Bas

Hello people, Happily running Bookworm, because it was the mainstream download for OPI5 a few months ago, I now see that the main download for OPI is back to Jammy. Apart from hardware accceleration, Bookworm runs great for me. In fact HA is not crucial for my server usage, though it would be nice. Question: what is the reason the main OPI5 download is now back to Jammy in stead of Bookworm? And what would be the advantages of going back from Bookworm to Jammy? (Got the aluminium passively cooling case for the OPI5, so far it's been great, 10 minutes of stresstesting all 8 cores doesn't get above 70 degrees celsius. For reference my Meko 3588 box without any cooling reaches over 80 degrees. On that Mekobox I am running Portainer, Docker, HomeAssistant, MosquitoServer, very stable for months and months) Bas Hamstra

Hello folks, I happily run Armbian Jammy XFCE on my much beloved Meko box (with at least SOME hardware accel) and Bookworm on Orange Pi 5. Both run excellent, but Jammy/xfce is a bit more snappy. probably because of partly harware accell. On the Meko R3588 4Gb box I installed Docker, Portainer, MQTT server container, Home Assistant container. All is well. I operate my boxes via RealVNC, so that it also will work seemlessly when VPN is active. The containers are so extremely light that they hardly take a few percent CPU. Home Assistant container takes 0,5Gig or so, MQTT server takes 0.1Gig. My first encounter with docker is very positive! Next I will try to add open VPN and SABNZB containers if possible. So...these containers got me thinking...can we run QEMU on Armbian? Probably not, but I have to ask: would it be possible to: have QEMU working on RK3588 Armbian Run for example a windows VM in QEMU? Even if it would be slow? Just playing and experimenting...never used XFCE before, it grows on me, very snappy and no-nonsense...! And with dark themes these UI's look a lot cooler in the first place IMO. PS: I don't get that my plastic Meko box doesn't get hot, without ANY active cooling. I did a stresstest for 4 minutes, all 8 cores maxed, and sensor temps reach eventually over 80 degrees. Where does the heat go? The box never gets really hot and when the stresstest ends sensor temps go straight back to 60/50s almost instantly. I quite LIKE it's completely silent and without moving parts. It's got an EXCELLENT built-in wifi adapter too! So good that I don't even bother to plug the ethernet cable in, that says it all. Maybe I'll start loving my 8Gig Opi5 more when I get a passively cooled aluminium case for it. But currently it has moving parts and NO built-in wifi and an ugly transparent case 😉 Bas

Hoi Nico, thanks for the link. So far I tried from the offical Armbian download page: Latest bookworm --> very good experience out of the box but the HW accel ppa's don't work. Apart from youtube/movies/games it's very SWIFT for "normal" office and server stuff Latest Jammy --> not a nice experience for me, seems incomplete OOB and laggy I have a preference to stay on the offical Armbian bandwagon so I might try the rolling Jammy XFCE (built one month later) next to see how that goes. On the other hand I am very curious of the perfomance difference with Monka's link. So thanks again Nico! Bas

For my Mekotronics R58 mini PC I downloaded and installed latest Armbian build "bookworm". When I want to execute the suggested scripts to add Mali PPA's for hardware acceleration, I get the error "no release file" for these PPA's. What to do? Wait until it gets solved? Download and install Jammy in stead? Would the PPA's then work without error? Or is there another workaround? Thanks for any pointers! Bas

Are there any other Mekotronics R58 mini users out there? I like this box a lot and Armbian runs great on it, I would very much like to share expereriences with other users and learn from each other. At this point Armbian is downloadable for this board on this site. And it has recent updates too. Some specs: I have the Mekotronics R58 mini plastic version (there is also metal box that has better cooling but same internals) RK3588 8 core Rockchip CPU 4Gb RAM File System transferred to 120Gb SSD with armbian-config Measured it uses 2.1 watt during idle I seem to have everything working except HW acceleration. On the download page it says to execute some PPA scripts (to add repositories) but these fail And everything works rather GREAT very nice silent mini PC Should I wait till subsequent updates will fix HW acceleration? Or run the provided scripts? But alas, these scripts run into errors like below. E: De pakketbron 'https://ppa.launchpadcontent.net/liujianfeng1994/panfork-mesa/ubuntu bookworm Release' heeft geen Release-bestand. N: Bijwerken van de pakketlijst uit een dergelijke pakketbron kan niet veilig gebeuren en is daarom standaard uitgezet. N: Zie de man-pagina apt-secure(8) voor details over het aanmaken van een pakketbron en over de configuratie langs gebruikerskant. E: De pakketbron 'https://ppa.launchpadcontent.net/liujianfeng1994/rockchip-multimedia/ubuntu bookworm Release' heeft geen Release-bestand. N: Bijwerken van de pakketlijst uit een dergelijke pakketbron kan niet veilig gebeuren en is daarom standaard uitgezet. N: Zie de man-pagina apt-secure(8) voor details over het aanmaken van een pakketbron en over de configuratie langs gebruikerskant. Do you use R58? Let's help each other! Bas

But Nico, with respect to hardware acceleration when I try to install the PPA's I get errors like this: E: De pakketbron 'https://ppa.launchpadcontent.net/liujianfeng1994/panfork-mesa/ubuntu bookworm Release' heeft geen Release-bestand. No release file therefore rejected as not secure. Any ideas? Is there a switch I can use? Anyway I think the R58 is SO much better than the RPI5 that in fact we deserve our own forum. - Crazy fast board - 2.1 watt idle - Does not run hot, and my plastic box has not even a fan - Therefore super quiet operation - Support for SATA ssd is default there - Fast enough for HD games and 4K media (if only we had accelerated HW, but previous versions and Android already proved it) Compare that to RPI5, without fan it gets dangerously hot even when idle. And should we wait another 5 years for HD media to really REALLY work? But eh...main question is above, getting HW accell working... At the same time I must confess that a stable and supported linux is my first prio. Armbian runs excellent even without it. But of course youtube movie playback would be nice...! Bas

Hi Nico, I basically followed this: https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/121199/realvnc-server-on-ubuntu-20-10-arm64-on-raspberry-pi-4 The crucial part is this: $ sudo dpkg --add-architecture armhf $ sudo dpkg --print-foreign-architectures $ sudo apt update $ sudo apt install libx11-6 Download the next 10 files from https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware ... opt/vc/lib libbcm_host.so libvcos.so libmmal.so libmmal_core.so libmmal_components.so libmmal_util.so libmmal_vc_client.so libchiq_arm.so libvcsm.so libcontainers.so These 10 files above need to be copied to /usr/lib. $ sudo apt install gdebi $ sudo gdebi VNC-Server-6.7.2-Linux-ARM.deb $ sudo systemctl enable vncserver-x11-serviced.service $ sudo systemctl enable vncserver-virtuald.service $ sudo systemctl start vncserver-x11-serviced.service $ sudo systemctl start vncserver-virtuald.service $ sudo vnclicensewiz Important: to download VNC-Server to RealVNC, and download the Raspberry Pi ARM version important of type armhf there are 2 flavors. You have to solve a couple of security policy issues, RealVNC will tell you how. But when it in the end works, it works pretty brilliantly!! From my laptop I can login to Windows NUC, or R58 Armbian box. Same from Ipad mini. What is also great: I did a couple of Watt measurements today: Latest Armbian does 2.1 watt idle that's crazy gooed! Isn't that even better than RPI4? When VNC server is active it goes to 4 Watt, some media browsing can go to 10 Watt. Pretty impressive. Performance is on par with my Dell I5 6300U laptop at least in the old Octane 2 javascript test. But I bet proper hardware accell can do even a lot better. Bas

So after the total reinstall of Armbian, I lost the work to get RealVNC server working. I remember it costed me a day of searching and trying back then... So last time I got RealVNC server working on Arm it costed me a day, but today only a couple of hours. In fact I am typing this via VNC on my laptop dialled in to the Mekotronics R58 Works great. Anyone interested how? Bas

Ok figured it out, just downloaded the R58 image and it works and looks great. But Mali support doesn't seem to work, the post install scripts provided seem to fail halfway. As-is performance isn't bad, anyway. As a general point: I find it a bit difficult to find the proper forum where I can at least get in contact with fellow R58 users. I mean: there IS an Armbian image for download for this board. And it's fairly recent too (28 sep) and Monka is the maintainer. So there is at least some form of maintenance. But which forum to exchange experience and help each other Mekotronics R58? Bas

Hello people, Half a year ago I flashed Armbian to to Mekotronics R58 plastic box, which was then an unofficial version. It's been on the shelf a while. Now I see new Armbian versions for download. I plugged in my device and did an update/upgrade. See Neofetch result below. My question is: is there any reason to completely flash the new version? Or am I already fine? It seems kernal versions are the same! Everything works fine and looks awesome including RealVNC for which I had some work to do. Therefore I am a bit reluctant to ditch the current version. Couple of minor issues I have are can't get Samba working and boot from SSD. Bas rock@r58 ◢🭫◣ -------- ◢◤ ◥◣ OS: Armbian (23.8.1) aarch64 ◢◤ ◥◣ OS Mod: AfterburnerMOD WIP ◢◤ ◥◣ Host: Hugsun RK3588 MINIPC LP4x V1.0 And ◢◤ 🭉🬹🬾 ◥◣ Kernel: 5.10.110-rockchip-rk3588 ◢◤ 🭅█🭐 ◥◣ Uptime: 3 mins ◢◤ ███ ◥◣ Packages: 1952 (dpkg), 24 (flatpak) ◢◤ 🭋███🭀 ◥◣ Shell: bash 5.1.16 ◢█◤ 🭅███🭐 ◥█◣ Resolution: 1920x1080 @ 60.00Hz ◢█◤ 🬏 🭄█████🭏 🬞 ◥█◣ DE: GNOME 42.9 ◢█◤ 🭋▌🭈🭆🭂███████🭍🭑🬽▐🭀 ◥█◣ WM: Mutter ◢█◤ 🭅███████████████🭐 ◥█◣ WM Theme: Adwaita ◢█◤ ███🭞🬎███████🬎🭓███ ◥█◣ Theme: Yaru-dark [GTK2/3] 🭮█◤ 🭒🭡🭘 🭣🮂🮅🭫🮅🮂🭘 🭣🭖🭝 ◥█🭬 Icons: ubuntu-mono-dark [GTK2/3] ◢█ █ █ █◣ Terminal: gnome-terminal ◢██◣ ◢🭡 🭖◣ ◢██◣ CPU: (8) @ 1.800GHz ◢████🭍🭑🬭🬭🬭🬭🬭🬭🭆🭂🭠🭗 🭢🭕🭍🭑🬭🬭🬭🬭🬭🬭🭆🭂████◣ Memory: 1696MiB / 3735MiB

Great video Nico. I must say I fell in love with the nanopi R6C form factor, it reminds me of my aluminium RPI4 case (GREAT passive cooling). With 8Gb I have a bit more leeway than my current 4Gb plastic Meko box. Well ideally I would like 16Gb, but it's not there for the R6C. And it has a nice nvme slot. Could be an awesome server/NAS combo for me. The price of 125EUR including metal case is perfect. But this time I will wait for official Linux support. (In the meantime still using the plastic 4Gb Meko R58, still doing great with the Monka armbian!) Bas

Update: I managed to get RealVNC 7.0.1 ARM64 working on the R8 mini, so I can manage everything headless, just as I do for the Rpi4. I disabled Wayland to get this to work, so back to X11. This unofficial Monka Armbian build has been nothing but GREAT for me! Time to phase out my NUC server with this completely silent and cool (but more performant) R58 box. Been playing a couple of weeks on the Mekatronics R58 box and it has been very stable. So stable in fact that you ask yourself: why not make it official? It is my impression that being a RK3588 board it has quite a bit of overlap with the Rock 5 board (in fact this Mekotronics armbian version seems to be copied initially from the Rock 5B builds). I wish I could get in contact with other R58 users and/or Monkablyatt (to thank him and say it's a GREAT build!), but there does not seem a single Mekotronics RK3588 message board on the planet, including Armbian fora. How can I exchange experiences with fellow R58 users?? Kind regards, Bas Hamstra

@Nico I used the links from your video (and these are on Mekotronics site now too). So I installed Monka Armbian and it's absolutely great! Finally a working Linux for this box! For about the same cost as a RPI4 the plastic R58 4Gb/32Gb box that I bought for 120EUR is a super snappy Linus mini PC indeed! Geekbench single core: 2000. Multicore: 8000. Only the fastest (and EXPENSIVE!) nucs can dream of these scores! And this power for 120 freaking EUR in a complete ready to use package..! Bas

Hello people I would like to share my experience with the Mekotronics R58 mini PC (RK3588 box, in my case with 8Gb RAM and 32Gb EMMC). For a more review like post see NicoD's video review here on the Armbian forum: he just reviewed the new MonkaArmbian on this board. I got the Download links from NicoD, and in the meantime they are also on the official Mekotronics support site. I just want to share my experiences with others. So first I played a bit with Adroid 12, that came with the box. Android is the best supported OS for this box, performance wise. Video and emulated gaming seems to work great also 4K. But I wanted Linux on it, so I installed Debian from Mekotronics site. It works great, at least everything on the board works great: Open Office, Firefox, video playback. But I had some issues installing new software (software like VSCOde, CodeBlocks++, Gimp would not install or it won't run properly). So I eagerly waited for something new and also contacted Mekotronics, but no real luck. Along comes MonkaBlyat the famous dev guy. He produced a personally developed Armbian (not official) that is quite stable. At first I thought performance suffered a bit compared with Mekotronics Debian, but I am glad I did not give up. First I installled Libre Office, it looks a bit crude and boxy and fonts were too smal. I then installed libreoffice-gtk3 BOOM problem solved, I then did a few updates and upgrades from terminal. Changed icon theme and suddenly the desktop transformed into a more Ubuntu like style and everything looks fantastic in dark mode, including LibreOffice, and works as fast as the original Debian from Mekotronics. It's GREAT! Open LibreSheet BOOM one second and you can start typing. Chromium: one second. Gimp: under 2 seconds. VSCode works great. Chromium youtube playback works great. It's so snappy I could really use this as a software development box and daily PC. Few minor issues: if I open the SSD window or the garbagebin window something something hangs and I can't open the screen again. Work-around: option open in new window. Personally I am very pleased to have a working Armbian now, even it it's not offical (yet) and a big thanks to MonkaBlyatt who made it possible! Bought my box for 120EUR and it's a lot more bang for buck than the RPI4 (5 times the performance, way better video, comes with built-in EMMC, wifi, charger and case, completely silent, no fan, yet it doesn't get hot so far). Next step for me is to get it headless with VNC server. Kind regards, Bas

Hi Nico if would be great to have official Linux support, thanks for the video and the links. Is it really stable? I downloaded Monka version of Armbian but have had not enough time to install. According to Geekbench the Rk3588 is about twice as fast as a fast nuc. It's really an interesting board. Bas