[Guide] openFydeOS - Rock 5B - the best option 🍺

Just grab an nvme enclosure from there u can flash the nvme straight and it works. At least I remember it did on mine.

you mean instead of using the install option, just dd the openFyde image file directly to the NVMe? well I can do that too using terminal and xzcat, though it is said to be not the right way to do the installation from the download page :slight_smile:

I also face an issue with connecting to my router in 802.11ax mode I guess, using an Intel AX200; connecting to an alternative “guest” SSID at 2.4GHz one the very same AP works fine though, so it is not a “must fix” for me now

Yes flash the nvme with the image itself as a whole and it should work / it / did for me … and remember that the rock 5b suffers from that spi switches which is mad to keep track of whats working and in which order…
But flashing the nvme and booting up should work… otherwise is the spi that needs another reflash.

About wifis theres an thing you can do but that particular module last I checked didnt needed anything changed to work.

See if this works:

mount -o remount,rw /
nano /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
-- then add these lines somewhere (at the bottom of the file is fine):
blacklist pgdrv
blacklist btusb
blacklist btrtl
blacklist btbcm
#blacklist btintel
Then press Ctrl+X, save Y  then sudo reboot and exit

Its how we got the wifi to work on other systems like the ax210 and a8 before the kernel blender magic they done after… if that doesnt fix’s it then I got no clue…
Wifi should be working bt is what sometimes fails…

for me it is not the case… not working; so I just re-flash the SPI via maskrom mode with debug console enabled, and am looking into it… at least I see that bootloader on NOR works (MTD2), but then PCIe init seems to have failed. Likely I need to start another thread and ask, sigh

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I remember reading before that some brands didnt worked well on rock 5b have u had any other system working from the nvme before ? (cause I had fydeOS on my nvme before and found that wierd)

Interesting… that since the boot process will load NVMe driver first, my Rock 5B running openFyde is actually using my NVMe partition now, instead of the uSD card. However, I still need to put in the uSD so to let u-boot find the kernel to boot. All mount points are using NVMe, so it is okay-ish for now.

Tried installing Collabora Office as Android App, but it does not work that as expected, though at least it will install. I will try out other Android apps later. Any idea on how may I install Collabora Office to openFyde as either ChromiumOS app, or Linux app? I don’t want to use the all-seeing Google suite :laughing:

Collabora Office ?? tha f… I know libraoffice google docs and others… collabora is one thing collabora office is another… and ive never used it.
Android apps crash quite easily on this openfyde version not sure about the fydeOS version however… the new r120 version fyde 18 is coming next month. Penguin kernel will be at 6.1(instead of 5.15) and I believe that ArcHero will get upgraded as well. Think FydeOS will move from android 9 to 11… lets see.

That issue you have off needing the emmc in to ignite the bootloader is the exact same issue I had when I was using monkas image on nvme… Its some what wierd but to get it only on nvme I had to flash the nvme directly and flash the spi via rkdevtools and then booting up with only the nvme…which was all a bit random. Atm I dont have the rock 5b with me… these issues kinda… had me off and Ive moved to another. But im still on rk3588s.

There are many cheaper alternatives to Rock 5B these days, like Orange Pi 5+ which is using RK3588S I think. Other than not having PCIe 3.0 x4, RK3588S is quite a good and cheaper alternative to the regular RK3588. For networking there is a MT7988A based BPI-R4 that’s really an interesting SBC that I think ppl may consider it over SBCs like R6S, for it has 2xSFP+ and is not that expensive (I think US$100 for board only w/o WiFi7, and no chassis yet). If I were not having my own HTPC+NAS+Router+AP using my “retiring” PC parts, that could be a good SBC indeed.

So, what do you use for your office sw need? I am thinking about installing Linux version of LibraOffice on openFyde, just that I dunno how to. I can easily install Android Apps via APKPure, but I have no idea on how to do it with Linux yet.

It’s good to know the next openFyde will move to a newer kernel and base Android. Given how my setup is right now, is there any easy way to upgrade? Just do “install” again? One thing with openFyde is that it seems to use ext2 instead of newer fs like F2FS that’s more flash friendly, so I wonder if write amplification will happen… as I am using Optane, that’s not a big concern to me yet.

Well I dont particularly agree with the discourse that most people have over rock 5b being pricey… all they do is wrong comparisons… looking at models of rk3588/s that have 16gbs of ram and saying… ‘Hey this is expensive compared to orange pi’ which is the 4gbs ram model…

If u compared them right its about the same level and Arace the new distributor really sells them for a nice price… Radxa even has to 5A now which is affordable and has zero power issues.

I went for a even more pricier model than radxa so price for me isnt the issue its more the confort and quality in hands to do everything working as it should.

Now as for office… If we are talking about using ChromiumOS aka ChromeOS or Fyde/OpenFydeOS its all related to webapping… First thing you have to acknowledge is that its better to find the webapp version of it that works best I know google docs sucks but u have office 365 from Microsoft which is on web app. Learning this is key to work with ChromeOS systems.

Now for linux just do a youtube search on how to install office on chromeOS and u will find all the better alternatives to webapps that most people use… I rarely use office so I dont even care too much.

Hey I said penguin was going to linux 6.1 not crosh or the core of openfyde… to understand this better you have to follow the chromiumOS updates.

Penguin is LXC container which is not the base of ChromiumOS its a VM Linux meaning it could possible be running on the actual kernel… google just recently started to update it from 5.15 to 6.1 and I believe this will bring us advantages to be able to have less issues when installing linux apps and running them thats all.

Since there is no rk3588s mainline yet I doubt fyde can do anything regarding that to our boards.
Crosh also has an kernel version and I cant remember which is atm but chromiumos v120 (its atm at 121) and google is moving the sable r120 to lts thats why fyde is getting it ported now. I have hope this fixes a lot of recent bullshit. Like LaCros will be more stable therefore we wont have glitching when mixing LaCros with Chromium Browser. Then maybe probably sommelier will finally work better with ptitseb boxes wine and steam. This version since we dont have anything proper to use from collabora will mean that fyde will have to stick with a stable core kernel therefore we wont be able to do bigger things. There will always be problems…

Being the biggest one of them from Fyde… their Android Subsystem that doesnt works well… crashes quite easy freezing randomly and u have no option to force restart it other than rebooting and… that sucks.

Linux on their system is not set to start automatically when u start your system which means if u want to run an app before igniting penguin it wont work straight away… meaning that u have to start penguin AND check if it has connection to internet cause the start of penguin often fails to estabelish connection meaning that you have to force restart it just so it has connection just so u can work with linux apps and this kinda sucks… but its how google leaves chromiumOS opensource to third party users to use… (altho this is also fydeOS to blame… the kernel they use sucks probably and if they do not fix it nothing will). So you can image that if you do not start your penguin before your apps after each reboot then will just be on an infinite loading loop cause theres no connection on linux due to it failing to load properly.
(But this at least you can force restart if needed without rebooting)

This is where I want the next version the most cause since google moved lxc to 6.1 that fuckery could possible be fixed. Hopefully no more issues with the lxc container on the current sommelier…

This also means… that google will probably have some fixes on the arm side of things and this is why mistakes that we have most users dont know because the same misbehaviours dont happen on x86 systems.

Anyway… I dont know if fydeos new version will tackle all the issues all at once this time… they havent been paying much attention to users complains and that leaves me sad… to a point of almost giving up to get an n100 shit board… (another broken leg imo to radxa where they could have turned the notch if they went to a nice smaller version of the T4 pro mini pc) but their business is developer boards and I get that. Anyways… We are getting Fyde 18 and fyde isnt giving up on us yet. Fingers crossed.

Cheaper is not always better, I know, especially that as I am getting older now, I don’t have much time left to play with these “hobbies” in my daily life, so I do need something that work “easier”. And I would say Rock 5B pre-ordered is not that pricey :slight_smile: However, competitions and alternatives are much more common now, and it will affect our SBC choices. Maybe until I retire then I would have more time, but that’s still years away, hopefully :rofl:

I’m still kinda new with the ChromiumOS part, so from time to time I may show my ignorance :stuck_out_tongue: The only ChromeOS device I ever own but not really used was an ASUS ChromeBit, and I bought it just because it cost quite a bit less than the Google Drive subscription that came with it :laughing: but it was a bad exp with ChromeOS: Google were saying they “planned” to make ChromeBit support Android app, but it never happen. (maybe it is because it runs on RK3288 which is 32bit only)

Speaking of N100, I did get something that you may consider a shxtty one, but comes with a 8505, and I am typing this reply on it inside a Windows 10 VM w/IGP+USB passthrough. Now the i3 version is also less expensive, which could be a better choice over 8505. The Intel NICs on it are definitely still very shxtty, but I would still choose it over Realtek because if I would ever want to turn this box into a 4-port 2.5GbE switch (and more), I still need Intel NICs in order to run dpdk+vpp, and I have a working setup (my multi-function NAS) now using x540 VFs inside a VM. N100 takes DDR5 only in most designs, but my 8505 takes DDR4, so overall the machine is “cheaper”, again :stuck_out_tongue:

x86 is far easier to play with (at least for me), but of course it won’t support Android (ARM) apps well, so I don’t have much choice. BTW, I don’t think they can put N100 into something like a T4 pro mini though… assuming they use the same 6W TDP design, but N100 should just use much more energy. I remember seeing videos saying it runs like 30W at top speed, and likely 6W is only good for less than 4 seconds of full speed, like my 8505 before replacing thermal grease etc. currently I can play games like EU4 with my 8505, but the whole machine will run so hot that both my SSD and HDD will be overheating at >70C using the very silent fan it has.

Maybe openFyde could be a good platform for Android app dev, and perhaps I should explore a bit, even though I don’t really need to code for a long time already. But for now maybe I should first focus on a solution to my problem: when Rock 5B + openFyde in sleep mode, I cannot plug in a USB keyboard (via a USB sharing box) then press key to wake it up…

Yes I have heard of Chromebit it was exactly what I wanted for a ChromeOS device however it lost its support at version 82 its something and never got neither android or linux… and then google turned to laptops instead but ChromeOS has matured a lot.
I hope… google expands on all directions and doesnt kills all its projects or that at least doesnt give up on this one.

Keep in mind that ChromeOS has zero issues or near to none on an oficial product.
FydeOS is known for running some issues always has. They dont waste much time on corrections. Anyway.

I do like this system and hope it keeps having some future. If you like webapps this is perfect.

The new anstream webapp is awesome:

Hello is Vulkan supported and working on this build?

Vulkan is only supported on Android OS. So I believe it is on this android subsystem of fyde.

Curious anybody tried running Vulkan games and performance

Android sub system on fyde is very unstable I must say.
They are making changes and releasing fyde v18 early march so lets wait till that comes out thats my opinion.

FydeOS V18 is out for Rock 5B!

FydeOS Released a new introduction video to FydeOS 18 !
Simple and clean I love it!

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Just flashed this new .img version with balenaEtcher to a NVMe and it does not boot, anyone else? (or not)

you still have the wrong, maybe armbian, SPI image flashed?

Yup, you nailed it! Didn’t even remember what was there. Thanks for the tip.

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