Why is Radxa giving up on software support?

#1

I just bought a Radxa 4Cplus and a Radxa 5B SBC. These cards are on sale on the Radxa web site, where I ordered them from. There is nothing wrong with the hardware, but there is NO software support for the cards. Why do Radxa keep selling cards with no software support?

For both cards the “latest” OS images are more than 1.5 years old!!! Until Radxa stopped supporting the cards, there were a new OS image released every month, then stop. So, Radxa no longer support the SBC but they are still selling. Why?

When I install and do an update on the old software, I get lots of error messages and sometimes the boot will hang afterwards. It’s not possible (or a good idea) to run old outdated software, so an update is mandatory. But then a update brake the old OS images, why are they even listed?

Radxa should make a statement about software support and how long after the cards are leased they stop supporting the software. This is vital for the use of the cards for those of us that cannot compile new OS images. Community images like Dietpi, Armbian and so on have many missing features and are not at all a substitute for a tailor made OS with all the customization that is needed to make the SBC run to its fullest.

Please, Radxa, do something about software support, or make it clear to all customers that software support will sees after a few years after the cards are released. Sett a date for the end of software support, OR make and test new OS images that work with your hardware until you stop selling it. Be honest about your software support.

Please take some inspiration from Raspberry Pi software support!

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#2

Request:

Could one skillful forum member please use rbuild to compile the current supported Debian version and make a CLI image build for the Radxa 4Cplus and the Radxa 5B boards?

Thank you :slight_smile:

#3

Does the rbuild utility download the latest source code directly from Debian, or does it download the source code from Radxa (that might be old)?

#4

RK3399 based SBCs will upgrade to 6.1 kernel this year, before Q2.

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When is there going to be an Debian OS update to the ROCK 4 C+?
#5

Everything what Armbian developers invest is taken by copycat projects (dietpi for example) in real-time. This is a problem since they don’t contribute to common problems and as there is nothing coming from you. Do the math, its plain simple. HW (SoC) sales does bring-up, most of maintenance is on community side. Which is largely ignored.

But still we provide you good assembly tool and there are several maintainers behind previous Rockchip generation. Without this work, things would fall apart, not just what you notice - missing functions.

#6

They have monopoly on SoC design.

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#7

What if Radxa gives out an 6 month updated CLI (Server) image for all their SBC, that have all the GPU and VPU drivers enabled in the image, and the users can add whatever DE they want to use?
Why only release a KDE image, or XFCE image? Is it very hard to make a server image ready for any DE? I would guess the most important OS image for an ARM SBC would be a server (CLI) image?

#8

So they have full control of the SDK, you mean?

#9

Yes, Radxa should be responsible for the software for the SBC they sell, and not let it be the community that has to do the job.

I’m still looking for a Radxa 5B Bookworm Gnome image will GPU and VPU drivers working…

Luckily, I have the Radxa X2L where I do not have to depend on Radxa for an OS image :slight_smile:

#10

… while everyone else would rely on community to develop and maintain the software? :slight_smile: And steal from each other. Didn’t you notice that all boards Radxa make, someone else makes (almost identical in term of software support) under different name? I can tell you first hand that what you are asking costs millions per year which margins in hardware sales can’t cover - you want cheap hardware and you want perfect software and you want it for free. One don’t need a PhD from economy to understand this is oxymoron.

There will be new and new hardware design and software is gradually improving. This is what you can hope for at best. From your complete absence of support to people that maintains software, this is all what you can expect.

You are looking for this at wrong place, asking wrong people.

Community projects provides Ubuntu (also Debian makes this just a lot more expensive) derived OS with this working. Months went into developing this and every month costs to keep it working. Make a recurring donation and reset your over-expectations.

#11

I see your point, but it would be nice that Radxa (and other arm sbc makers) would make it crystal clear that they will not have up to date and feature complete OS for the boards they sell. Make sure the customers who buy their boards know they do not get software support, but needs to rely on community software support.

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#12

If the software support resources are so limited, wouldn’t it be a better choice to stick to one linux base, like Debian or Ubuntu, and drop all desktop environments and make a single server up to date OS image for all the boards? I would guess this would lighten the load on the software development team?

Raspberry Pi develop their OS on one base only, Debian, and in addition to a server image, have one desktop image which is LXDE. Even with all the software support of Raspberry Pi, they stick with two OS images with one base and one kernel. Would it not also be a better choice for Radxa to also stick with one base, one kernel and one server image?

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#13

What do you think Armbian does? :slight_smile: Since we developed powerful build framework, adding new upstream package base becomes trivial. 99% of resources are spent for base operating system, kernel and infrastructure. Producing different image variants is fairly automatized - main of the costs are non humans.

#14

Every kernel has advantages and disadvantages. We need to produce several kernels, kernels per hardware platform as merging stuff under one kernel is significantly more expensive. We all together (mainline) don’t have resources for that, so don’t expect the impossible from small hardware design company which can only adjust their hardware to match kernel provided by SoC vendor.

#15

I was thinking about Radxa software support.

#16

The problem is the same for everyone, including Radxa.

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#17

This was already promised as Q3 2024, hopefully no extra delays :smiley:

#18

Maybe because rockchip has stopped selling chips for vendors?
Maybe because collabora hasnt finished their mainline port yet?
Maybe because u havent even done some search on the forum where users already publishes a ton of working images for them devices?

in short: Theres images working for rock 5B idk about the 4C but 5B rk3588 theres a good portion of working options third party mostly but… not all is bad.

#19

It could always be better… but I must say I’m positively pleased by the way Radxa sponsors their rock5 boards with Armbian (Platinum support, I guess meaning a paid sponsorship) and the way Collabora is working on rk3588 (I don’t know who pay them, if this is Rockchip or Radxa).

  • The Mainline kernel is able to boot and most of the drivers are working fine.
  • The boot chain is almost fully opened (remaining the DDR init stuff, but who really cares and I understand there are always some NDA stuff between the IP company providing the DDR block and Rockchip)
  • we have a uboot or a EDK2 opened solution.
    This is good indications that the SOC will be supported for a long time.

Remain the GPU stuff which is always complicated.
Also, it is always frustrating to have early OS images built as a proof of concept with proper video support, and an image build in the state of art with upstream component, but which takes so long to converge.

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#20

It’s not really rational to expect every hardware manufacturer to release their Linux distribution. It’s as if you had a Linux distro for every laptop manufacturer, for example. HP Linux, Lenovo Linux, Sony Linux, asus Linux etc. Most of them would just be crap.

That’s why it’s more efficient to sponsor a general not a distro like armbian or just make UEFI work (like they’re trying with Orion 6), then you can install anything.

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