News about the ROCK 5B Plus! ;)

#76

I also noticed that it was announced at radxa site yesterday. All I can say about it is that we should get more vibrant pcb color! :smiley: pink was awesome :slight_smile: so far nobody have purple :smiley:
just joking :slight_smile:

At same time Orange Pi5 Max was announced. This one is the most compact RK3588 (yes, without S) in ROCK 5A format. Of course they could not wire up everything for SoC, second RAM chip is missing, but they managed to pack everything in that small size, including full size 2280 m.2 connector.

R5 B+ is nice evolution over 5B. I also noticed that eMMC size is described as up to 128GB so I hope it will not be wasted for Roobi os only.

3 Likes
#78

no worry dominik, their bsp could build normal debian image for 5b+ :wink:

#79

I know,
But it’s just adding new build target into github and it will save much time for others :smiley:
Minimal image should always be accessible :slight_smile:

2 Likes
#80

Wow. These new boards are lookin’ really nice. Almost a shame we’re completely dropping the plans of using Radxa products ever again…

#81

oh? My experience with radxa is good! I think Radxa would be interested to knowing your problems. :wink:

1 Like
#82

Probably something about that:

I think radxa is trying its best to keep curent images, but they need some time to arrange several things in their ecosystem.

#83

FYI: Rock5b+ is available at arace but only 16 and 24 Gb version. Mine are already on the way :star_struck:

#84

This is definitely how I see it. It’s all hardware, without the stability of a Raspberry Pi. I’m just a noob talking from experience but the feeling is, not surprisingly, mutual. Joshua’s Ubuntu also has its quirks. But it is unfair, undoubtedly, to compare his work to the work force of a manufacturer. The latest Radxa b3 is quite stable, although my very specific bug is still present. But then there’s these little things that feels like sloppy or unchecked work. E. g., latest Rsetup has something it installs, and I say something, because I can only find this reference in a Radxa commit not long ago, saying absolutely nothing about it. Something called Baota(?). If I say yes, I get the output:
cat: /etc/redhat-release: No such file or directory

±---------------------------------------------------------------------
| Bt-WebPanel FOR CentOS/Ubuntu/Debian
±---------------------------------------------------------------------
| Copyright © 2015-2099 BT-SOFT(http://www.bt.cn) All rights reserved.
±---------------------------------------------------------------------
| The WebPanel URL will be http://SERVER_IP:18684 when installed.
±---------------------------------------------------------------------
| 为了您的正常使用，请确保使用全新或纯净的系统安装宝塔面板，不支持已部署项目/环境的系统安装±---------------------------------------------------------------------

I mean… is this supposed to be a bad spyware implementation? No documentation, no hits on Google… only a commit with the name in it. 2015-2099? ‘SERVER_IP’ seems to be a variable typo. And the URL bt.cn, in Chinese, would be the closest thing to any context.

This is nothing specific, but generally speaking. Is there a QA dept.? You would think that judging by how long it takes between releases. To be fair it is quite stable, but is more of an expectation. Still some bugs and quirks. And still very far from the feeling of confidence when using a Raspberry.

#85

Hi marrepy, sorry to have confused you. 宝塔面板 (BT Panel) is a powerful and easy-to-use server management panel that can help users quickly build and manage web services. it’s a very popular
application and used by millions of developers and also used in big company such as tencent and alibaba，we added it in response to user requests. but It’s also not integrated into the system by default. if someone want to use it, it needs to manually install it by rsetup. besides our system is open source. Maybe we need add more introduction about it in our document to reduce confuse.

2 Likes
#86

Oh, my experience with Radxa is fantastic in general. I love these boards a lot personally. I just don’t agree with some choices that are deal-breakers for me privately, since I’m not a low-level Linux engineer…

Part of it, surprisingly and paradoxically, is being fixed or added right now (e.g. in the latest image for 5B), which I’m really personally excited about, but…

Right now the bigger deal for me is the calcified stuck-up nobility present in these forums. Some people are just so full of themselves in here while also being big figures in the community, that if you try to speak up against their views about what matters in the topic, suddenly bam, you’re done for. You’re always in the wrong, and you’re always the fool just because you don’t agree with them. That’s the sole reason why, on the personal level, I’m dumping every single one of my Radxa boards right now and in actual projects opting against using them. I honestly can’t believe I’m not banned here yet.

#87

@marrepy I was the one who implemented that, i tried to speak up but got rejected at first this was going to get installed on BY default. There are many opensource non Chinese alternatives to it which work better. I was also suspicious about it i tried it didn’t like it and gave up.

image
image.png1423×486 117 KB

@Shadow

I fully agree with you, the community in these forums is too hostile. I will personally stop using Radxa boards soon

1 Like
#89

@Shadow Radxa takes everyone’s feedback very seriously and never bans users, regardless of whether they are interested in our products or not. except for those who frequently post spam advertisements during this period, about the bt application, we will discuss internal. and any other question not matter bugs or features, we are glad everyone can post and share to us.

1 Like
#90

Hi Panda, Thanks for your work for Radxa over the past few months. As you know we are striving to improve our OS’s functionality and make it simpler to use, but indeed there is still a lot of work to be done. Additionally, we are listening to everyone’s feedback, which is why we continuously update our system. Regarding the bt application, we will have an internal discussion about it.

1 Like
#91

Panda,

I am sad to see you post incomplete screenshot, here is the full chatting log between you and me:

chathistory
chathistory.jpg1390×2552 302 KB

Baota or BT Panel is the most popular admin panel in China and it’s deployed on over 15M servers and it’s open source.

https://github.com/aaPanel/BaoTa

We often got the requests from Chinese users to install it for remote management. We just provide an easy way for users to install it via rsetup. That’s it.

@marrepy I have a life advice for you that will benefit the rest of your life because I saved a lot of time from it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor

Just think of it, why an open source hardware company so stupidly do bad spyware implementation?

#92

In my opinion what should really be done is to have a wiki page about the software, and just explain basic setup, how to deal with some edge cases, what to respond to some questions and/or what glitches can safely be ignored. That’s sufficient for users. FriendlyELEC has been doing that for more than a decade (they adapt the contents to each of their boards) and that makes a fantastic bootstrap for any user who starts with a bare board. It quickly allows you to test various aspects of the product without having to search all the internet to figure how to install this or that.

2 Likes
#93

Strange, I never felt this, but admittedly I only post about my observations and findings on hardware, so maybe such posts do not deserve any form of hostility that you might have faced. This still raises a concern, though: the fact that you feel you should stop using these products due to perceived hostility in the forums means that you estimate it’s impossible to reliably use the products without the forums. That may be true, but in this case it probably means that some reference documentation about how to set up various installations is missing somewhere. IMHO, forums should only be needed to get help from peers when no info could be found in a doc. And it’s well known that anywhere there are forums, there are participants who feel like they know better. That’s why I think that the products should come with improved doc (typically a startup wiki with most common cases addressed) so that users need much less to rely on forums and discussions in general.

BTW I’m seeing that docs.radxa.com doesn’t seem well indexed on google. Some searches like “rock 5b installation” bring me to the wiki (which is pretty scarce) but not to docs. I don’t understand why the two sites compete on contents, these should probably be better integrated together. Also I suspect that the lack of one-page contents in docs is what causes these contents not to be well indexed. And single-page is much easier to navigate through and read than small pages. Maybe some possible improvements to experiment with ?

2 Likes
#94

Please don’t change anything. This is a dev board and not a kindergarten-board. When radxa starts making it right for everyone nothing great is gonna come out it.

From their website:

Radxa SBCs are complete computers built on a single circuit board, featuring a microprocessor, memory, input/output (I/O), and other functions required for a computer. Compact and powerful, Radxa SBCs can be used to control your smart home, function as a game machine, or for endless DIY projects. Everything about Radxa SBCs is open, and how you use them is entirely up to you. With the flexibility to modify software and connect a variety of peripherals, Radxa SBCs are the ultimate all-in-one solution for any application requiring a complete computer.

2 Likes
#95

A lot of propaganda made people think that anything with the Chinese characters inside is likely “spyware”. This is quite sad. I don’t know how you deal with it at Radxa but it seems difficult.

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#96

Interesting. I’m new here and not familiar with the ‘inner politics’. What views are that? What choices were ‘deal-breakers’ specifically?

BR

#97

You implemented the BaoTa? That’s pretty cool. :slight_smile: Nice to make your acquaintance. The issue is that I can’t even succeed in installing it… I get an error.

But yes, generally it is preferable to have Chinese letters depending on locale, it would adhere to good practice. There are many companies here in the West working as consultants directly or indirectly with governments (government contractors). And politically speaking, which the governments strictly abide by, China isn’t a foe, but not an ally. So there are both politics and a sense of making users comfortable by not mixing unfamiliar languages (especially Cyrillic and Chinese). I believe the Congress even banned a Chinese app? (https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/29/chinese-apps-remain-popular-in-the-us-despite-efforts-to-ban-tiktok.html). In Russia, they do the same but against Western apps like e g Facebook and Instagram. But in the end, I don’t think the country of origin is very important as adapting everything to the target audience. In the West, an English website, a well documented wiki in English, written by an English-speaker as to also get the cultural vibe. This is important because one can quickly tell if something was written that is close to your mentality culturally, and this of course, is a major factor in decision making. If it says “made in China” on the back, makes no difference though, as it would be strange otherwise. :slight_smile:

1 Like