April 14, 2026, 04:30:19 PM

Recent posts

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#1
ESP32 / Re: Is anyone using the ESP32-...
Last post by tonytero - Today at 03:45:41 PM
Hi,

Thanks for the quick reply. As you suggest, I think this may be a problem with the overlay and I am working on reducing things to the bare minimum to get a clean build, with my own overlay file.

Still, if anyone has an example project to use as a reference, it would be really helpful.

Thanks,

-- Tony T
#2
ESP32 / Re: Is anyone using the ESP32-...
Last post by LubOlimex - Today at 08:17:12 AM
Are you using the config for ESP32-EVB as explained here: https://docs.zephyrproject.org/latest/boards/olimex/olimex_esp32_evb/doc/index.html

Maybe check the overlays for the board and see if the pinout is proper. ESP32-EVB uses GPIO0 for Ethernet clock.

Report to the Zephyr GitHub the issue and if you want to move faster maybe create own overlay for the Ethernet for ESP32-EVB with own declarations.
#3
FPGA / Re: Niceprog: new programmer f...
Last post by LubOlimex - Today at 08:10:40 AM
Nice, thank you for this project and sharing it!
#4
ESP32 / Is anyone using the ESP32-EVB ...
Last post by tonytero - April 13, 2026, 07:49:15 PM
Hello All,

I was wondering if anyone is using the ESP32-EVB with Zephyr? It seems to be supported, but I've run into problems getting the wired Ethernet interface to work.

Code Select
The message that I get during the build is:
warning: ETH_ESP32 (defined at drivers/ethernet/Kconfig.esp32:6) was assigned the value 'y' but got the value 'n'. Check these unsatisfied dependencies: DT_HAS_ESPRESSIF_ESP32_ETH_ENABLED (=n). See http://docs.zephyrproject.org/latest/kconfig.html#CONFIG_ETH_ESP32 and/or look up ETH_ESP32 in the menuconfig/guiconfig interface. The Application Development Primer, Setting Configuration Values,
and Kconfig - Tips and Best Practices sections of the manual might be helpful too.
[/size]

I haven't been able to find much information on the DT_HAS_ESPRESSIF_ESP32_ETH_ENABLED option. I was wondering if anyone had, or knew of, a working example of a Zephyr project using Ethernet that they could share?

Thanks,

-- Tony T
#5
TERES DIY Laptop / Anyone wants my Teres 1?
Last post by khumarahn - April 12, 2026, 02:22:13 PM
Hi all. Wonder if anyone still reads this forum... I'm moving, getting rid of things I haven't been using (which means almost everything). Does anyone want my Teres? I would sell it for your own price + shipping.
#6
FPGA / Niceprog: new programmer for I...
Last post by olin - April 11, 2026, 07:53:24 PM
I just wanted to let you know I made a new programmer for the ICE40HX8K-EVB board and possibly for other ICE40 FPGAs. It is called Niceprog and it is based on ESP32-S2 or ESP32-S3 MCU. I made it because I wanted to program my ICE40HX8K-EVB board by a cheap MCU I had in my spare part drawer, but the Iceprog Arduino source code available on Olimex product page did not work for me.
The project is opensource and can be found here: https://github.com/ole00/niceprog

Here are the features of Niceprog:
    * communicates via USB CDC serial line
    * uses RLE compression for faster upload of bitstreams
    * uses CRC checks for data transfers
    * supports up to 4 multi boot partitions for ICE40 FPGAs (cold boot). Olimex dev board has support for the feature - there are 2 buttons for the bitstream selection
    * auto creates multi boot partition table for ICE40 FPGAs
    * automatic erase of written flash blocks (no need to erase the chip before writing)
    * read, write, verify, identify flash chip commands
    * execute ICE40 FPGA stream without writing it to flash
    * supports external pass-through UART so that Niceprog serves as an USB-to-UART interface.
    *automatic switching between external pass-through UART and flash operations.
    * PCB for convenient programming of Olimex ICE40HX8K-EVB board

Performance:
    * writes and verifies simple IC40HX8k streams (~132 kbytes) in less than 3 seconds.
    * executes a simple IC40HX8k stream (~132 kbytes) in about a second.

I hope you find it useful.
#7
A64 / Re: Debian GNU/Linux 13 (Trixi...
Last post by LubOlimex - April 10, 2026, 02:19:00 PM
About hte part that you need to remove the SD card - I think it is the only way (or have corrupted or card that doesn't have valid image to boot from). It is related to the priority of boot in the eGON bootloder:

https://linux-sunxi.org/BROM#A10.2FA20
#8
A64 / Debian GNU/Linux 13 (Trixie) o...
Last post by Gast-2026-04-08 - April 08, 2026, 05:01:39 PM
In case anyone is interested, here is a summary of how to bring Debian GNU/Linux 13.4.0 on A64-Olinuxino (Rev. H). Don't get your expectations too high, there remain two problems (Ethernet and graphics-performance, I guess), but maybe these ring a bell for someone, and maybe this someone can give a solution. Furthermore, everything I don't need is untested (GPIO, for example).

I may be a litte bit too detailed for some of you, but it may help others (some hints would have saved me some time; I started the first Olinuxino less than two weeks ago). At the end of this text, there are two references to the Debian-intallation-guide; in case you are new and want some context for trying to understand what we are doing here.

For the preparation, we (obviously) don't work on the A64-Olinuxino, but on another GNU/Linux-computer ("other computer", in the following).



*** Other computer ***

We need the following files (you may choose a different mirror-server for the first three, of course):

The net-installation (netboot/netinst) didn't run through due to a problem with Ethernet (see below), so I used this way.

Put the debian-13.4.0-arm64-DVD-1.iso on an USB-stick with ext4 (format and copy the file, no need for transfer the file with dd).

Generate the complete installation-image for the SD-card (you are welcome to use something else than dd):

Code Select
zcat firmware.a64-olinuxino.img.gz partition.img.gz > hd-media.img
dd if=hd-media.img of=/dev/<SD-card> bs=8K status=progress
sync



*** A64-Olinuxino ***

Put the SD-card in your A64-Olinuxino, attach the installation-USB-stick and another USB-stick and power the device. Install the operating-system onto the other USB-stick.



*** Other computer ***

After installation, put the SD-card into the other computer. Now put the pure (without installer) U-Boot onto the SD-card (this will erase 1 GB of the SD-card, so no confusing remains of the hd-media.img in hexdump):

Code Select
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/<SD-card> bs=1M count=1K status=progress
sync
gunzip a64-olinuxino.img.gz
dd if=a64-olinuxino.img of=/dev/<SD-card>
sync

(If you installed the operating-sytem onto the SD-card, you will need to adapt the previous step to not overwrite the partition-table and filesystem; for that, skip the first dd and append "seek=1 skip=1 bs=8K" to the second dd.)

Take the SD-card out and put it in again (so that the partition-table gets recognised). We put a filesystem onto the partition that is on the SD-card (the a64-olinuxino.img included a partition-table), so that we can later alter the U-Boot-configuration and save these changes:

Code Select
mkfs.vfat /dev/<SD-card>1     # Don't forget the partition-number 1
sync

(If you installed the operating-sytem onto the SD-card, you should skip the previous step.)



*** A64-Olinuxino ***

Put the SD-card in your A64-Olinuxino, remove the installation-USB-stick (the other USB-stick remains; the one with your operating system) and power the device. Interrupt the boot-process. In the U-Boot-console, enter:

Code Select
setenv bootargs console=tty1
setenv bootcmd run bootcmd_usb0
saveenv
reset

Omitting the first command may lead to no output via HDMI.

(If you installed the operating-sytem onto the SD-card, adapt the second setenv accordingly.)

The system should boot. During the first boot, you may encouter a message about Apparmor. Stay calm, it will vanish (at least here it did, after a few minutes).

We are finished.



There are, as initially written, (at least) two problems:

First, the GUI feels a bit slow (more than a bit). This is just a wild guess, but top reports a high cpu-load for Xorg, so maybe a missing driver. (I may be terribly wrong with this.)

The second problem is the Ethernet-connection. After the first few megabytes, the throughput drops to less than 100 KB/s. And stays that way. It does not stop, it just gets really slow. I encountered the same phenomenon when I first tried to install via netboot/netinst. During installation, the first operations went through (getting the package-lists and getting the first packages), but then it turned incredibly slow. The system did not hang, it responded normally. But the Ethernet-connection appeared to be slow (but no timeout).



I don't plan to look any further into this (at least not at the moment); Olimex released a new version of Olimage, based on Debian 12 (Bookworm), three days ago, so the end of support for Debian 11 (Bullseye) in August 2026 is not a problem any more.



In case you are wondering, why not just use the U-Boot-file a64-olinuxino.img.gz (instead of the hd-media.img), transfer the debian-13.4.0-arm64-DVD-1.iso with dd (not just copy in a filesystem) to an USB-stick and install from that USB-stick: I cannot say for sure, maybe I ran into the problem of a black screen during the start of GNU/Linux, which could be solved with "setenv bootargs console=tty1" in dem U-Boot, but I discovered that later, and I didn't try it again.

Helpful may also be
https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Allwinner

You may also want to take a look at section 3.6.2 in
https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/armhf/ch03s06en.html
and section 5.1.5 in
https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/armhf/ch05s01en.html
(the description is missing in the intallation-guide for arm64, so look in the one for armhf).



Appendix (2026-04-10, original post was 2026-04-08):

In the meantime, I realised that the problem with the slow GUI may not be graphics-related, but simply a problem with the reading-performance of SD-cards (even with not the cheapest). I had the problem with slow GUI too with the Olimage based on Bookworm, and after olinuxino-sd-to-emmc it improved drastically, so maybe this will also help with the way described above.

Hint: After olinuxino-so-to-emmc, you have to remove the SD-card, otherwise GNU/Linux will boot from the SD-card. At least I didn't manage to convince the U-Boot to start GNU/Linux from the internal flash-memory. (As I'm writing this, maybe "run bootcmd_mmc1" would be the solution; I looked at a totally different place for a solution.) Removing the SD-card may seem obvious; yes, it is, if you think of it. But you may not think of it. I didn't in the first place.
#9
FPGA / Re: SPI Programming Sequence f...
Last post by LubOlimex - April 07, 2026, 08:14:26 AM
Yes, this is expected way to reliably be able to program via SPI. This is mentioned in our guides, for example when using OLIMEXINO-32U4 to re-program the board via Arduino IDE:

https://github.com/OLIMEX/iCE40HX1K-EVB/tree/master/programmer/olimexino-32u4%20firmware

Notice this part in the README.md:

"BUT+RST to start USB to Serial Hold BUT down until last restart, i.e. for a rather long time. Think of BUT as a shift-button to RST, but that must be held down a long time after RST has been released.

This is useful when developing FPGA-projects that use serial communication with the computer that you used to program it with. You don't have to buy an extra USB to serial converter or use an extra USB cable or port."
#10
A20 / Re: update to Debian 12 (Bookw...
Last post by gregh - April 06, 2026, 05:23:24 PM
It seems that there are Olimex bookworm images now:

https://images.olimex.com/release/a20/

It also seems that they contain only the old kernel versions from Bullseye:

https://repository.olimex.com/dists/bookworm/main/binary-armhf/Packages

How secure are those old kernels?

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