H96MaxW2 box (S905W2 Experimental)

[markosc]

Hello, I have an s905w2 TV box H96MAX 4g / 64gb . I can't get it to boot with the generic image, but I can boot it with CoreELEC using the variant s4_s905w2_4g, and booting with USB instead of microSD.

[markosc]

boot, no HDMI image display, and it doesn't detect WiFi and USB 3.0, only USB 2.0,

[LITUATUI]

Hi. I have the same box, have you managed to get HDMI working?

[devmfc]

It looks like these boxes are a bit different than the first generation with S905W2 SOC's.

They will boot, but indeed, no HDMI output, even not with the hack I use for the other S905W2 boxes (different memory address I guess).

WIFI is a real no go. My H96Max W2 box (2G) has some WIFI module which the VENDEV ID points to RDA Microelectronics RDA5991, I never heard of such wifi module and google comes up empty. But maybe the database I use is not correct.. eMMC does work, so does USB2 (both ports) and Ethernet.

When I have time in a few weeks I will take a look at console output and will try to make it work.

But don't expect much from this box... They are really cheap for a reason.

[LITUATUI]

I really like it as it costed me only 20 euros on AliExpress for the 4/64 GB version and it has WiFi 6. It also runs Android TV really well with slimBOXtv firmware. At this price there's nothing better.

Last week I ordered a Transpeed X4 (S905X4 SoC) to play with, maybe I'll get better luck having stable Debian on it.

Thank you for porting Debian to these cheap devices.

[devmfc]

If you just like to tinker with these boxes, they are just fine of course.

You know that S905X4 is also very Experimental?
If you want stable Debian I'd try an S905X3 based box.

Have fun!

[LITUATUI]

Thanks mate, I know that S905X3 would provide better compatibility, but nowadays I don't buy devices without AV1 hardware decoding.

If I can't make Debian and CasaOS run stable on it, I'll just use CoreELEC for the docker containers. CoreELEC runs great on S905X4.

[markosc]

As LITUATUI mentions, I also have that box priced at 20 dollars, with 4GB/64GB of space. While it's interesting to use it with Debian and set it up as a server, what surprises me is that it supposedly has a USB 3.0 port and is colored blue, very similar to the other version, H96 Max (RK3318). Well, upon booting up the system, it only detects a USB 2.0 port and not the 3.0

[denisidoro]

Not sure if it helps, but I'm also able to boot CoreELEC, even though there's no wifi there either

[devmfc]

The goal of my images is not o be a media image. In fact the goal is to have Debian/Ubuntu images with a mainline LTS kernel. CoreElec is a completely different distribution and based on the old (and buggy) vendor kernel. And of course will that kernel support Amlogic hardware better (for now).

The next release of my image will have experimental support for the H96MaxW2 box

[denisidoro]

Perfect! Thanks

[denisidoro]

@devmfc, I've just tried the latest debian build (https://github.com/devmfc/debian-on-amlogic/releases/tag/v6.6.16) and I'm getting a a kernel panic when trying to boot it from a microSD

[denisidoro]

I tried booting it from a USB stick and it worked

[denisidoro]

I was even able to install Home Assistant supervised on it without any issues 👍

[Raviu56]

I can confirm than booting h96max s905w2 4g boot from USB
But aml-multiboot-setup.sh does not work
Wifi does not work, I've used a USB wifi.
I did not try hdmi , I'm using it as headless server.

[devmfc]

@rogerpueyo To get the source, (dts) simply run dtc xyz.dtb > xyz.dts. If dtc is not present apt-get install device-tree-compiler

20 Mhz is reallyyyyyy slooooowww. I'm afraid the mainline driver is not suitable for the newer generation mmc controllers, or I'm missing something in my DTB's. And I'm not going to port the current vendor driver to mainline, these drivers are really.... uh, let's say complicated.

Attached a version with 20Mhz for eMMC. But I'm not going to put that is my images as the default DTB, especially while my H96MaxW2 box AFAICR does work with higher frequencies... I'll have to try that again to confirm that somewhere in the coming weeks.

meson-s4-h96maxw2-50-35-20.zip

[rogerpueyo]

Thanks, @devmfc ,

meson-s4-h96maxw2-50-35-20.dtb works correctly.

To get the source, (dts) simply run dtc xyz.dtb > xyz.dts.

Great, I did it like this, but I got a few warnings. Hence, I was wondering if I was missing anything.

20 Mhz is reallyyyyyy slooooowww.

tvbox:~#dd if=/root/dev-mmcblk1p1.dd of=/dev/mmcblk1p1 status=progress
535015936 bytes (535 MB, 510 MiB) copied, 120 s, 4.5 MB/s

This is the write speed I'm getting at 20 MHz. The source file, on a USB stick, is read at max. 20 MB/s (that shouldn't be the bottleneck).

Please let me know if I can help somehow.

[denisidoro]

Hey, folks! Just wanted to thank you for making progress on this. I'm afraid I'm unable to help, but wanted to let you know that more people will benefit from this.

[denisidoro]

@devmfc, I'm afraid you forgot to include the -slow.dtb in the latest released image. I was unable to boot when uncommenting the h96max_slow line. After some troubleshooting, I copied the dtb linked here into the correct directory and it worked

[devmfc]

Yeah, I know. Sorry. Thanks for letting me know. They will be included in next release.

[markosc]

Can someone confirm if the new update detects USB 3.0?

[LITUATUI]

The port is USB 2.0, don't let the blue color fool you.

[DarKOrange75]

Hello,
I've flashed a usb stick, chose
I successfully booted on a USB stick but now trying to install on eMMC fails:

Current Host disk: [ /dev/sda ]
Target eMMC disk: [ /dev/mmcblk1 ]
Select partition table type [ MSDOS ]
This script will erase all existing partitions and its data on the disk!!
Are you sure y/N ? y
Ok, proceeding...
Start create partition table and filesystems on eMMC [ /dev/mmcblk1 ]...
Backup vendor u-boot
Found: 27
offset: 742391808
size: 2516582400
dev nr name offset size end flags
Start restoring vendor u-boot
dd: fsync failed for '/dev/mmcblk1': Input/output error
Error occured [1], create_partition_table:127, exitting

dmesg:
98.656679] mmcblk1: p1 p2
[ 99.018662] mmcblk1:
[ 99.206787] mmcblk1: p1
[ 99.446115] mmcblk1: p1 p2
[ 99.456820] mmcblk1: p1 p2
[ 100.253209] I/O error, dev mmcblk1, sector 1512 op 0x1:(WRITE) flags 0x4800 phys_seg 63 prio class 2
[ 100.253313] Buffer I/O error on dev mmcblk1, logical block 189, lost async page write
[ 100.253382] Buffer I/O error on dev mmcblk1, logical block 190, lost async page write
[ 100.253440] Buffer I/O error on dev mmcblk1, logical block 191, lost async page write
[ 100.253497] Buffer I/O error on dev mmcblk1, logical block 192, lost async page write
[ 100.253554] Buffer I/O error on dev mmcblk1, logical block 193, lost async page write
[ 100.253610] Buffer I/O error on dev mmcblk1, logical block 194, lost async page write
[ 100.253666] Buffer I/O error on dev mmcblk1, logical block 195, lost async page write
[ 100.253722] Buffer I/O error on dev mmcblk1, logical block 196, lost async page write
[ 100.253779] Buffer I/O error on dev mmcblk1, logical block 197, lost async page write
[ 100.253835] Buffer I/O error on dev mmcblk1, logical block 198, lost async page write
[ 100.461294] I/O error, dev mmcblk1, sector 3024 op 0x1:(WRITE) flags 0x4800 phys_seg 63 prio class 2
[ 100.565894] I/O error, dev mmcblk1, sector 4032 op 0x1:(WRITE) flags 0x4800 phys_seg 63 prio class 2
[ 100.598353] mmcblk1: p1 p2

Any idea on how to fix that?

thank you!

[DarKOrange75]

using meson-s4-h96maxw2-50-35-20.dtb fixed the issue.
Bookworm now installed on the eMMC and working like a charm, thank you for your hard work!

[manu69x]

Hello bro.
Any progress in wifi driver?
In Corelec now wifi works
udevadm info /sys/bus/sdio/devices/*
give

/devices/platform/soc/fe088000.sdio/mmc_host/mmc2/mmc2:2ec5/mmc2:2ec5:1
M: mmc2:2ec5:1
R: 1
U: sdio
V: aicwf_sdio
E: DEVPATH=/devices/platform/soc/fe088000.sdio/mmc_host/mmc2/mmc2:2ec5/mmc2:2ec5:1
E: SUBSYSTEM=sdio
E: DRIVER=aicwf_sdio
E: OF_NAME=wifi
E: OF_FULLNAME=/soc/sdio@fe088000/wifi@1
E: OF_COMPATIBLE_0=brcm,bcm4329-fmac
E: OF_COMPATIBLE_N=1
E: SDIO_CLASS=07
E: SDIO_ID=5449:0145
E: MODALIAS=sdio:c07v5449d0145
E: USEC_INITIALIZED=18386573
E: ID_SDIO_CLASS_FROM_DATABASE=WLAN interface

[devmfc]

I'm not your bro or ho

[manu69x]

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be inappropriate

[devmfc]

Ok, glad to hear.

Anyway, I'm only working on WiFi when I really have nothing else to do (and I'm not a WiFi expert, so I can only fix compile bugs or add some porting). That will most certainly not be the case the next coming half year.

It works in CoreElec (which version btw?), great, but CoreElec is based on a old vendor kernel. My images are based on Mainline LTS. So you only have to port that driver from kernel version 5.4 (or 5.15 in case of CE NO) to 6.6 mainline kernel.
So if you have some time to spare, the needed kernel header files are in the release files. If you get it working I will be more than happy to add it to the images.

[manu69x]

First of all thank you for your great work,
thanks to you we were able to install klipper on this cheap TV box, for a school project, in which we improved an old 3D printer.
I'm not a Linux expert, I can at most follow a few guides, I've never compiled a kernel, but I have some time until September until school reopens.
I looked for some step by step guide explaining how to install this wifi driver, but I couldn't find anything suited to my skills.

[devmfc]

You're welcome.

Unfortunately, you can't just install the driver. With one exception: if there is a ready to use DKMS package (which technically still isn't installing).

Otherwise, most of the cases, you will have to find the source for a working driver, adapt the source to match the kernel you want to use it for, compile (or cross compile when you are compiling on x86) it, find the right firmware , store it at the right place and then hope for it to work.

I don't know which source CE uses, but again, that is an older and different kernel.
I think you'll have the highest chance with this source: aic8800

To install the needed kernel headers: download the headers package from the release files: linux-headers-6.6.41-meson64_20240721_arm64.deb. Install via apt-get install ./linux-headers-6.6.41-meson64_20240721_arm64.deb.

This is all I can do for you. Good luck!

[petesimon]

thanks everyone, especially @devmfc for their hard work. i have a h96 max w2 (2 GB RAM / 16 GB ROM), and i booted ubuntu plucky v6.12.30 / May 25, 2025 from a USB 2.0 stick inserted in the USB 2.0 black port. that works nicely. also booting from the TF/SD slot is possible but not much happens when a slow/cheap card is there. a USB hub, wifi adapter and keyboard are connected to the blue port. Can't get the USB realtek wifi to work either, even though "lsusb" shows the device. I installed the package "xubuntu-desktop" and rebooted and there was a just a blinking cursor __ . Rebooted again via remote SSH and everything went crazy nuts, so that didn't help. I will delete the installation and reinstall as a text headless system only.

Is there a Xorg graphical package that works without re-configuring and tinkering?

[petesimon]

I got the X lxde graphical desktop working via HDMI. see this comment in another thread. Also got pihole working by following this one guide on github and other guides i found in google.