Rock5B with Ubuntu Desktop

Same opinion as your, other competitors like Khadas are more solid in that. Personally I’m a quite sorry about that, people spent a lot of money to get something just acceptable

I suppose it depends on what you mean by acceptable. I don’t use the desktop, so in my case it’s perfectly acceptable. I just need the fastest aarch64 machine for large builds, and I won’t consider Apple.

Sure, you are right, but this topic is for desktop usage so, for me is not acceptable, not now.
I hope these aspects will be resolved soon.

for me as desktop with armbian (not ubuntu) it is perfect (speed and polish)

I do these step but once installed I’m stuck at black screen flashing underscore.

Steps performed.
-Flashing radxa ubuntu focal server.
-update expired key per radxa faq.

sudo apt update and upgrade
sudo apt install update-manager-core
sudo apt update && sudo apt dist-upgrade
sudo do-release-upgrade

Now in Ubuntu 22.04 with radxa kernel 5.10

sudo apt install ubuntu-gnome-desktop

Finally:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:liujianfeng1994/panfork-mesa
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:liujianfeng1994/rockchip-multimedia
sudo apt update
sudo apt dist-upgrade

Reboot

Result in a black screen with flashing underscore
Can be accessed with ssh

Ideas?

1 Like

Me too. I suspect update expired key also without panfork libs.

Did you copy mali firmware to /lib/firmware/ ?

https://forum.radxa.com/t/ubuntu-20-02-mali-drivers/12373/6

That’s the only step I did in addition to your list…

Another problem: after resolve NO_PUBKEY error i do apt update, surprise: when rebooted the system will loop and nothing appens. I tried several times, also with different PD, same result.
The same with unofficial distros.
I think it is unacceptable.

Alright, so I had the same error that you and @Bruno had, but I am not using a Rock 5. Stenzek helped me work through this issue and I’m not sure exactly what step ended up getting it to function properly, but I don’t have the blinking cursor error anymore.

I have the full record of everything that I did and I believe it should get you to the point where I am since I basically did everything else you did to create it.

Steps performed to get to where you and Bruno were:

  • Flash itx-3588 with ITX 3588j-RTLINUX Ubuntu 20.04 Gnome
  • sudo apt update and upgrade
  • sudo apt install update-manager-core
  • sudo apt dist-upgrade
  • sudo do-release-upgrade

A long time later, Ubuntu 22.04 on 5.10.

  • sudo add-apt-repository ppa:liujianfeng1994/panfork-mesa
  • sudo add-apt-repository ppa:liujianfeng1994/rockchip-multimedia
  • sudo apt update
  • sudo apt upgrade

reboot to flashing cursor of doom.


SSHed into the system and checked on the error after trying to use startx.
Went to /var/log/xorg.0.log and had a null pointer.
Rebooted to check and had the same error.
Went to check /etc/ld.so.conf.d

firefly@firefly:/etc/ld.so.conf.d$ ls
00-aarch64-mali.conf aarch64-linux-gnu.conf libc.conf

Ran this

cd /etc/ld/so.conf.d
sudo mv 00-aarch64-mali.conf 00-aarch64-mali.disabled
sudo ldconfig

Rebooted and checked the startx error
Ran this

find /usr -name 'libEGL.so*

Got this

/usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/mali/libEGL.so
/usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/mali/libEGL.so.1

Tried sudo apt install mali-g610-firmware and got an error that it was in package libmali-valhall-g610*
Ran this

sudo apt purge libmali-valhall-g610-g6p0-x11-wayland-gbm
and
sudo apt install libegl-mesa0 libegl1-mesa-dev libgbm-dev libgl1-mesa-dev libgles2-mesa-dev libglx-mesa0 mesa-common-dev mesa-vulkan-drivers

Startx had the same error, but xorg had a double free error

ldd /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libglx.so

Went back and did install mali-g610-firmware and the system booted to desktop

Not sure which of these steps was the most important, but this should get you out of the cursor. My system now has working panfrost drivers (the wayland blob was wiped and so was llvmpipe).

1 Like

Welcome, big fan. :slight_smile:
Ensure you join the discord for more help if required.

Hi, now I can’t find the download for mali_csffw.bin,
I still need to copy mali firmware to /lib/firmware before executing the following?
Can you share an mali_csffw.bin file?
```

  • sudo add-apt-repository ppa:liujianfeng1994/panfork-mesa
    ```

The file mali_csffw.bin in this link can not be found:sob:
https://github.com/JeffyCN/rockchip_mirrors/raw/libmali/firmware/g610/mali_csffw.bin

I didn’t have the mali_csffw.bin file, but I did it according to this jianfeng liu step, and then I have the mali_csffw.bin file under /lib/firmware/, It links to /lib/firmware/mali_csffw_g15p0 /mali_csffw.bin.

Although I don’t know what the difference is between g15p0 and g17p0 and g18p0,but it working:grimacing:

Run glmark2 2021.02 Score: 1072, and glmark2 2021.02 Score is only over 100 before it is installed
It’s really awesome!

https://launchpad.net/~liujianfeng1994/+archive/ubuntu/panfork-mesa/

radxa@rock-5b:/lib/firmware$ ll | grep mali_csffw
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root root      45 Aug  8 21:29 mali_csffw.bin -> /lib/firmware/mali_csffw_g15p0/mali_csffw.bin
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root    4096 Aug  8 21:21 mali_csffw_g15p0/
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root    4096 Aug  8 21:07 mali_csffw_g17p0/
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root    4096 Aug  8 21:07 mali_csffw_g18p0/

Hello Greenyi,
on my system it looks similar, but I’ve changed the link to newest version:

andreas@rock-5b:~$ ll /lib/firmware/ | grep mali
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root root      45 Aug  8 16:48 mali_csffw.bin -> /lib/firmware/mali_csffw_g15p0/mali_csffw.bin
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root    4096 Aug  3 17:32 mali_csffw_g15p0/
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root    4096 Aug  3 17:32 mali_csffw_g17p0/
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root    4096 Aug  3 17:32 mali_csffw_g18p0/
andreas@rock-5b:~$

And with PAN_MESA_DEBUG=gofaster glmark2-es2-wayland gives a result of glmark2 Score: 4579

Greeting
Andreas

I only use glmark2,not glmark2-es2-wayland.
I don’t know why this is wrong, can you share your mali_csffw.bin file?

radxa@rock-5b:~$ PAN_MESA_DEBUG=gofaster glmark2-es2-wayland
Error: main: Could not initialize canvas

I’m working with GNOME with Wayland, that’s the reason.
Sorry, upload of a file isn’t possible here.
Greeting
Andreas

Oh,Thanks.
That’s enough for me.

1 Like

BTW: Here you can find link to the file: https://forum.radxa.com/t/archlinux-on-rock5b/13851/277