Rock 5 ITX - Poor Performance and other issues

#1

I have finally got my Rock 5 ITX up and running - Its performance using the Roobie image is TRASH. The Armbian install on my slowest SD card is amazing just I am unable to transfer my image over to the NVMe card which is frustrating me extensively even using the armbian-install script.

My glmark2-es2 score on default image with NVMe was 80-600 based on changing mali cpu performance compared to 1500-1700 on Armbian with class10 SD card.

Please make it easy to use other OS’s through your installer. I get that debian is slow to update and its like hitting your head against that brick wall… The quickest way to get things into the upstream is to be popular like Raspberry Pi and you do that with supported hardware with developers.

A lambo with a lawnmower engine - aint noone got time for that.

6.1.43 Armbian Jammy Gnome with panfork 3D/VPU Performance is good… lets embrace speed.

#2

I didn’t know there is a roobie os preinstalled to emmc. I just erased the whole emmc and flashed armbian to it when I receive the board.

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#3

Early reviewers of the board did not have roobie and wondered what the extra flash chip was for. I do however wonder if roobie has thwarted all my efforts to get armbian installed onto the nvme. This includes cat /dev > nvme and writing the image directly to the nvme drive. None of the other documentation seems to be working out for me… The biggest risk is that noobs buying the board will have huge disappointment since debian lags so far behind and all 3d acceleration is non existent. This will inevitably kill adoption.

I am however at the mercy of third party developers to try and solve my issues.

#4

So far no first party (Radxa) images seem to have GPU acceleration enabled, so I’m not sure what you were expecting.

#5

Any guides on how ro rectify that fact? 3rd party or otherwise? Last time I looked there was nothing in the wiki. Just prommices of 4k for noobs to be frustrated by.

And just because it’s like that for everything else doesn’t mean it should be like that.

#6

After many years of asking, even though it “shouldn’t” be like that, it seems it will probably still be like that. First party images provide basic usability, nothing more.

Just install Joshua Riek’s Ubuntu and enjoy, also, you get the latest version now (Noble). Seems that Radxa supports his project so this is good.

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#7

https://joshua-riek.github.io/ubuntu-rockchip-download/

There big son ! A decent image.

#8

Any luck getting this on the nvme? I’m writing this from my rock-5-itx on the nooby debian kde desktop and it is practically unusable with constant application crashes and wifi seemingly not working.

#9

I got frustrated and ended up pulling the NVME and using balena etched to flash ubuntu on it directly. Worked like a charm. https://joshua-riek.github.io/ubuntu-rockchip-download/

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#10

When you say flash ubuntu on it directly do you mean directly onto the nvme, or onto some intermediary like sd then onto onboard flash? I would love to follow the wiki but half of the links take me to dead pages lol.

#11

Generally speaking (that’s valid for most products, not just Rock 5), when images are available, they’re meant for removable media such as SD cards, that you’re supposed to flash from a working machine, then move to the machine to install. So here I guess it’s about SD images.