Rock 4SE Armbian 25.5.0 Noble Gnome

#1

So, I don´t know if anyone is interested in this board 2025…

EDIT: I’m a beginner in the linux world, and all I can contribute is my own steps forward. I’m not gonna solve any issues or come up with any solutions due to lack of knowledge. But I feel there is a lack of new posts around this board… End EDIT

so…

After trying several distros and radxas own, I’m, as of yesterday (march 19), running Armbian Noble /w Gnome on my Rock 4SE w/o problems. (yet)

The builld is found here

I have the board installed in a generic printed case, with a cutout for heatsinks. A 60mm 12v fan on 10mm standoffs connected to the 5v+gnd that is running real quiet and keeping the temps at 35C idle and just around 60c at “load” (youtube 1080p@60 + several memory-heavy-tabs open, 1 terminal running HTOP, 1 terminal running IFTOP)

The Armbian page listing all supported SBC’s, is loooong. So I just CTRL+F and put in ROCK-4SE
You can choose from Bookworm minimal and Noble Desktop version. I went with Ubuntu.

I’m, as of now, running on a 32Gb SanDisk ultra A1

Today, march 20, I´ve soldered a GD25Q127CSIG from ALI, just waiting on a OTGcable then I´m gonna try to install and SPI-boot-run armbian from NVME.

If anyone have done these steps recently, 2024 oct [] please leave a comment on success/fail

Will try to keep this post running in case any other neewbs is out there trying to get the Rock 4SE to work properly with an updated distro.

//Chris

#2

I am still interested in those, but I need to wait for vendor 6.x kernel, that was promised for end of this month.
Mainline kernel had issues with some of overlays, op1 and pcie 2x link were problematic.

Why wait? just run armbian-install script, mtd tools should be already there.

I recently checked few things on Rock4, nvme boot worked for one of three nvme I had at hand.

It would be nice if Rockchip delivers promised 6.x kernel for RK3399 (already delayed!)
High time for @radxa team to refresh every Rock 4 family images.

#3

Hi Dom

I was under the impression this was kernel 6.12.xx (I’m not banking on it though, not at the station atm)

I thought I had to follow these steps to setup maskrom first…
Please prove me wrong. That step “requires” USB A male - USB A male. That type of cable is not in my invertory atm. As I edited to the original post, I’m not a superuser, I’m just trying to figure this out as I go. I appreciate any help I can get along the way :slight_smile:

Yes, it would be nice if @radxa stepped up and spoke to it’s community. If not, just to inform about delays or general roadmap advancements.

#4

So I followed the guide here and the “method 3” as suggested.
Everything worked up to write the image to nvme with DD.
I got an error with path to image, and then the system halted, would not restart or shut down. I had to pull the plug as no program wanted to start.

I flashed the image onto nvme with Balena etcher in windows 11 and started up the Rock 4SE with only NVME.
No dice. Nothing, just green light. Rebooted with SD and lo’n behold the root is damaged. Boots straight into busybox - and no way out.

So back to reflashing the SD and hope for the best. And not a bricked device.

#5

We have repeatedly asked Rockchip about RK3399 Linux 6.1 SDK, but so far we received no code nor timeline.

#6

This is mainline effort, it works for most things but it’s not coming from vendor.

Maskroom is one of methods, it requires good cable, pc and driver. Then You can boot into that mode and be able to transfer data into eMMC or SPI.
But also You can just boot OS and update SPI directly from board.

Maskroom requires to connect upper USB port on Rock4 with usb on pc. Sometimes usb-c to usb-a works, but mostly not because either You have charge only cable or port have some weird controller behind it and tries to charge pc or negotiate usb-pd. Also most adapters usb-c to a have only few lines. Lastly this have to be solid connection, so using usb-A to usb-A cable is just easiest choice to get into maskroom and have solid connection.

If You are using Armbian as far as I remember You need right SPI for nvme to boot, this one is different than radxa one.
But why You did not run armbian-install script? It would do everything for You, flash right spi image and move system to nvme. This is prepared for this use case.

If You flashed spi from radxa and armbian then it wont start.
Just flash radxa os to nvme or sd card, this one should boot,
from system clear spi flash,
boot armbian from sd and run suggested tool, should guide You
If You already have this cable just connect board in maskroom mode and clear spi (and/or flash armbian spi)

#7

Thanks for Your time and this information,
This is 2018 flagship and still many boards has that chip, I got 8 sbcs waiting for this update :confused:
any rough estimate?

#8

I really have no idea. All I know is that it is on the roadmap, and we are left hanging. On the other hand, I think there is no plan to release a RK3528 Linux 6.1 SDK, so for that one we are porting some supports on our own.

#9

I perfectly understand this, all ROCK 4 series should already got that update.
Please keep us informed about those when it’s either ready or turns out to be failed promise.

#10

So what exactly is missing from mainline kernel.

#11

I hope just for bit better idle power consumption, those things are often lost in mainline, for bare board I could see 1.8W with 4.x on some RK3399. Briefly tested R4 has little less than 3W with 6.12.