CM3588 Plus Fails to Boot with Buildroot Image

[Zee-Dev88]

Dear Rick,

I'm using a CM3588 Plus board with LPDDR5 memory.
I followed the instructions in the repository and successfully built the sdcard.img from the cm3588_csd_v1 branch using Buildroot.
However, after writing the image to an SD card and powering on the board, nothing happens — the board does not seem to boot.
May I ask what needs to be modified? Is there any way to debug or check what’s going wrong?

I'd really appreciate any guidance on how to proceed. If there's anything I can provide or test, please let me know. Thanks in advance for your help!

[rick-heig]

Hello,
I never tried the CM3588 Plus, but I don't see any reason for it not to work or boot, there doesn’t seem to be a major difference with the "non plus" versions I use. ("CM3588+NAS kit" meant "CM3588 & NAS kit", the CM3588+ did not exist at the time I made the doc, I will update the doc, and add changes if needed, based on how it goes with your board).

What do you mean it does not boot ? Did you check the UART serial console ?

To debug check UART console with and withouy SD card and compare the logs to see what is happening.

HDMI output is not supported on my image because it was not yet in mainline Linux at that time, support is coming in newer versions, see https://gitlab.collabora.com/hardware-enablement/rockchip-3588/notes-for-rockchip-3588/-/blob/main/mainline-status.md

So it is normal to have no video output.

With the UART console you should at least see what is happening, if U-Boot starts, if the kernel boots.

Then you can use the device via UART or SSH.

Best regards.
Rick

[Zee-Dev88]

Dear Rick，
Thank you for your reply, and sorry — I’m a beginner. Since the official version supports HDMI, I assumed this version would also output via HDMI by default.

I’d also like to confirm about using the UART console: should I simply connect a USB Type-C cable from the board to my PC? I tried that, but no device was detected. However, I now realize you mentioned that the SD card should be removed before booting — I didn’t notice that before. I’ll give it another try tomorrow.

Thanks a lot for your kind support! I truly appreciate it.

Best regards，
Zee

[rick-heig]

Hello,
No worries, the documentation is a bit sparse as this is a research project, sorry.

For UART you have to use a serial adapter (USB UART) you can find them for about 1$ on Aliexpress or a bit more on other sites e.g., https://www.adafruit.com/product/954

With this you will be able to communicate with the board.

You need to connect the 3 pins on the NAS kit (Debug UART, Tx, Rx, and GND)

This will get you a console (e.g., with picocom or minicom, or Putty on windows)

I am sorry I cannot have this project run on the "official" Linux FriendlyElec provides as it uses a (heavily patched) kernel that is too old (at most 6.1 and this project needs at least 6.7).

In the future when HDMI supoort gets into mainline and this board gets support for it, if I have time, I'll update the project with a graphical output as it would make it much more user friendly, for the moment it is not possible.

Best regards
Rick

[rick-heig]

Alternatively, you could setup the network for the CM3588 with a static IP and connect it directly to your PC with an ethernet cable and configure the network on your PC for that ethernet port accordingly, then SSH into the board with the IP.

In the buildroot project you can change the config for the network here (static IP and gateway) https://github.com/rick-heig/buildroot/blob/cm3588_csd_v1/board/friendlyelec/cm3588-nas/overlay/etc/network/interfaces

The rebuild with make linux-rebuild all

Then SSH with ssh buildroot@<ip you chose>
The password is buildroot, normally you should also be able to login with root.

The SSH config is here (just for info) https://github.com/rick-heig/buildroot/blob/cm3588_csd_v1/board/friendlyelec/cm3588-nas/overlay/etc/ssh/sshd_config

This would allow to connect to the board without UART, but it does not allow to debug any boot problems, we are "blind" without UART, but if the board boots correctly and the network is properly configured, this would allow to login into the Linux on the board.

But everything is easier with the USB UART adapter cable so I would suggest to get one :)

Best regards,
Rick

[Zee-Dev88]

Dear Rick，

Thank you so much for your detailed replies！I truly appreciate your patience and support. Your guidance has been truly helpful and encouraging.I’ll test it out tomorrow. Wishing you the best in your work and everyday life!

Thank you again sincerely.

Best regards,
Zee