the SSD?). I would advised everyone to use a 90W powerbrick if possible.

@shouhuanxiaoji : 60W is not enough, lanefu from Armbian dev. team. measure a bit more than 70W under full load.
Any 90W powerbrick will do, or do I need to check if it can supply 90W with 12V?
Because when I read some specs like this 12V/15V/16V/18V/19V/20V@4.5Amp, does that mean it will only deliver 90W with 20V and less watts with lower voltages?
 
Just used my Phythium to join a ZOOM Test Meeting of the Beekeeper Club, worked quite good, even if it was on Firefox which needs a lot of power..
I wantet to use Zoom for Windows over Wine, but when i dit click on the Installer Exe, nothing happened....

And i freeed the PC a bit: Its sits now on top of my Micro Hifi instead of under the TV, maybe its gets now a bit more Air Flow..
at least i can now get much more easy to the Ports..

Instead of the Phythian, i have now "Die großen Deutschen unserer Epoche" (the greatest Germans of our Epoche), under my Screen, not that i would read something, but its good as a Display Stand ^^
 
For Zoom: use the official Zoom for linux 64bits version, it should work fine: got to https://zoom.us/download?os=linux and select "Other Linux OS" / "64 bits" / "gcc 4.7+" => that should download a tar.xz file. Just extract that somewhere, for example with
Code:
cd ~
tar xf ~/Download/zoom_x86_64.tar.xz
To extract the files in "zoom" folder in your home. Then simply use
Code:
cd ~/zoom
./zoom
To launch it...
 
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