ROCKpi 4C Images compatible with Penta Hat?

#1

Hello all,

I am hoping someone can direct me to a working OS image for my Rockpi 4c with Penta hat.

I would love a link to either Armbian 20.05.4 focal or Armbian 20.05.3 buster. I have tried to find either one, but the lowest version I can find is Armbian 21.02.1

I would just like to get the fan and OLED screen working again. They were working fine before I decided to clean install to the latest armbian release and lost the fan and OLED.

To be more specific I’m trying to find a OS image that works with the command to install Penta hat software:
curl -sL https://rock.sh/get-rockpi-penta | sudo -E bash -

I have tried so many OS images, (ubuntu, debian, armbian) with no luck.

Help would be vastly appreciated.

Thank you

#2

Still no luck locating either Armbian 20.05.4 focal or Armbian 20.05.3 buster download links. Anyone know of where I can find one?

#3

@setq can you give some advice,

#4

Hi @Nathan_Ring,

What does sudo systemctl status rockpi-penta.service print?

#5

I wasn’t able to work on this much today due to work. Here is some information of what I did today:

Fresh install of Armbian 21.05.1 Focal with Linux 5.10.35-rockchip64

run command:
sudo systemctl status rockpi-penta.service

Unit rockpi-penta.service could not be found

run command:
nate@rockpi-4c:~$ curl -sL https://rock.sh/get-rockpi-penta | sudo -E bash -

Only have the following information appear then nothing

*** Penta SATA Hat Install for ROCK 3/4/5

*** Tested distributions:

*** - ROCK 5A
*** Debian 11 Desktop (radxa official image)
*** - ROCK 4
*** Armbian 20.05.4 focal
*** Armbian 20.05.3 buster
*** Debian 9 Desktop (radxa official image)
*** Debian 11 Desktop/CLI (radxa official image)
*** Ubuntu Server 18.04 (radxa official image)
*** - ROCK 3
*** Debian 10 Desktop (radxa official image)
*** Debian 11 Desktop/CLI (radxa official image)
*** Ubuntu Server 20.04 (radxa official image)

*** Please report problems to dev@radxa.com and we will try to fix.

run command:
sudo systemctl status rockpi-penta.service

Unit rockpi-penta.service could not be found

I decided to look inside the script by downloading it:
wget https://rock.sh/get-rockpi-penta

looked inside the script using nano, found the command:
https://cos.setf.me/rockpi/sh/penta-sata/rock4-armbian.sh

Decided to experiment and ran the following command:

nate@rockpi-4c:~$ curl -sL https://cos.setf.me/rockpi/sh/penta-sata/rock4-armbian.sh | sudo -E bash -

I was prompted to install additional software so the script started, and after install fan started spinning to my surprise. OLED display still doesn’t work.

run command:
nate@rockpi-4c:~$ sudo systemctl status rockpi-penta.service
● rockpi-penta.service - Rockpi SATA Hat
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/rockpi-penta.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: active (running) since Wed 2024-01-17 20:36:22 PST; 4s ago
Main PID: 3021 (python3)
Tasks: 2 (limit: 4459)
Memory: 10.5M
CGroup: /system.slice/rockpi-penta.service
├─3021 /usr/bin/python3 /usr/bin/rockpi-penta/main.py on
└─3032 /usr/bin/python3 /usr/bin/rockpi-penta/main.py on

Jan 17 20:36:22 rockpi-4c systemd[1]: Started Rockpi SATA Hat.
Jan 17 20:36:22 rockpi-4c libmraa[3021]: libmraa version v2.1.0 initialised by user ‘root’ with EUID 0
Jan 17 20:36:22 rockpi-4c libmraa[3021]: imraa: Failed to open lock file
Jan 17 20:36:22 rockpi-4c libmraa[3021]: gpio: platform doesn’t support chardev, falling back to sysfs
Jan 17 20:36:22 rockpi-4c libmraa[3021]: libmraa initialised for platform ‘ROCK Pi 4’ of type 20
Jan 17 20:36:22 rockpi-4c libmraa[3021]: pwm_init: pwm0 already exported, continuing

I think that is all relevant information. I’m willing to start from scratch again, and would actually prefer to do so.

Would like suggestions of what headless/CLI OS images work with the penta hat and provide fan and OLED. I’ll work with any suggestion.

Thanks for your time.

#6

Small update.

Installed new OS: Armbian 22.11.0-trunk Bullseye with Linux 6.1.63-current-rockchip64

utilized this command:

curl -sL https://cos.setf.me/rockpi/sh/penta-sata/rock4-armbian.sh | sudo -E bash -

rebooted and ran command:
sudo systemctl status rockpi-penta.service

results:

● rockpi-penta.service - Rockpi SATA Hat
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/rockpi-penta.service; enabled; vendor >
Active: active (running) since Fri 2024-01-19 23:52:19 PST; 3min 47s ago
Main PID: 763 (python3)
Tasks: 2 (limit: 4456)
Memory: 23.1M
CPU: 1.261s
CGroup: /system.slice/rockpi-penta.service
├─ 763 /usr/bin/python3 /usr/bin/rockpi-penta/main.py on
└─1314 /usr/bin/python3 /usr/bin/rockpi-penta/main.py on

Jan 19 23:52:19 rockpi-4c systemd[1]: Started Rockpi SATA Hat.
Jan 19 23:52:20 rockpi-4c libmraa[763]: libmraa version v2.1.0-20-g9ea5a29 init>
Jan 19 23:52:20 rockpi-4c libmraa[763]: gpio: platform doesn’t support chardev,>
Jan 19 23:52:20 rockpi-4c libmraa[763]: libmraa initialised for platform 'ROCK >
lines 1-15/15 (END)…skipping…
● rockpi-penta.service - Rockpi SATA Hat
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/rockpi-penta.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: active (running) since Fri 2024-01-19 23:52:19 PST; 3min 47s ago
Main PID: 763 (python3)
Tasks: 2 (limit: 4456)
Memory: 23.1M
CPU: 1.261s
CGroup: /system.slice/rockpi-penta.service
├─ 763 /usr/bin/python3 /usr/bin/rockpi-penta/main.py on
└─1314 /usr/bin/python3 /usr/bin/rockpi-penta/main.py on

Jan 19 23:52:19 rockpi-4c systemd[1]: Started Rockpi SATA Hat.
Jan 19 23:52:20 rockpi-4c libmraa[763]: libmraa version v2.1.0-20-g9ea5a29 initialised by user ‘root’ with EUID 0
Jan 19 23:52:20 rockpi-4c libmraa[763]: gpio: platform doesn’t support chardev, falling back to sysfs
Jan 19 23:52:20 rockpi-4c libmraa[763]: libmraa initialised for platform ‘ROCK Pi 4’ of type 20

Fan works, however, OLED display does not. Any pointers on getting the OLED to function again?

#7

@setq any advice on getting the OLED display to function again. I will provide any information you need. Thank you

#8

Hi @Nathan_Ring,

Have you tried Debian 10 Desktop(Linux 4.4) and Ubuntu 20 Server(Linux 4.4) ?

Since ROCK 4C ended its life cycle, we did not release new images and did not test scripts for compatibility with some new images. We’ll take a moment to look at the new armbian image.

#9

@setq Thanks for the reply. I appreciate you taking some of time to help.
I tried Debian 10 Desktop only very briefly as I would rather not have a desktop environment. The ubuntu 20(Linux 4.4) server gave me a lot of issues getting the penta hat software to function. I was never able to get the fan to work. The rockpi-penta.service would not function without errors. So far armbian has yielded the best results, besides for the OLED display everything is functioning.

Thanks again for looking into it.