BCM2835: SPI on Linux 5.10

[Deniz Uğur]

Hi all,

I wanted to ask for some guidance on enabling SPI with Linux 5.10 mainline kernel. I’m trying to use EVL RTOS [1] but even without using the Dovetail interface, the vanilla Linux fails to bring up SPI device. There is no error log on /var/log/syslog so I’m not sure what other form of log I can provide.

I simply configure the kernel with multi_v7_defconfig and compile it using the armhf cross-compiler. After the build, I install the modules, copy the image and appropriate DTB file. On config.txt, I add device_tree and kernel parameters and nothing else. The base image is RaspianOS Lite, so I’ve enabled the SPI interface via raspi-config too. I have also tried it on Debian’s and Ubuntu’s RPi image but none of them changed anything. I think there is a configuration problem or SPI isn’t supported on Linux 5.10 (which I highly doubt). I haven’t touched the defconfig because SPI was already enabled in the config.

I’ve tested this on RPi 3B and I’m going to test it on 4B this evening.

I’m highly interested in the comments you guys have on this subject and any possible solution to bring up the SPI device.

Thanks in advance.
Deniz.

[1]: https://evlproject.org/