Archlinux on Rock5b

ROCK 5 Series
81

added instructions for GPU and video decoder acceleration for Firefox

For those who already has ffmpeg-git package, update the pkgbuild files with latest commit and rebuild woth latest patch, otherwise you might face some color issues on vp9 videos on youtube

1 Like
82

Depends on how you define ā€œgood to goā€.

From Arch Linux standard I think my image is good to go. Flash it and Install anything you want.

If you want all support package out of the box sorry itā€™s not there because Iā€™m not making any assumptions on the use cases just like the original Arch Linux and only aims to provide a bootable working ALARM user-space so that you donā€™t have to deal with the bootloader and the rootfs.

For your use cases, you still need to follow the instructions and do them manually.

83

Flashed to my nvme and worked great, thanks.

Did not have much time to experiment but any package to connect by wifi included?

84

Sorry I have not tested Wifi for my self and the package is not included (like the original arch).

You will need to install iw or wireless_tools . Hopefully wifi is not your only option to connect to the internet, if that is the case you have to copy the tarballs with something like a usb stick.

For known-to-be-working modules you can refer to Radxa wiki:
https://wiki.radxa.com/Rock5/hardware/wifi

85

sorry for basic question, but all these kernels terminology are a bit confusing: what difference is upstream compared to vendor? With upstream would it brings us closer to mainstream?

86

Upstream kernel is the kernel directly from kernel.org, the original Linux kernel.

The vendor defined kernel, in this case, the kernel shipped by rockchip/radxa.

Although they are both called ā€œLinux Kernelā€ their source code are very different. A vendor defined kernel will have support code for a particular hardware that is not yet supported by mainline kernel. The worst part of this situation is that the (rockchip) vendor kernel includes too many vendor-specific hacks and the codebase is diverged from the upstream too much so that almost none of their code in their kernel to bring up the hardware can be directly used in the upstream kernel, and the upstream kernel developers has to implement the drivers by themselves, probably not always from scratch, but still a lot of work.

When the hardware support from upstream kernel lands, we will no longer be locked to rockchipā€™s kernel version and we can use the original kernel for our boards, and we will have our freedom to update our as soon as a new kernel version is released.

1 Like
87

you said there is also reborn os but where can i get it? (i searched evreywhere)

88

Join the discord server!

89

I see, so in short upstreaming is porting their patches to latest kernel version published, and mainline is when we no longer require patching linux kernel to get specific hardware support?

90

Correct. The word ā€œmainlineā€ also has a different meaning in describing linux kernel version. It could mean the upstream kernel with its version ā€œnewer than stableā€ . But this is only used when talking about upstream kernels.

1 Like
91

Iā€™ve followed @boogiepopā€™s instructions. After installing the new kernel and making changes to /boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf, I then rebooted the board. It then wouldnā€™t boot. Iā€™m not sure why. Iā€™ve tried to install Arch on the board once before and the same thing happened. Can someone help?

92

I assume you were using armbian previously. In your boot partitions extlinux.conf make sure the kernel, initramfs and the dtbs point to correct files. If they are connect with a uart cable and see what the bootloader or kernel complains about.

93

Btw i just got a 8k av1 decoder working, new kernel with radxa git tree with latest patches from icecream95 is coming if i can manage to work out arch linuxes versioning scheme.

94

This is what my extlinux.conf looks like:

label Archlinux
     kernel /vmlinuz-linux-rockchip-bsp5                   
     initrd /initramfs-linux-rockchip-bsp5.img             
     devicetreedir /dtbs/rockchip
     #devicetreedir /dtbs/5.10.110-34-rockchip-gca15bbe36e6c
     fdtoverlays  /dtbs/5.10.110-34-rockchip-gca15bbe36e6c/rockchip/overlay/rk3588-uart7-m2.dtbo
     append   root=UUID=cc65bdef-a656-4219-ab5e-324f0f3caa1d earlycon=uart8250,mmio32,0xfeb50000 console=ttyFIQ0 console=tty1 consoleblank=0 loglevel=0 panic=10 rootwait rw init=/sbin/init rootfstype=f2fs cgroup_enable=cpuset cgroup_memory=1 cgroup_enable=memory swapaccount=1 irqchip.gicv3_pseudo_nmi=0 switolb=1 coherent_pool=2M

As far as I can tell there is nothing wrong.

95

Whats the output of your ls -la /path/to/your/bootpartition

96 
total 44516
drwxr-xr-x  4 root root     4096 Jan  1  1970 .
drwxr-xr-x 19 root root     4096 Dec  3 09:48 ..
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root   212710 Dec  7 16:54 config-5.10.110-34-rockchip-gca15bbe36e6c
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root      618 Jan 21 21:23 config.txt
drwxr-xr-x  4 root root    20480 Jan 21 22:59 dtbs
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root     4096 Jan 21 23:56 extlinux
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root  7295892 Jan 21 22:59 initramfs-linux-rockchip-bsp5.img
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root  7257248 Dec  7 16:54 System.map-5.10.110-34-rockchip-gca15bbe36e6c
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root 30775808 Jan 21 22:59 vmlinuz-linux-rockchip-bsp5
97

Rk3588-rock-5b.dtb is in dtbs/rockchip or someeherr else?

98

Unfortunately I donā€™t have a UART cable, so I canā€™t check kernel or boot loader messages.

99

There is no rockchip directory in dtbs. No file exists with the name Rk3588-rock-5b.dtb.

100

There is a rockchip directory in dtbs/5.10.110-34-rockchip-gca15bbe36e6c, though. But there isnā€™t a Rk3588-rock-5b.dtb file in it.