A series of write-ups about pulling forgotten, abandoned, or manufacturer-orphaned hardware out of the parts bin and getting it running on current software again — mainline kernels, current bootloaders, sensible userspaces, full hardware support — and doing it in a way someone else can reproduce.
second-boot: the bootloader you write the second time around — when the vendor is gone, the BSP is dead, and the only thing keeping the board alive is the recovery path nobody at the original company thought you would use.
Each entry is a self-contained subdirectory under projects/.
Same approach across the series: figure out the recovery / FEL / SWD /
TFTP / serial-bootloader path first, then climb up the stack until the
device is actually useful.
| Project | Device | SoC | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
pocketchip |
Next Thing Co. PocketCHIP (2017) | Allwinner R8 (sun5i, Cortex-A8) | bringup | Mainline U-Boot, mainline kernel, OpenWrt rootfs, FEL recovery, USB-gadget SSH over OTG. |
(More entries will land here. Open an issue if you'd like to suggest a target, or read on for how to donate hardware.)
Every project in this repo follows the same playbook:
- Find the recovery path before doing anything else. On Allwinner SoCs that's FEL (USB BootROM); on Rockchip it's RKDevTool / Maskrom; on NXP it's SDP; on Espressif it's the ROM bootloader UART; on classic Intel it's the BIOS/UEFI shell. Knowing how to unbrick is the prerequisite to permission to brick.
- Boot a current upstream U-Boot from RAM via the recovery path. No writes to the device's storage yet. Iterate freely.
- Boot a current mainline kernel + minimal initramfs into RAM. Validate enough hardware to know we have a real system: clocks, RAM training, USB, network.
- Layer a real userspace on top. OpenWrt for hacky-tinker handhelds (small, ssh-default, sane defaults); Debian when the device needs a real glibc desktop.
- Only then, commit to the device's persistent storage. NAND, eMMC, SPI flash, mSATA — whatever it is, you write to it once you've already booted the same image from RAM successfully across several cold power cycles.
- Document the whole thing in the project's README so someone with the same device in their drawer can reproduce it end to end.
second-boot/
README.md this file — series-level
LICENSE
projects/
pocketchip/
README.md device-specific writeup
configs/ kernel + bootloader config fragments
dts/ device-tree additions
openwrt/ rootfs overlays, package selection
docs/ flashing / recovery procedures
scripts/ driven build pipeline
tools/ git submodules (e.g. sunxi-tools)
<future-project>/
...
Each project subdirectory is roughly self-contained: it has its own build pipeline, its own pinned upstream refs, and its own docs. Cross-project sharing is fine when it makes sense (a shared bring-up checklist, say), but the bias is toward "you can read just one subdirectory and know what's going on."
If you have a dead, obsolete, or just-forgotten piece of hardware you'd like to see resurrected, send it.
Strong candidates:
- Single-board computers whose vendor went under (Next Thing, Hardkernel pre-Odroid, original Beagleboard variants, etc.)
- Handhelds with custom Linux (GPD, GP2X, Pandora, old smartphones)
- Networking gear that's still hardware-capable but software-abandoned
- E-readers with proprietary firmware
- Anything with an Allwinner / Rockchip / TI / NXP / Espressif SoC that hasn't seen a software update in three or more years
Open an issue with what you have, DM @DatanoiseTV, or ship it cold — contact channels in the GitHub profile. Interesting devices become entries; the boring ones at least get tested and returned if requested.
All build glue, scripts, configs, and DTS additions in this repository are MIT licensed — see LICENSE. Upstream components used during builds (U-Boot, Linux, OpenWrt, Debian) retain their own licenses.