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Published 20 hours ago • verified publisher icon armbian

Add board Luckfox Nova W

Open nikvoid opened this issue 5 months ago • 1 comments

Description

Add initial support for board Luckfox Nova W. Luckfox Nova W is recently produced board on SoC Rockchip RK3308B: 4 x Cortex-A35 CPU, 512 RAM, 8 GB eMMC. It also has Ethernet, WIFI & BT, USB-A and USB-C ports, soldered microphone. Product page: https://www.luckfox.com/Luckfox-Nova?ci=646 image

But beware: it is very fresh board, has almost no documentation and only buildroot SDK with kernel 5.10 is available from vendor.

Documentation

I decided to create separate directory for vendor kernel patches. This kernel must be the same as rk35xx-vendor-6.1, but this SoC is not RK35XX. Used U-Boot is mainline. Instead of DKMS AIC8800 driver I enabled the one from kernel sources, because I needed to apply patches to it. And image builds faster than with DKMS.

UART4 is used for serial console and by proprietary firmware blobs.

How Has This Been Tested?

  • [ ] eMMC does not work in mainline kernel, current and edge
  • [x] Boot Noble 24.04 with vendor kernel rk6.1
  • [x] USB host and peripheral is working
  • [x] WIFI is working
  • [x] SPI May have quirks, though spidev-test appears to be working
  • [ ] SPI1-M1 MISO is not receiving data
  • [x] SPI2 is working

Checklist:

Please delete options that are not relevant.

  • [x] My code follows the style guidelines of this project
  • [x] I have performed a self-review of my own code
  • [x] I have commented my code, particularly in hard-to-understand areas
  • [x] My changes generate no new warnings
  • [x] Any dependent changes have been merged and published in downstream modules

nikvoid avatar Jun 16 '25 11:06 nikvoid

Walkthrough

Adds support for the Luckfox Nova W (Rockchip RK3308B) by introducing a board configuration (config/boards/luckfox-nova-w.csc) that specifies boot/kernel/runtime settings, kernel source/versions, firmware blobs, and board-specific tweaks. Adds a Rockchip64 U-Boot bootscript for ttyS4 (config/bootscripts/boot-rockchip64-ttyS4.cmd) implementing armbianEnv merging, DT overlay/fixup handling, and kernel boot logic. Adds a vendor Linux kernel config (config/kernel/linux-luckfox-nova-w-rk3308-vendor.config) tailored for RK3308 with extensive drivers and options.

Estimated code review effort

🎯 3 (Moderate) | ⏱️ ~20–30 minutes

Reason: multiple new files with moderate logic density (board config functions and a nontrivial U-Boot bootscript) and a large kernel config file. Changes are heterogeneous (init scripts, shell functions, config content) requiring separate checks per file but limited in file count.

Possibly related PRs

  • armbian/build#8047 — touches RK3308 board configuration and shares boot-related variables (BOOTBRANCH_BOARD, BOOTPATCHDIR, BOOT_SCENARIO).
  • armbian/build#8447 — adds post_family_tweaks/post_family_* logic for AIC8800 wireless firmware handling similar to this PR.
  • armbian/build#8272 — introduces unified rockchip64 bootscript behavior (armbianEnv merging, DT overlays/fixups) related to the new ttyS4 bootscript here.

Suggested labels

BSP

Suggested reviewers

  • clee
  • joekhoobyar
  • brentr
  • rpardini
  • pyavitz
  • leggewie
  • igorpecovnik

[!TIP]

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📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between bb9471eab5fc23c904fd5f8ae5eca369e02e63e9 and 2c80e8e55c4de62b9e392f98a00e8b5a9460be4e.

📒 Files selected for processing (2)
  • config/boards/luckfox-nova-w.csc (1 hunks)
  • config/kernel/linux-luckfox-nova-w-rk3308-vendor.config (1 hunks)
🚧 Files skipped from review as they are similar to previous changes (2)
  • config/boards/luckfox-nova-w.csc
  • config/kernel/linux-luckfox-nova-w-rk3308-vendor.config
✨ Finishing Touches
🧪 Generate unit tests
  • [ ] Create PR with unit tests
  • [ ] Post copyable unit tests in a comment

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coderabbitai[bot] avatar Jun 16 '25 11:06 coderabbitai[bot]

@nikvoid are you still interested to get your work merged?

leggewie avatar Aug 17 '25 08:08 leggewie

Yes. I made some of requested changes, but not sure what to do about kernel patch directory. I cannot test patches on other boards, so do I need to rename directory to rk3308-rockchip-something?

nikvoid avatar Aug 17 '25 11:08 nikvoid

config/bootscripts/boot-rockchip64-ttyS4.cmd

Also dedicated bootloader script just for this board is not acceptable. We already have a maintaining nightmare and @djurny is trying to come out with some generic solution. Perhaps he can provide some tips how to address this part. Adding new board should have as minimal impact on common things as possible.

igorpecovnik avatar Aug 17 '25 14:08 igorpecovnik

@nikvoid Thank you for your work. As you can see, it is not easy. And supporting a new board can only ever be done if it doesn't break other boards. The onerous is on the new entrant. Keep asking questions and also keep asking for help to get this done. Don't be discouraged.

leggewie avatar Aug 29 '25 17:08 leggewie

config/bootscripts/boot-rockchip64-ttyS4.cmd

Also dedicated bootloader script just for this board is not acceptable. We already have a maintaining nightmare and @djurny is trying to come out with some generic solution. Perhaps he can provide some tips how to address this part. Adding new board should have as minimal impact on common things as possible.

A quick look at the bootscript shows only a change in the serial device. Next week I will have the time to take a good look at this.

djurny avatar Aug 30 '25 06:08 djurny

@nikvoid I've checked out your branch and built this image. It does boot, USB and WiFi work! Congrats! There are lots of evil looking messages in the kernel log from the WiFi driver. and SDcard reader does not seem to work.

Have you gotten any insight as to why the vendor kernel is required to access the board's EMMC? Is that the only reason for we need the vendor kernel?

brentr avatar Sep 28 '25 09:09 brentr

I just tried all kernel branches and only vendor booted. I did not check SD card so it's surprise for me that it is not working. Maybe some devicetree requires some tuning?

P.S. I'm too busy with other things right now, so probably will be inactive on this PR for some time.

nikvoid avatar Sep 28 '25 17:09 nikvoid