Cubieboard2 + domoticz

[CopyCatz]

After a lot of trying I finally have Domoticz running on the Cubieboard2. Normally the board comes with android on nand flash, you can insert a micro sd for booting altenative operating systems, and it has a sata port for disks. The cubieboard2 has an A20 dual core chip and 1 gig ram.

I did the following:

- wrote debian wheezy image to micro sd from http://www.cubieforums.com/index.php/topic,528.0.html
- setup wheezy using the cubieboard-config script
- transfer rootfs and kernel to flash as explained here http://www.cubieforums.com/index.php/topic,511.0.html

I attached a 16 gig ssd, which is auto mounted at boot in /data. The idea is to run domoticz and it's log on /data (the ssd) to minimize writes on the nand. The nand should be on par with ssd but since it's not replacable I want to go easy on it. So far I've compiled domoticz (compile time 15 minutes, not faster than a raspberry sadly) and tested it. The webinterface is a *lot* faster running on the dual core chip

Now to see if usb and the rfxcom work.

[gizmocuz]

Great news!

Question ( i was thinking about this hardware too ), does it support hardware video decoding? (mpeg2/mpeg4)
As far as i have researched the only device that does this, is the raspberry pi (maybe because of the 'open' broadcom layer)

[CopyCatz]

AllWinner A20, 2x ARM Cortex-A7 MPCore CPU + 2x Mali-400 GPU (Mali-400MP2) + CedarX VPU able to decode 2160p quadHD video.

[tommit01]

@GizMoCuz
And Cubietruck is on the way .. currently they've already built up 40 test samples for their own testers... also A20 but here battery buffered RTC and NAND

http://cubieboard.org/tag/cubietruck/

Hardware Features：

1、AllWinnerTech SOC A20，ARM® Cortex™-A7 Dual-Core，ARM® Mali400 MP2 Complies with OpenGL ES 2.0/1.1
2、1GB/2GB DDR3@480MHz
3、HDMI&VGA 1080P display output on-board
4、10M/100M/1G Ethernet
5、Wifi+BT wireless connection with antenna on-board
6、SATA 2.0 interface support 2.5’ HDD，(for 3.5’ HDD, only need another 12V power input)
7、Storage solution：NAND+MicroSD or TSD+ MicroSD or 2*MicroSD
8、2 x USB HOST，1 x OTG，1 x Toslink (SPDIF Optical)，1 x IR，4 x LEDs，1 Headphone，3 x Keys
9、Power：DC5V @ 2.5A with HDD，support Li-battery & RTC
10、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
11、PCB size：11cm *8cm*1.4mm，very suite for installing a 2.5’ HDD


And next step seems to use A31 (quad core) or above.. just follow thread discussion

[CopyCatz]

Meh thats already looking to much like a full blown pc I can live with the rtc, at least its not a fake hwclock like the pi. Mine is now set via http time server at boot, the rtc takes it from there. I have an arduino rtc still lying around, might solder that on later.

[tommit01]

Hello CopyCatz,
my 1,8 and 2,8 Touch LCD just arrived from Texy ..

Maybe you can post some cubieboard photos?

I prepare some photos for hardware topic..

[tommit01]

Hello CopyCatz
can you please tell what exactly kind of DC plug CubieBoard2 is using ( not MiniUSbB ) I want to have a look for a good power supply 3A ...

Thanks
Tommit01

[CopyCatz]

Cubie recommends the psp adapter, I have one of those so using that one.
http://www.amazon.com/PSP-Home-And-Trav ... B000ASDU72
Runs very stable. I must say a dual core board is excellent as a home automation platform; I tried to run zoneminder and motion on one of my pi's: zoneminder can barely run one camera, motion + kmotion on a pi gives all sorts of weird issues (not starting etc.). But now I have motion + kmotion stable on the cubie with 4 camera's running motion detection and recording at 110% cpu (2 cores = 200%), plus domoticz I do need a bigger SSD now though

[gizmocuz]

Here my findings:

Turns out installation of a firmware is not that easy (that is the fault of the firmware update utility),
after installing lubuntu, i could follow the steps to install domoticz on a raspberry pi.

In fact, the binary install just works, just made the web-update compatible (need to test it on the next release).

Compile time: <15 minutes

Pro:
- Speed
- Memory
- SATA support
- 4GB internal NAND memory, you can also add a micro usb card

Cons:
- Setup
- Price
- Power Usage (2Ampere, = 10 Watt, compared to 2 Watt for the Raspberry Pi)
- No internal temperature sensor
- (not 100% sure, just looking at the basic players) no hardware video decoding/encoding (maybe because of a not open platform?)
- not widely used at the moment, lot of Chinese documentation

Things to investigate:
- GPIO (it has a lot, different way to talk to it)

[CopyCatz]

So I can run the web update now on the cubie? Cool!

[tommit01]

Aren't two Mali 400 hardware en- decoding?

All specs can be read here:

http://linuxgizmos.com/cubieboard2-sbc- ... s-release/

@gizmocuz

Have you measúred power consumption or just calculated...? 2A x 5V

[CopyCatz]

I'm running 4 camera surveillance plus domoticz at 120% cpu (1.2 cores), I don't think I'm at 10W yet...

[tommit01]

And you're using an SSD, aren't you?
I think this 10 W ist max when using normal HDD an all other stuff like USB WLAN stick and usb storage stick or wireless keyboard .. or even usb hub

[epierre]

somehow a bad news for cubie users...

http://www.cubieforums.com/index.php/topic,2505.0.html

[epierre]

For those that want to run a Debian, apart of taking hours and 3 953 128 disk space to compile a correct kernel, I've found a Debian Jessie that has watchdog, temp reading and libudev1 (and much more... default distros on cubie are to be avoided...):

http://www.cubieforums.com/index.php/topic,1275.0.html

[m_g_s_g]

Hi!

I've bought a Cubieboard2 (it's on offer now) to run domoticz on it. I've carefully followed the wiki instructions (I used lubuntu-server-13.08-v1.06 - there are two server version available at the suggested link - and I needed Step 3 to update to Ubuntu 14.10), but once on 13.10, after reboot, when I try to do-release-upgrade I get this error:

Code: Select all

linaro@cubieboard2:~$ sudo do-release-upgrade
from: can't read /var/mail/__future__
/usr/bin/do-release-upgrade: 5: /usr/bin/do-release-upgrade: import: not found
/usr/bin/do-release-upgrade: 6: /usr/bin/do-release-upgrade: Syntax error: word unexpected (expecting ")")
linaro@cubieboard2:~$

Trying to use the do-release-upgrade from Step 2 gives exactly the same result.

With version 13.10, I've tried to install the binary version of domoticz, but when testing it, it gives that error:

Code: Select all

linaro@cubieboard2:~/domoticz$ ./domoticz
./domoticz: error while loading shared libraries: /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libidn.so.11: invalid ELF header
linaro@cubieboard2:~/domoticz$

Other commands also fail with other "error while loading shared libraries" (f.i. mounting a SATA hdd).

Did somebody lately try the installation procedure? By the way, I've installed to the NAND flash, and not to a SD card, if that makes a difference.

What do other CB2 users suggest? Should I start again with the Wheezy server?

Thx.

[epierre]

the lububtu server is nand only... I've opted for a cubian on a sd and am fully satisfied of it

[Derik]

@ Mgsg...

Please give more info...
Nand?
or sd?
What and where do you go wrong

13.08 is not the latest version..?

Code: Select all

[email protected]'s password:
Welcome to Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (GNU/Linux 3.4.43+ armv7l)

 * Documentation:  https://help.ubuntu.com/

What do you have..

[m_g_s_g]

Thanks for your help. After some (after)hours and checking in Cubieboard forums, I've solved my problem. There were a couple of reasons, being the main one that the NAND had not been properly flashed (some files were corrupted).

With PhoenixSuit, when flashing to NAND flash instead of SD card, you have to answer "yes" in Format-Mode (not the default option). This lead to errors in some files, difficult to debug. I completely reinstalled linaro again that way.

Another tip when folliwing Step 3: After changing sources.list I had to reboot for the changes to apply.

Now on 14.04 and Domoticz running (it flies!). I will move my Raspberry config to the Cubieboard. Only will have to maintain the Raspberry for two GPIO Reed sensors attached to my door bells. I will try to move that to the CB2 in the future.

[epierre]

Now on 14.04 and Domoticz running (it flies!). I will move my Raspberry config to the Cubieboard. Only will have to maintain the Raspberry for two GPIO Reed sensors attached to my door bells. I will try to move that to the CB2 in the future.

Funny, I've left it in a raspi for it works well on it but when I have to compile or do something more power hungry, or simply doing something not in "production" I use the cubie, not the raspi.