HDMI not working

[tpwrules]

I cannot get HDMI to work under NixOS on my Orange Pi 5 Plus with 32G of RAM.

I am using the latest UEFI firmware here with a config essentially identical to the demo Colmena one provided in this repo (including the nixos-rk3588.nixosModules.boards.orangepi5plus.core module, and on the same nixpkgs version as this repo).

The UEFI firmware menu and GRUB show up on HDMI fine but once the kernel starts I lose signal. I can interact with the kernel fine over Ethernet and console UART (except for issue #37). I don't know why the HDMI doesn't work. /proc/cmdline appears to have the relevant command line options still. I tried setting up a display server and that did not help either.

cc @Naxdy who apparently had this working recently

[tpwrules]

HDMI works fine using tag 2024032400

[Naxdy]

I can confirm that it does work for me using the 6.1.75 kernel and mainline mesa. However, the monitor I'm testing won't recognize the device unless I manually specify the resolution to be of an aspect ratio of 16:9. If I try my monitor's native aspect ratio (32:9), it actually won't recognize it, which I think is weird. However, I was able to observe the exact same behavior with my RPi5, so I think this is more something to do with my monitor than with the device.

Which output device did you test with ?

[tpwrules]

I have now tried several monitors from various brands, and also a couple HDMI switchers/converters. I can't get a picture after the kernel starts with any device, but all work fine in TianoCore and GRUB.

Can you share your working configuration flake?

[Naxdy]

My config is part of a huge monorepo with many custom modules, but I'll try to paste in the relevant parts here:

My kernel + graphics setup (haven't updated this repo's ref yet):

let
  modDirVersion = "6.1.75";

  linux-src = pkgs.fetchFromGitHub {
    owner = "Joshua-Riek";
    repo = "linux-rockchip";
    rev = "5c43412639fd134f0ba690de2108eaa7ea349e2a";
    hash = "sha256-aKm/RQTRTzLr8+ACdG6QW1LWn+ZOjQtlvU2KkZmYicg=";
  };

  panthor-base = "aa54fa4e0712616d44f2c2f312ecc35c0827833d";
  panthor-head = "c81ebd8e12b64a42a6efd68cc0ed018b57d14e91";

  panthor-patch = pkgs.fetchurl {
    url = "https://github.com/hbiyik/linux/compare/${panthor-base}...${panthor-head}.patch";
    hash = "sha256-/5SvlGsgHbn1i68+GASOeNZmxoZiIt280L6iUFz3MFU=";
  };

  kernel = (pkgs.linuxManualConfig {
    inherit modDirVersion;

    version = "${modDirVersion}-rockchip-joshua";

    src = linux-src;

    kernelPatches = [{
      name = "panthor.patch";
      patch = panthor-patch;
      extraConfig = { };
    }];

    configfile = ./wearable-pc/kernel_config;

    config = import ./wearable-pc/conf.nix;
  }).overrideAttrs (old: {
    nativeBuildInputs = (old.nativeBuildInputs or [ ]) ++ [
      pkgs.ubootTools
    ];
  });
in
{
  hardware.graphics.package = lib.mkForce pkgs.mesa.drivers; # note this is from `nixos-unstable`, so 24.2.4
  boot.kernelPackages = lib.mkForce (pkgs.linuxPackagesFor kernel);
#...

I'm using systemd-boot:

boot.loader.systemd-boot.enable = true;
boot.loader.efi.canTouchEfiVariables = true;
boot.kernelParams = [ "boot.shell_on_fail" ];

My current nixpkgs revision on the device is a3c0b3b21515f74fd2665903d4ce6bc4dc81c77c

[tpwrules]

I tried switching to systemd-boot without making any other changes and HDMI comes up perfectly first time. Strange! It also fixes the log spam in #37 .

Not sure why the example config uses GRUB, I prefer systemd-boot anyway and was going to switch over once I figured out HDMI. This might pose a problem for the SD images and stuff, but the demo at least should probably be switched over (and the underlying issue fixed). I would bet there is something with device trees.

[cessationoftime]

I suspect the original demo defaulted to grub because the raw-EFI image used comes from nixos-generators and that is configured to use grub by default. I am using systemd as well, though I didn't experience any problems when I used grub with the Orange Pi 5 Plus 32Gb. I considered adding options for systemd to the demo when I rewrote it, but I wrote it before I was sure systemd was going to work.