PatM

Sorry to hear that. I have two nanopct4s and am learning about type c usb. It is a tricky topic and I hope to learn it. From one day of review it seems the 4.4.223-legacy armbian kernel doesnt really support type c. It doesnt appear to load the typec module at all. I dunno. My guess it is setup to work as a usb 3 host port. It seems 5.4.y is compiled more correctly w.r.t type c but it doesnt work yet. I purchased a 7-1 anker type c hub today it arrived. The ethernet port and storage ports work on bionic. the hdmi well I am trying now...

Yes. Zabbix is MySQL/PHP. I have run it. But it was early days and in transition. It is a great replacement for SNMP HP OpenView type systems. I havent been in corporate world in a long time. I suspect these two platforms, Cockpit and Zabbix will overlap. It was early days when I looked at Zabbix. It was a hard to reach russian site. It had just adopted grafana. I wonder how it is doing now with grafana. it didt work when I peeked, This is an interesting topic. Cockpit is the first thing I install on an armbian server .Here is what Cockpit has going for it: it is a modern web app. But it seems Microsoft is adopting a Node/Angular approach to cross desktop applications. PHP/C are well known topics. I am just saying that long term Node/Angular looks like it is going to be *the* cross desktop standard. not Apache/C/PHP well ... I dunno hey. ok throwing opinions and see what sticks! WebMin on steroids is a good thing. Now Cockpit is expanding rapidly and getting powerful extensions. It seems important to integrate Zabbix into Cockpit. I admit I love big IT architecture but dont invest in corporate career. I doubt Cockpit will want to do "Network Nagging" but it could. But in Cloud / IoT really Node/JavaScript/Angular/GRPC are more the topic at hand. I mean Google/Microsoft/Ubuntu/RedHat/IBM are sort of important in IoT LOL Does Zabbix really grok GRPC/IoT. both Zabbix and Cockpit are wonderful. Zabbix is high quality C and moving on interesting GUIs... IBM/RedHat are behind Cockpit. I have seen IBM push Zabbix but I would be skeptical and expect Cockpit to nudge Zabbix out at IBM Peace.

Hi that is interesting. I have looked at Zabbix and it is primarily a network manager. Have you looked at Cockpit? That is an exciting App. Zabbix is low level C and PHP for the most part. But Cockpit is Angular / Node and that is a very important point. It would be nice to see device stuff available in Cockpit. Right now the Device info isnt available for ARM but AMD has it. I am interested in writing Cockpit extensions. (or encouraging new extension be written LOL) I am new to Cockpit and Zabbix and may be wrong about this. But I did look at part of Cockpit code and I think it is written in Angular / Node and if so that is the most promising new platform for System Management. It is interesting to see the Storage interface update reactively to putting USB devices in. a webapp! that is IoT in a sense or moving into grpc type functionality.

I didnt want to sound too Ubuntu oriented so I built Armbian Buster Server for NanoPCT4. From there I installed Gnome3. Debian Buster has an older Gnome3 and Firefox 68. But the kernel works about the same (both Armbian kernel so not surprising). The Debian 10 Gnome3 and FireFox work but is a slower and choppier. Overall the Ubuntu Focal Gnome3 experience is of course later and superior. But the state of art indicates that the latest kernel and firefox are unfortunately necessary. Anyway this marks the end of the beginning of learning Armbian Build. The results: Ubuntu Focal is excellent and I am going to be able to run this desktop. I intend to stop using XFCE. I never used LXQT or Mint (I looked at Mint). I am going to be able to run Ubuntu Desktop on Armbian Server. This machine is really superior in many ways to Ubuntu Focal on AMD. The Focal logs on the AMD are bad. too much going on. but x86 works better in the overall sense, whatever that means LOL.

There has been a mysterious update to FireFox to version 77. The results are fantastic. The AudioVisual is superb on Focal / NanoPCT4. I need to stop downloading DEBs and am committed to mastering APT. I decided to sleuth it out and see what FireFox update got me to 77 and I cant find it! very strange. I only see apt and dpkg logs for 76. But this FireFox running so well on Armbian Server essentially is amazing. I looked at Armbian Server. I see that the device drivers for graphics includes Video 4 Linux. So Armbian configures all of the main AV drivers. FireFox AV1 is based on VLC!? that is important. maybe as important as WebKit. But I am running FireFox on Gnome3 and I am hooked. This is one impressive machine. This is essentially Ubuntu Server/Desktop then but with #trunk running from latest kernel mainline. very sweet

I think I am going to look more at the Build process. I see Aptly is written in Go. I am learning Docker. I just want to run Native. I see it uses QEmu. I want to learn that. Booting is a little dark for me right at the moment. I will let that sleeping dog lie. But I have learned how to flash the RK3399. I just cant use 16GB emmc LOL ... I leave it Android and work off SD. I am going to burn another Armbian Server SD and observe what exactly is on that. Those are my two Armbian interests at the moment. Understanding the kernel and X graphics modules of 5.4.y there is a lot going on there ... of course I know I need a better OpenGL driver but just grokking the current kernel and X layout and how it is installed is fascinating. I assume I got the entire X stack from apt-get install ubuntu-desktop. The 5.4 kernel logs are clean and sexy. ??? hey. very ARM aware. This is a lot of learning so I am going to switch to building and running Armbian Server for the next couple of days.

I read the note on Kagu and so I started from the top and upgraded Armbian Build and rebuilt the NanoPCT4 kernel. This kernel build went well and I am typing on it here. There are the wifi and usb c issues but other than a single cranky ALSA complaint about being awakened the logs are silent. off to a pretty good start. I study Debian and Ubuntu packaging. I run big development installs on Armbian Bionic for quite some time. I have been studying Arm Architecture and SoC during this time so I am committed to this stuff. I would like to learn more about U-Boot. Right now I cant stop the boot and get the u-boot prompt. I am willing to learn Aptly and Armbian Build to do some worktrade for some guidance. I want to rapidly learn this boot process and kernel build process. I am learning DeviceTree etc. I know the RK3399 in terms of FireFly docs and downloading RK3399 Technical Reference which is a unique document as far as I know. [I think I need a serial port adapter and ascii terminal]. I dont have that. perhaps that is why I cant stop the boot. Other than that I am learning Gnome Desktop and Gnome/Linux media. I only own RK3399 though. not interested in general embedded space Right now I am going to examine "VPU"s . I tend to favor Gnome in terms of what I learn so I am familiar with GStreamer and favor Blender as a familiar architecture. I know Blender does not like the default OpenGL 2.2. To look at video platforms they tend to be Qt based. Well I am going to install VLC and other video engines I am looking at Phoronix Test Suite. Lots of things. Ready to learn more about Gnome 3 X [wayland? what?]

The new (yesterday) kernel is even snappier but USB C and Wifi still not working. I dont really need 3D but I hope to learn more about it. I am more interested in the more generic Video / Graphics stuff . I dont understand how FireFox addresses its hardware interface but it is my most important "Media Platform" so I will learn it. It seems to be doing AV (Youtube pretty much) very well. General graphics very well. The X system now logs to syslog and it advertises pure Mali driver interface and OpenGL 2.2 as implemented by the Mali driver. So Blender doesnt work. I understand the importance of Chromium / WebKit but Google doesnt like it and I switched to FireFox (on NanoPC Armbian Bionic running FireFox -- STABLE=LEGACY) several months ago and that is now my most important Media machine so I am learning it. I think Armbian needs to take these facts into consideration. Also supporting VS Code is important. I am not an "embedded engineer". This is a "Desktop Media Development" environment. I like having to build up the machine like this. Fixing things. Makes me learn. anyway VS Code is important for an Armbian "Studio" platform. It seems that Android is Google's focus and MIcrosoft is wrestling back control of "Browser War" back from Google. MS has nothing else to do but desktop and cross dev Xamarin type work. Xamarin is also important (possibly of course) The reality is that Android and Android Studio is bigger than Web/JS now. So microsoft taking back control of Desktop with Node and Gnome3/Ubuntu (Cross Desktop Platform based on Node and Python (for advanced Desktop / Creator Studio) make sense. Its push on VS Code and GitHub is something good for us yes? anyway Getting Node and Python VS Code on Armbian "Studio" will get me addicted very quickly. addictions are good for us right?

I have been using Armbian Ubuntu 18.04 as my only desktop machine on NanoPC T4. I havent run media.sh for quite some time. Are we supposed to still be using that script? A long time ago every chromium update required rerunning media.sh. I have not done that for some time and chromium works for the most part ... except Google stopped accepting it as a trusted browser. I switched to FireFox and that is relevant to this update: I decided to ditch Chromium on Armbian Ubuntu 20.05 I ran Armbian Build to build the Minimal Server. I deleted debian.org as a repository source. I dont install Chromium. I run Armbian Minimal Server and just immediate apt install ubuntu-desktop. I then install MacOS Catalina theme and Catalina icons. And I install Firefox. and the results are very satisfying. This desktop works much better than Armbian XFCE. in every way pretty much. This machine is solid. fast snappy and pretty error free. I suppose the broadcom wifi and bluetooth drivers are binary only and trouble. Does life with RK3399 include proprietary wireless drivers? that seems to be the only firmware only in this system. I dunno. That is part of the learning process here LOL. Now there is no doubt I can run VS code but only Python and JavaScript. no C++ and C#. but running Python and JavaScript is where I start here anyway. Lots of tools to play with and explore now. I am keeping this NanoPCT4 running this install. It is AWESOME

Armbian Server for 20.05 NanoPC-T4 writes an image out to microSD in about an hour. I am running Build in native mode. This is a $100 HP AMD machine with 4GB. It is also the first time I cross compiled and running natively helped me "see it go". My Ubuntu Focal machine ran all the cross compiling and installing pretty well. I dont clean anything and ran Armbian Server after building Armbian Desktop. Armbian Server came up perfectly well (no wifi or usb C..but this is known)... apt install ubuntu-desktop gave me a nice solid desktop. well....Firefox and Chromium need a "media.sh" effort I suppose!! That will happen I am sure within a couple months. The Chromium about://gpu on my ubuntu-desktop looks identical to what I see running Chromium on armbian-desktop. Skia gets accelerated but no video ...well its raw but hey. But Gnome 3 desktop is up and running. Well this is getting very interesting Visual Studio Code will be interesting to see integrated into Armbian Desktop... once it goes Gnome3 ! It offers a lot of functionality of general platform interesting Very Exciting! Thanks everybody.

I bought a Firefly RK3399 about a year ago. Since then I have moved to Friendly NanoPC T4. I bought a second NanoPC T4 because my first machine running Armbian Bionic 18.04.4 has been working very well. I have been anti X86 and decided ARM was more interesting. Now to compile I need Armbian Build. So I bought a $100 HP 15 Laptop, a basic 4GB / 500GB Sata machine running Focal / Ubuntu 20.04. OK I have since reevaluated my situation and see more AMD machines in my future. I was able to run Armbian 20.05 on the HP and that impressively gave me a working Ubuntu Focal on my NanoPC. Except it is unoptimized and creaky. not really a working desktop. But I have learned Armbian Build a bit. I know it doesnt have Wifi but I bootstrapped internet using my other NanoPC and the very easy to use "share an internet connection" over ethernet. OK this is the machine I want. The new armbian 5.4.y kernel is a very sophisticated machine. But what I am looking for is: 1. a move to Gnome3 and VScode. I will be following that development since Igor hinted that this might be usable on a RK3399. I am bored with XFCE and all of the other desktops. But I am aware that XFCE is what I will be working with on Armbian at least for a while. My other goal is to invest in NVMe. I have two NanoPCs and the metalic cases. I am concerned that this case can somehow manage to house M.2 NVMEe SDs. I like the new NanoPIs and there is a case for M4V2 that seems to support NVMe. Right now all of my RK3399s have a flashed Android on the eMMC. I have only bothered with running from microSDs. Since I really like the NanoPC I invested in two Samsung Evo 256GB microSDs. The friendly arm specs said that 128GB was all they supported but Armbian kernel has no problem with 256GB. very nice! Thanks everyone. I am continuing to invest in RK3399 and Arm. I realize that over time I will want better Mali graphics and more RAM so the RK3399 path could lead to RK3399Pro which has 6GBs. but I am likely to invest in NanoPi M4V2 because they are neat but clearly this is the beginning not the end of open source Arm Linux. I do have a Firefly RK3399 if some effort is needed to test that platform. It is unused by me at the moment. I like some things about Firefly but clearly Armbian showed that FriendlyElec was the way to go. I hope to evolve my technical skills to contribute something to Armbian! Pat