Introduce ROCK 5B - ARM Desktop level SBC

#353

Arm boards don’t have a BIOS and even though some are porting UEFI its still doesn’t mean a standard Linux distribution will boot as the ‘BIOS’ is a software implementation of the UEFI port.
One good thing is the Collabora https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20220422170920.401914-1-sebastian.reichel@collabora.com/ have started initial postings and with a big if UEFI boot is supported its prob at the end of a long queue.

Its Likely to use mainline Uboot as generally Arm don’t have a bios or UEFI and don’t think that might change as UEFI on arm is a exception not a normal, currently at least.

If you want to read what it takes to get a Pi4 to boot EUFI then https://rpi4-uefi.dev/ and that was years in the making.

#354

U-Boot implements UEFI. (open)SUSE and Fedora both use U-Boot’s UEFI interface to boot the Linux kernel on ARM (and already do also on all PIs - 1-4).

U-Boot is the standard “BIOS” on most ARM SBCs (take BIOS as “Bootloader firmware” here).

#355

" Development target

The implementation of UEFI in U-Boot strives to reach the requirements described in the “Embedded Base Boot Requirements (EBBR) Specification - Release v1.0” [2]. The “Server Base Boot Requirements System Software on ARM Platforms” [3] describes a superset of the EBBR specification and may be used as further reference.

A full blown UEFI implementation would contradict the U-Boot design principle “keep it small”."

https://u-boot.readthedocs.io/en/latest/develop/uefi/uefi.html

Its not the same its a subset and it still doesn’t mean a standard Linux distribution will boot as the ‘BIOS’ is a software implementation of the UEFI port so you will need specific images.
Uboot contains board Dtbs to get the boot loader work and no it will never work like a PC where the BIOS is a flash implementation on the hardware motherboard that is a Basic Input Output System to boot the bootloader.

#356

Never noticed but it is in the store

#357


Did you send one board to Alyssa ?

#358

Makes sense as looking like she started after the first basic submissions where made for the rk3588 by
Sebastian Reichel
https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20220422170920.401914-1-sebastian.reichel@collabora.com/

Which suddenly has got up to speed https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/?q=rk3588

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#359

They are both from collabora.com. But she lives in Canada I think

#360

So based on https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20220426132139.26761-5-linux@fw-web.de/
PCI IP in SOC use Synopsys IP

#361

I think Rockchip are employing collabora specifically but a lot of big names in the Arm world in that list. Far beyond my pay grade :slight_smile:
Great to see things get such traction irrespective really of not knowing that much to what they entail.
Whoever though its got a lot of action by some very technical people.

#362

They just “sign” the patch so don’t expect any big work. This is mainline linux kernel development. Everything is in heavy development and untested

#363

Yeah seems Peter Geis who has been doing a lot with the rk356x, Sebastian Reichel with Alyssa on Panfrost (collabora) but does seem to be moving at a pace finally after nothing rk3588 really apart from the early rockchip submissions.

I guess they are trying to get as much of a base into 5.18 before its release and then we have the ongoing release schedule of approx 3 month steps that will be a long wait for each incremental addition.
I think the Android implementation is quite a bit ahead though which is also interesting with android 12.
I doubt we will get it but the ASR currently on the Pixels is amazing stuff, likely it will be retained as part of the Pixels crown jewels.

I am going to spend my time with the highly likely earlier release of the RadxaZero2 and the RockPiS just perked my interest once more as maybe the ADC is less noisy now?

#364

I agree. The form factor of the Rk3588 sbc looks amazing! I’ve owned a khadas vim 3 for about three years now and I like it’s form factor except the nvme slot is backwards so it isn’t ideal if a case is desired. I like the slightly bigger board because it fits everything I want on it.

#365

I didn’t realise that with the Vim3 but yeah now I look there is no mounting pillar which is a crazy idea to me on a picoITX format board which with the Rock5 I think is a great format and hopefully it will be the end of Pi clones as actually think that format is not good as opposed to a more mobo format of 1 plane or vertical.
Raspberry have been very successful but for me SBC have outgrown that format.

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#366

This one has 2-pin socket, GND+5V only and rock3 has 3 pins (+PWM) and much smaller connector. This won’t fit including screw mount holes designed to other board than rock3A :slight_smile:
edit: on first photos it seems that fan header is same as on rock3a (3pin) so I assumed that there should be something similar to rock3a. Of course if its that white header near emmc. If this is changed to 2pin then any 5v fan could be used if You can attach it there. This one won’t fit - it has different screws location.

#367

On the other end they have super fitted nvme extension board to mount it. It’s super slim and much better than something like on rock pis. Of course it won’t fit factory case anymore but it’s not problem for everybody. For me nvme slot speed is disappointing - it’s only 1x lane :frowning: and according to specs for vim4 it will still have 1x lane :frowning:

#368

Upgrade RADXA boards 3B and 5B with active heat management.

Works as well with e.g. Starfive VisionFive SBC

Doesn’t say its for the Rock3A but that is what is in the shop and what Radxa are providing not sure if the pre-release images are exact to what we might get as a production release.
@jack

#369

True, I just assumed that there have to be something like for Rock3A because from release photos it’s probably the same 3P connector. That may be changed on final product as @jack said :wink: For starfive fan also mounting holes are specific, so I don’t think this would be good choice.

There are some fans for RBpi with 5V + PWM pins, they can be controlled from GPIO: https://wiki.52pi.com/index.php?title=F-0012

#370

To be honest I don’t see the point in PWM but guess for us in different climes or load it give ability to set different speeds.
You can just stick a 12v on 5v or a 5v on 3.3 and both silent and loads of air flow.

#371

Yeah I agree. I also purchased a Rpi4 back in 2019 and I have been extremely impressed with the amount of support it gets, I mean my vim3 can’t do stuff(run 64 bit android apps) that the Rpi4 can do with much less cpu/gpu juice! This is why I’m so excited about what Rockchip is doing with the rk3588 soc!

#372

Yeah Raspberry make 100% profit on all there boards and think it was £10M last year and there is no comparison really to a relatively small outfit like Khadas.

The Radxa Zero2 is out soon which also is an Amlogic A311D which also complements the previous Zero Amlogic chip so you can counter revenue if you get a big enough herd so maybe Khadas will also benefit.
Rockchip is throwing some weight behind Android also Linux but like all many of these boards are fresh and part of a development and support cycle based on number of users and funds.
If you don’t get the herd (numbers) or enough funds without a lot of manufacturer SoC support things can be very slow or even freeze.