Kernel modules for uConsole/CM4

uConsole
1

Hi there,

i am not really new in this forum. i was reading it for some time after i bought my uConsole. But now i have some questions. so i created an account… :face_with_peeking_eye:

i plan to use different distros on my uConsole. At first i want to replace the CM4-Lite with another CM4 (8GB RAM / 32GB flashmemory).

But I’ve some questions about the neccessary drivers. Which drivers are needed for

  • display
  • keyboard
  • keybacklight
  • trackball
    Are there some ready to use modules in the mainline-kernel or in the Repos (Debian, SuSE, Gentoo, Crux, Slackware, Kali/Parrot)
    I am not afraid to configure and compile my own kernel, but if there are some ready to use dkms modules i will use it :wink:

next question, because my CM4-Lite is broken, i will replace it with a more powerful CM4 with flashmemory. does the uConsole support such a module?

thanks and greetings from austria

2

The uConsole will work with a CM4 with eMMC. (flash memory) You will need a separate carrier board to flash the image to the storage, the uConsole can’t do it. Most of the drivers and overlays are not mainlined, so you’ll need to add them and recompile.
Here’s what’s needed: panel, panel backlight, clockwork overlays
There are some other improvements to upstreamed drivers made by the community that are not upstreamed but you may want to add.

1 Like
3

thank you for this fast answer!
good, so i will order my spare cm4 without eMMC (i hoped for faster speed)
I looked on my disassembled uConsole? I see four pins from keyboard module - i thinks its USB?

do you have some links for the overlays?

Thanks!

4

The keyboard is just USB on the pogo pins, no drivers needed.
Here’s a link to my GitHub that has the drivers and overlays needed, you should be able to find them on the first 2 commits.
You’re not missing much with the eMMC on the CM4 it runs at USB2 speeds like the SD card reader so there’s no speed benefits from having it.

1 Like
5

I started my console on a cm4 with emmc. I really like it. I tried it with a lite cm4 once; the emmc version is a bit snappier. The trade off is using an ioboard to load the os to the emmc. Simply changing sd cards for oses would be handy. The sd card on the console won’t work if you have an emmc board as the sd lanes are used for emmc. @Rex bookworm os is really good. Stay away from chromium browser it’s a resource hog.

6

Thanks ro @Rex 's repo we can do as simple as something that:

git clone https://github.com/ak-rex/ClockworkPi-linux --branch rpi-6.6.y --single-branch uc-rpi-6.6.y
cd uc-rpi-6.6.y
git remote add upstream https://github.com/raspberrypi/linux.git --track rpi-6.6.y
git remote -v
git fetch upstream
git merge upstream/rpi-6.6.y -m "Merge upstream"
git diff upstream/rpi-6.6.y > ../0001-clockwork.patch

To get the patch you can try applying to upstream yourself (it normally works with no big issues).

1 Like