The Tall Man

Since you're using UEFI, you can use Grub to boot. Grub has a Devcetree command. There's also a post here on how to integrate overlays:

My understanding is that ffmpeg needs to be compiled to do hardware acceleration. I use it (straight from the Debian repository) to transcode videos on my RK3588 board (Orange PI 5 Plus) running the Armbian edge kernel, and it runs just as fast as the vendor-compiled ffmpeg did using the Orange Pi company's vendor kernel.

@Werner, This is an Orange PI 5 Plus post. Wouldn't it belong in the Orange PI 5 Plus forum under Standard Support? https://forum.armbian.com/forum/250-orange-pi-5-plus/

I have seen kernel updates for my system since you began this thread. You could check for a latest update, and see if the issue self-corrects. Do you know when the latest zfs-dkms package was updated? Perhaps it's just getting too out of sync with the kernels. If all else fails, you can build the kernel yourself: https://docs.armbian.com/Developer-Guide_Build-Preparation/ ...and in the kernel config, be sure that zfs modules are included. From the kernel config screen, you can do a search for zfs, and see what comes up. If there are zfs modules available there, this would be a different approach that would probably replace the use of the zfs-dkms package.

Oh, okay. I'm not familiar with DKMS. But if you're updating multiple packages at once, doesn't apt sort out which need to be done first and second, etc? But if you're somehow rebuilding the kernel upon package installation, I'd install the headers package first - as those would be required for source-code level access. As for the devicetree blobs package, that just provides copies of those (already build) .dtb files to your /boot directory. But they're actually already included in the kernel package itself. The kernel package installs them to: /usr/lib/linux-image-_______/ So on my Orange PI 5 Plus, the dtb directory from the latest kernel package is here: /usr/lib/linux-image-6.18.0-rc3-edge-rockchip64/ Keeping the convention Armbian uses, instead of installing the redundant dtb package, I manually create two links to it in my /boot directory whenever I update the kernel (I have to do this for Debian-sourced kernels anyway): cd /boot ln -s /usr/lib/linux-image-6.18.0-rc3-edge-rockchip64 dtb-6.18.0-rc3-edge-rockchip64 ln -s /usr/lib/linux-image-6.18.0-rc3-edge-rockchip64 dtb Just replace that kernel with whichever one you're using. And if you're booting via uboot, be sure the Armbian.txt remains up to date.

You'll spend the money once. Then you'll have the result thereafter. I would suggest deciding what you want, then spending whatever it costs. Orange PI is "cheap", not just in price, but in hardware reliability as well as software support. I'm not aware of such issues with Radxa. RK3588 is more powerful than Raspberry PI, but as you say Raspberry PI has great community and support. Perhaps the question is - What do you need it for? Raspberry PI might be powerful enough for your needs.

I have an Orange PI 5 Plus, and both USB-C connectors (including the one used for power delivery) are faulty. Also the second HDMI output is corrupted. Clearly their manufacturer leaves a lot to be desired.

Modproble probes modules built into the kernel itself. An external package (other than the kernel itself) shouldn't affect it. If it was present via modprobe before, and not after, that isn't the zfs package, that would indicate a module that had been built into 25.8.1 kernel, then excluded from the 25.8.2 kernel build for some reason.

I don't know if this relates, but I recently discovered an issue with a Debian Trixie file system package xfsprogs on the 25.8.1 edge kernel for the Orange PI 5 Plus: https://forum.armbian.com/topic/55599-bug-report-armbian-edge-kernel-6164-xfsprogs-trixie-package-failure-to-start-low-memory-monitorservice/

The way the Debian .iso installer does it: sudo apt-get -o APT::Install-Recommends="true" install task-lxqt-desktop That will install a fully functional desktop with a minimal set of applications. If you set Install-Recommends to false, or any other way of installing it (i.e. lxqt), in my experience, the result may not be quite functional.

I've never been able to wake up my Orange PI 5 Plus from suspend. It just goes into oblivion - requiring a hard restart. The keyboard and mouse don't wake it up. Tapping the power button doesn't wake it up. I've tried it on Armbian as well as pure Debian Trixie. Apparently something is off in the design of the SBC. But also hibernation doesn't work (again in Armbian and in pure Trixie). Using a 32 GB (32 * 1024^3) swap for a "32 GB" (actually around 31 GB) RAM device, and setting RESUME to the swap partition, the hibernation option appears. But when used, it just goes into oblivion (like suspend). I left it alone like that once for about 20 minutes, it was still in limbo. and when I (have to) hard restart it, the previous supposedly-hibernated state is gone. Given that the SBC is capable of doing a power shutdown from the OS (i.e. after dumping allocated RAM to the swap), there is no legitimate reason for hibernation to not work. But it doesn't.

Hardware: OrangePI-5-Plus (rk3588), with "32 GB" of RAM Operating System: Debian Trixie (pure, except EFI boot and Armbian edge kernel) Root File System: Ext4 (encrypted) Desktop: KDE Plasma 6.3.6 (wayland, GDM3), KDE Frameworks version: 6.13.0, QT version: 6.8.2 EFI Source: https://github.com/edk2-porting/edk2-rk3588 The boot messages, after a few starts (spaced apart) of the low-memory-monitor.service, say there's a failure to start it. After booting is complete, here's a screenshot of the output of: systemctl status low-memory-monitor.service This error didn't show up until I installed a number of packages. I tracked down the offending package from the Trixie repository: Package: xfsprogs Version: 6.13.0-2+b1 Size: 4774 kB Description: A set of commands to use the XFS filesystem, including mkfs.xfs Once this package was removed, the error vanished, and a repeat of the above Status command reported low-memory-monitor-service as active and okay. I also found that, while the error occurred with the Armbian edge 6.16.4 kernel, it did NOT occur with the Debian 6.16.3 kernel. Kernel With The Error (kernel source: Armbian trixie) --------------------- Package: linux-image-edge-rockchip64 (Armbian Linux edge kernel image 6.16.4-edge-rockchip64) Version: 25.8.1 Size: 282 MB Kernel Without The Error (kernel source: Debian trixie-backports) ------------------------ Package: linux-image-6.16.3+deb13-arm64-unsigned (Linux 6.16 for 64-bit ARMv8 machines) Version: 6.16.3-1~bpo13+1 Size: 210 MB I also briefly tried regressing the Armbian edge kernel from 25.8.1 (6.16.4) to the previously available version of 25.5.2, which was 6.16.0-rc3 (I think). The error occurred with that kernel as well. An Effect of This Bug (Possibly) When this error was showing up, I was once using the internet (firefox-esr package version 140.3.1esr-1~deb13u1) for a while, when after closing it, I discovered that my desktop background image had changed on its own. I could not change it back, no matter what I did (in the KDE settings gui). I could change it to something else, but whenever I changed it back, the altered image returned instead of what it should have been. But once I rebooted, the background was back to normal. While this one experience (very much an outlier) may not be conclusive, it is indicative of a possible memory leak.

That's already a topic (with a solution): https://forum.armbian.com/topic/55129-trixie-apt-warning-policy-will-reject-signature-within-a-year/

Type in the command: lsblk There, addressing the nvme should be obvious.

It sounds like you're much more familiar with Linux than I am... especially on a deep level. It does have its strengths. I am grateful that it's a working alternative to anything from Microsoft or Apple. But I'm a firm believer that whether hardware or software (or any kind of design), simpler is better. Complication only arises from lack of clarity and understanding. One of the hallmarks of a good operating system is to provide complete support and essentially get itself out of the way - to make the computer an immediately usable tool for what you intend to use it for.... to be a clear conduit for that intention.