Hi, I have flashed rock-3a-debian-bullseye-xfce4-arm64-20220801-0145-gpt.img.xz image but it runs in text mode.
When I login in terminal there is nothing like startxfce4 or startx and dpkg -l | grep xfce shows nothing.
How to run XFCE4 on Rock 3A
here may be some problems with startup, you can check the startup logs of dmesg and x server to see what went wrong.
I think we made a hiccup here. When we update the system to Bullseye we didn’t add Xfce related package to 3A (linked is Radxa E25 which did have Xfce package included). For now please use the previous release.
And, when you know this, why not update the wiki page?
08.22 does not boot
08.01 not fxce
Anybody testing that img, or just press the release button?
Wiki page is always pointing to the latest release. We can make modification on GitHub to demote bad releases.
That build is from debos-radxa repo, and it is a development build, so user is on their own.
From debos-radxa we create monthly build and fix issues found on them.
Testings is … complicated.
For example, Armbian has semi automated testing upgrades on every code change, but even such tests doesn’t find all troubles as they are too basic:
https://docs.armbian.com/Process_CI/#smoke-tests-on-hardware-devices
When its a release, then its (best effort!) manually tested by maintainers:
https://docs.armbian.com/Board_Maintainers_Procedures_and_Guidelines/
Both providing all this is very very expensive for time and usually not a feature one would expect in amateur Linux world. Almost no distribution out there does that this due to related costs and rely on upstream tests and users to test. Especially problematic are “rolling releases” which are by default delivering semi (un)finished software.
Not armbian, debian…
Complicated testing:
- Write out
- Turn on.
- Does not boot.
or qemu…
Plays no role, yes. Armbian boots AFAIK.
If device boot or not is very basic test, true. But also gives a very limited binary answer. Perhaps it (un)satisfy end user, but certainly not developers around Linux that is more or less in permanent WIP state.
Another great resource for understanding what I mean:
https://elinux.org/Test_Systems
Ok, release more non-booting image, this is the way.
We want “stable” release for 4.4, not a “testing-testing WIP” non-working releases as “stable”, and radxa wiki says “use it”.
It is understandable and clear what users want: top stability, all features working and free of charge. Business users knows this is not so simple. I am afraid this is very difficult to match even for much bigger vendors.
Nevertheless, this is hobby hardware world, not automotive Linux
which works in that range.
tl;dr; To have better stability, more (automated) tests helps, but its expensive. You need to build that system, you need to maintain it - you need people to run it … Manual testing is the same, just a lot more expensive. And people doesn’t even notice as we expects it has boot perfectly 100% of the time.
I am just trying to reason …
Nope.
Not " top stability, all features working and free of charge.".
Radxa say in wiki: xy function supported.
User download, try it, not working.
Radxa say: Download that image, that good
User download, try it, not booting.
About half of the radxa wiki is complete bullshit.
“Supported” - no, it never worked.
The problem is that they claim something that is not true. That’s it and nothing more.