Great news. I’ve been burned by SoC vendors that bake their own kernel and then basically abandon the device, which doesn’t work for me at all, so I’m happy to see that this won’t happen here.
Mainline support for RockPi 4?
Does that mean that if the patch is accepted I can use any Linux distribution running kernel 5.1 and not being dependent on the distributions radxa is offering?
Just checking in,
From what I understand, Linux kernel 5.1 might be released today. Would be great to get an update from the team as next steps for updates etc.
1 Like
Also just checking in. What does it mean for the Rockpi4 now that 5.1 has been released? What are the plans or expectations? Thx
1 Like
Mainline kernel is still missing some functions.
Here is the test build of the LibreELEC on mainline kernel.
For what works, please check: https://forum.libreelec.tv/thread/17540-early-mainline-images-for-rk3288-rk3328-and-rk3399/
Hi @jack,
When you say the mainline kernel is missing some functions I’m curious as to what functions are missing and what the next steps would be to resolve this?
Are we talking about another patch being submitted to mainline which I guess would now go into 5.2? Or is this something that can be resolved by taking the mainline kernel and adding the required functions to release a fully working kernel?
Any progress?
I’m working on a project that would result in my employer buying quite a few devices – stalled because we need decent mass storage and mainline kernel features.
Manjaro Arm are working with the RockPi4 I just booted with Kernel 5.1 but 5.2 is hopefully the destination with a panfrost/weston/wayland solution.
I can not forward as the work is theirs but you can pretty much take it that arch/manjaro mainline is pretty much imminent.
Jack tested a Marvel 9235 4 port recently and works perfect and is prob the best card available.
https://www.marvell.com/storage/system-solutions/sata-controllers/pcie-2-sata-controllers/
Or you can add another 4 ports of usb3.0 via much cheaper cards.
Hey, I just noticed that there’s a development Wiki page that states that 5.1. works.
Nice. Now if that page was not somewhat empty …
Its very informative if you don’t see the info read the top line again.
The Manjaro guys only really started today and they are currently using 5.1
So far Wifi/BT & PCIe don’t seem to be mainline.
I don’t think it will be long before they release something for testing, but just left them to it.
https://lkml.org/lkml/2019/6/13/488
Its looking like for complete mainline without overlays it could be 5.3
Nice progress 
In kernel 5.1 we have:
In kernel 5.2 we have:
In kernel 5.3 we’ll have:
- arm64: dts: rockchip: add WiFi+BT support on ROCK Pi4 board
- arm64: dts: rockchip: Enable HDMI audio on Rock Pi
So, from 5.3 on these should work:
- HDMI Display
- Console
- MMC, EMMC
- USB 2.0, USB-3.0
- Ethernet
- Mali GPU Node
- Wifi and Bluetooth
- Audio over HDMI
Also, uboot has first support:
[U-Boot] rockchip: rk3399: Add Rock PI 4 support
and LPDDR4 support is sent to the mailing list.
3 Likes
Yeah the KDE version with 5.1 seems to be wifi/bt, pcie and audio over HDMI.
I haven’t tried but the Mali module hasn’t been configured and prob needs a recompile to allow the addition of the rockchip midgard driver, until panfrost 5.2.
Prob being a first inclusion it may not be a smooth ride with panfrost but you never know 
Also there is the Armbian version https://forum.armbian.com/topic/10568-updated-images-for-rock-pi-4/ but haven’t tried that yet. I might head there next as they have some great build scripts.
5.2 which is early July I am sure some clever tinkerer can backport those few patches as it would seem time to start gearing up for mainline and long live 4.4, but …
I still perplexed why the DTS still has PCIe set to gen1 as didn’t notice that anywhere. Maybe its me being usually dumb but PCIe is backward compatible or is it fixed to specific gens on the rk3399?
Also Radxa and overlay support?
Nice. I’m trying to get 5.2 RC up and running in my setup (I don’t need the 5.3 features yet) but the serial console overlay from 4.4 does not work. So either I missed a kernel config option, or things have changed too much.
reading /overlays/console-on-ttyS2.dtbo
774 bytes read in 16 ms (46.9 KiB/s)
overlay dtb(0x0000000001e00000) is valid
fdt_overlay_apply 0000000001f00000 0000000001e00000
fdt_overlay_apply(): FDT_ERR_NOTFOUND
Can't load dts overlay
While it does boot without console debugging is a whole lot easier when you have one …
As not sure what uharts are in use between the 2, but overlays are not enabled in mainline…
Majority of the overlay commands just enable specific hardware and hat details and are a good inclusion but for just raw kernel try without.
I have used the serial console on the manjaro images but they keep totally mainline and zero radxa packages.
You only need the overlay if you are going to have the console on another than default uhart
5.2 RC4 was freezing for a while but haven’t tested but fingers crossed looking at the patches may be fixed in RC5
Connect the USB to TTL serial cable as below. Don’t connect the red wire.
| ROCK Pi 4 | <—> | USB to TTL cable |
|---|---|---|
| RX(pin 10) | <—> | Green wire |
| TX(pin 8) | <—> | White wire |
| GND(pin 6) | <—> | Black wire |
You may have to swap round TX/RX as I can never tell which side they are supposed to relate to and you should be set to 3.3v, also ignore the colors as it varies wildly but should be marked but which end they refer to seems to be pot luck.
baudrate: 1500000
data bit: 8
stop bit: 1
parity : none
flow control: none
https://wiki.radxa.com/Rockpi4/dev/serial-console
I like coolterm if you are using windows
https://freeware.the-meiers.org/
It would be really beneficial for radxa to start supporting mainline as the specific radxa patches now needed are actually very few.
@jack
Umm, I do have a serial console which works for u-boot. And 4.4. But 5.2 is silent. Probably just wrong kernel arguments?
NB, I have a µArt TTL-serial interface. That is an isolating converter. So yes, I do need to connect its version of the red wire. 
I’m sure you’ve checked this already, but something that catches me out from time to time when I build board kernels is differing default baud rates between u-boot and kernel, typically u-boot set for 1.5Mbps, and then kernel compiled with something else like 115.2k or 38.4k.
Well, that’s what the kernel command line is for. If somebody could document and/or tell me which kernel config and command line is responsible for the serial console on 5.1+ I’d be grateful.
label kernel-4.4.154-59-rockchip-g5e70f14
kernel /vmlinuz-4.4.154-59-rockchip-g5e70f14
devicetreedir /dtbs/4.4.154-59-rockchip-g5e70f14
append earlyprintk console=ttyFIQ0,1500000n8 video=HDMI-A-1:1920x1080@60 init=/sbin/init root=PARTUUID=b921b045-1d rootwait rootfstype=ext4
As an example extlinux.conf
So uboot is showing but then goes quiet as prob console=ttyFIQ0,1500000n8 is missing
But it should be in journalctl
Yes, of course. That’s kernel 4.4 – this command line works for me. But with my 5.2 RC the kernel is quiet. In fact, I have no /dev/ttyFIC0 (or any other serial device) once it’s up.