Hello There,
I have tried three image building techniques for building Armbian Debian/GNU Linux Trixie with kernels for 6.12, 6.12 RT, and 6.18.
Here is the finality of my decisions. Stick with the 6.12 kernel with this command if you are not so Armbian savvy.
./compile.sh BOARD=beagley-ai RELEASE=trixie BUILD_DESKTOP=no BUILD_MINIMAL=yes KERNEL_CONFIGURE=no
If you know your way around Armbian and understand menuconfig a bit more than I do now, make sure the KERNEL_CONFIGURE=no is listed in the above command. I will keep trying but for this morning, I am out of ideas so far.
I was trying to build the images available without further configuration.
For my purpose of building the images, I needed USB and networking without using a HDMI PCB and/or extra USB ports for the keyboard and mouse which may or may not work. I have not tested the HDMI just yet on kernel 6.12. I also have not tested keyboard/mouse combinations yet either.
Still, all in all, kernel 6.12 with the above command builds like the rest of the images and this one worked for me.
I am going to research what exactly is needed to get USB working in the kernel for building with menuconfig soon and I will try to report back.
I am trying a Cinnamon-Armbian image now. Reports and findings along the way!
Update
It works. Here are some details…
# After an update/upgrade
uname -a: Linux beagley-ai 6.12.49-vendor-k3-beagle
#1 SMP PREEMPT Sat Nov 1 23:35:52 CDT 2025 aarch64 GNU/Linux
cat os-release:
PRETTY_NAME="Armbian-unofficial 26.05.0-trunk sid"
NAME="Debian GNU/Linux"
VERSION_CODENAME=forky
ID=debian
HOME_URL="https://www.armbian.com/"
SUPPORT_URL="https://forum.armbian.com"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://www.armbian.com/bugs"
ARMBIAN_PRETTY_NAME="Armbian-unofficial 26.05.0-trunk sid"
I got the Cinnamon image flashed to the micro SD Card and it is placed in the booted BeagleY-AI but I am not receiving a display just yet.
Off to reboot!
There must be a trick of the trade for HDMI to work. I will keep looking into it.
To make USB work you need to correct the device tree blob. The one that comes with armbian does not work and you need to tweak a bit to make it work.
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Oh. I will research and maybe get it working. Right now, no clue as to how to tweak it a bit but I will check some ideas.
Odd Updates from Me Once More
&usbss0 {
ti,vbus-divider;
status = "okay";
};
&usb0 {
dr_mode = "otg";
usb-role-switch;
};
&usb0_phy_ctrl {
bootph-all;
};
&usbss1 {
pinctrl-names = "default";
pinctrl-0 = <&main_usb1_pins_default>;
ti,vbus-divider;
status = "okay";
};
&usb1 {
dr_mode = "host";
maximum-speed = "super-speed";
phys = <&serdes0_usb_link>;
phy-names = "cdns3,usb3-phy";
#address-cells = <1>;
#size-cells = <0>;
pinctrl-names = "default";
pinctrl-0 = <&usb_hub>;
status = "okay";
/* 2.0 hub on port 1 */
hub_2_0: hub@1 {
compatible = "usb451,8142";
reg = <1>;
peer-hub = <&hub_3_0>;
reset-gpios = <&main_gpio0 32 GPIO_ACTIVE_LOW>;
vdd-supply = <&vdd_3v3>;
};
/* 3.0 hub on port 2 */
hub_3_0: hub@2 {
compatible = "usb451,8140";
reg = <2>;
peer-hub = <&hub_2_0>;
reset-gpios = <&main_gpio0 32 GPIO_ACTIVE_LOW>;
vdd-supply = <&vdd_3v3>;
};
};
I have been reading some and learning about DTC .dtsi and .dts files but from beagleboard.org and not other sources. That is not true entirely. I typed that out and then thought of some mild research that went into simple-bus.
Now, I still believe that cdns3 is off limits no matter what that file description states from what I read from openbeagle.org.
Still and now with Armbian philosophies and specifications on building the Armbian appliance part to the image, I am reluctant.
I can try. I will take time out again for other forms of building around the BeagleY-AI. It is a lot more complicated than just slathering some .dtsi and .dts literacy together. I think if I take some items, source code and other bits from beagleboard.org and their gitlab instance, I give back to them by allowing them to hold my data found - whether it works or not is up to me for the time being - because most of the data is from them.
Something like that… I was reading some and I fall prey too often to trying. An endgame of trying seems to be most of what I do now for whatever reason. Reluctance.
Anyway, is simple-bus an okay method to use for using USB 2 and USB 3 for building around specified kernels while adhering to DTS specifications?
@Ankit_Raj , so there is some sort of USB DTS set of files in the Armbian set up that requires altering… A-Okay. Okay, all for now. I cannot wait for replies or hate mail!
Anyway, do I need to rebuild the kernel once the DTS files are valid and working?
For some reason, I have talked myself in to building or rebuilding everything from scratch once the DTS files are set.
I see what armbian offers. I will need to start from scratch (again). Anyway, where are the build steps for the BeagleY-AI in general?
I saw a u-boot but no Linux. Is the beagleboard.org Linux A-Okay for the BeagleY-AI?
My silly self built the 7.x.x kernel and tried to push it to Armbian willy-nilly. Blah.
k3-am67a-beagley-ai.dtb (95.9 KB)
@silver2row Attached is my working DTB file. You can decompile it and compare it with yours to see the differences. Alternatively, if you don’t want to break your head over it, you can just swap it with the one currently in your boot directory. Let me know if it works for you!
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There’s no need to rebuild or tweak the kernel. I already compared its configuration with a working setup and didn’t find any discrepancies. The issue is entirely within the DTB, and fixing that resolved it for me.
@Ankit_Raj ,
sorry here but can you post the .dts file on this forum and let me look over it?
The reason being…
- I have been burned before today with downloads over the Internet.
- I would rather discuss it than just grab your ready-to-go DTB file.
- Since we really do not know each other than this forum, I am a bit skeptical for now.
Please reply when you find time.
@silver2row Here’s the dts file, hope this helps!
k3-am67a-beagley-ai.dts (116.9 KB)
1 Like
Right and I understand…
What I thought you would do is to place the .dts file on this forum in triple backticks so I and others can review it. If this is not possible, okay. I understand.
@Ankit_Raj , I am not discussing the downloadable .dts but the .dts to review in plain text posted to these forums.