E52C is available now

#41

That looks like the wrong image, should be openwrt_rk3588s_e52c_R24.10.24_k5.10.160-rk3588-flippy-2410a.img.gz.

Can someone who successfully installed openwrt on the E52C comment here with what they did?

#42

My bad, link error in my last reply, this is the image I used for the E52 (your link). The result remains the same

#43

Thanks. My old NanoPi R2S draws around 2.5W in idle, running as a router with two cables. Despite not having mainline support, it also has had a loose contact problem from the start, so I’m thinking about replacing it with the E52C.
However, ideally there’d be something like the ZERO 3E with two Ethernet ports and a metal case, because this one already seems slightly overpowered for simple use cases. A smaller form factor and lower power consumption would be appreciated.
But maybe we’ll be able to save even more power when the Orion O6 comes out, being able to switch the Desktop for it? :slight_smile:

#44

I have similar needs of a slightly lower powered machine and was aiming at the E20C for these, however I recently noticed that the RK3528 in it is not yet supported in mainline, so I doubt it would be a good idea in the end. Indeed, I’d like to see a similar small 3566/3568-based dual-port machine. The A55 in it is great and such machines are quite performant for general purpose. The E25 currently does this but is quite a bit larger and lacks the debug port.

I think an E2xC that would run on a 356x, with two GigE ports, small DRAM (1-4GB) and enough internal eMMC to store a server OS (16GB), and a debug port would make a great general purpose machine for both routing and services. It would only need a DTS to run on a mainline kernel 6.1 or above, so it could run modern distros almost out of the box.

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#45

I think an E2xC that would run on a 356x, with two GigE ports, small DRAM (1-4GB) and enough internal eMMC to store a server OS (16GB), and a debug port would make a great general purpose machine for both routing and services.

Yup, many of these smaller SBCs try to do too many things at once instead of focusing on something specific. For an ethernet router, I don’t need a hexacore CPU with video decoding capabilities or GPIO pins. Just a super small form factor, a good cooling case and mainline (and be it with patches) would suffice. Ideally some eMMC and we can ditch the USB and micro SD ports for a smaller footprint.

But an absolute killer feature that would make a bit larger of a form factor okay would be if we had a DSL or cable modem integrated. :smiley: Imagine you could ditch your ISPs outdated, fat and proprietary thing with some cool RADXA device. :sunglasses: Yes, unrealistic, but let’s dream.

Anyway, the E52C looks like a great device too and if it works with mainline I’ll likely purchase it in the coming months to replace my R2S. I hope this one doesn’t have any loose contact issues?

#46

For having suffered in the past from integrated devices that cannot be reset without power-cycling the machine, I would certainly no longer want an internal DSL modem. It looks great at first, but when you’re regularly forced to reboot your machine because the crappy device no longer responds to USB, you quickly change your mind regarding the benefits vs trouble :-/

Anyway my E52C has been running my firewall for the last 2 weeks without trouble, after roughly a month of burn-in to verify there was no hang. So far so good.

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#47

What do you think about the Cubie A5E? https://arace.tech/products/radxa-cubie-a5e?variant=43786178756788
It’s hard to find anything about it on the forum. Not sure about performance and power consumption, also we’d need a case. But it looks good otherwise.

#48

I saw it announced on cnx already. It seems to have an eMMC that’s not mentioned in the description. In theory it could be OK once supported in mainline, but for me it’s definitely missing the debug port in order to be used in production. In this regards, E20C keeps and advance.

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#49

I think for now there is no choice for eMMC options on arace, but chip is present on all photos and description (except booting from eMMC).

While debug port is really useful, but still You should be able to connect via gpio to some UART output :slight_smile:

#50

While debug port is really useful, but still You should be able to connect via gpio to some UART output

Which is precisely what I’m avoiding from now on for production. That’s perfect for debugging and developing, but when your reverse-proxy doesn’t reboot and you have to pick a USB-TTL adapter, open the enclosure, look up the pinout on the net to connect it etc, that’s really too much of a pain and it discourages you from applying updates in the future. Now I’m confident again with the E52C as a cable is sufficient (like on any machine in fact). And I am willing to pay the difference for this peace of mind.

#51

USB/UART adapters are usually really cheap, so You can get more of them and just leave them on site. AdaFruit PiUART is good example also You can assembly same thing by yourself with this pcbway project
those usually work on most broadcom/rockchips (AFAIR not on amlogic, different pinout)

Of course yet again You are right about this topic, still it’s better to already have those on board, ready to connect. All I wanted to say is that there are small, cute, cheap addons :slight_smile:

image
image.jpg837×606 213 KB

Me too :slight_smile:
But I also do understand that some cost reduction is sometimes needed,
then those small addons are reasonable :smiley:

edit:
and this guy is based on my favorite CH343P and is priced at $1.32
https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/CH343P-USB-to-Serial-TTL-UART-1601152508236.html

image

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#52

Just to be clear, I’m well aware of the existence of UART adapters, and have plenty of them (I buy them by 10). It’s not at all a cost issue (neither for me nor for the SBC vendor), as a CH340E (MSOP10) is available for about $0.40 per 100 and the ubiquitous CH340N (SOP8) is even cheaper at less than $0.20 per 5!

It’s a matter of burden. When you buy a board with its enclosure, and you have the choice between using a screw every time you lose access (quite common for devices running on BSPs and non-final device trees), or having to drill the enclosure and find a way to glue an adapter inside it, despite a hole large enough for the connector to pass through the metal. It’s a real pain. I’ve spent far too many sunday afternoons and even week-ends hacking such crappy solutions, sometimes even to discover that the glue fell off over time and the adapter is hanging inside the enclosure. That’s just not serious. Ah and I forgot the many machines that do not boot when a connected adapter is not powered: they just stop in U-boot for example because the Rx line is driven down.

At least Radxa has understood and acknowledged this pain and has now started to add consoles on their new boards (like SolidRun for a while), with a controller that’s correctly powered and causes no such trouble. And it’s a huge step forward. I used to love NanoPI (size, price, enclosure, documentation) but got really fed up with the absence of console and systematically having hanging wires on one third of them, unglued adapters on another third, and the last third lying on a shelf for 5+ years because I feel too lazy to take a screwdriver to open them and connect a TTL adapter just to find their IP address. It’s 2005 now, no end-user machine should require a screwdriver for basic operations anymore. And the example with the Adafruit board you showed above perfectly illustrates that there is some demand for this basic convenience.

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#53

I have the new Cubie A5E!. It is very small but requires a case and an Operating System / image to work, of course.

Cubie A5E vs ROCK5B

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#54

I just received my A5E, but I don’t know how to install a Debian image since I’m quite a novice. I thought using PhoenixCard would be enough to install the test image from https://linux-sunxi.org/Radxa_Cubie_A5E.

Although I burned it onto the SD card without any issues, it doesn’t seem like there are many interesting files on it. Can anyone help me?

#55

It looks like the E52C is out of stock everywhere.
Any news on that, @jack?

#56

well, if so, that’s a good news because the new batches are expected to have the RTC chip soldered on, so at least we know that the pipe is flushed and that we’re certain to get one by ordering next batches :wink:

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#57

@willy I see your point, but until we can get our hands on one it’s a pretty theoretical advantage! :stuck_out_tongue:

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#58

The stock were all sold during the CNY holidays, new batches are coming soon, expected next week.

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#59

Thank you for sharing. But I found this flippy’s firmware comes up with an PPPoE issue. When connected with PPPoE, there will be plenty of softirqs generated and the ksoftirqd will eat up cpu2. I have tried all of the different versions of flippy firmwares and none of them could fix this problem. This issue only appears in flippy’s firmware when using PPPoE, neither appear in istoreos nor in DHCP or static connection. Could you please fix it?