Software
Software stack and architecture of the network player
Software
The firmware is a fully custom Linux distribution assembled with Buildroot. It bundles the bootloader, the kernel, a UBIFS rootfs and a small recovery initramfs, all built from sources and reproducible from the mds-builder repository.
Stack at a glance
| Layer | Software |
|---|---|
| SoC bootloader | Allwinner BootROM (mask ROM) |
| Stage 1 | U-Boot SPL |
| Stage 2 | U-Boot 2026.04 (custom devicetree + env) |
| Kernel | Linux 6.x with custom DTS and a handful of patches |
| Rootfs | Buildroot 2026.02.x, UBIFS, musl libc |
| Recovery | Initramfs built from the mds_network_player_fota Buildroot config |
| Wi-Fi / BLE | ESP-Hosted-NG on the ESP32-C3 |
| Audio | sun4i-spdif ALSA driver, SPDIF output |
Sections
- Architecture — how the bits fit together
- Boot flow — step-by-step from BootROM to userspace
- FOTA strategy — A/B updates and the recovery path