The Tall Man

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.
 
 
 

The kernel 6.17 release benefits from improvements in the graphics subsystem, hardware enablement, and more! See where Collabora's kernel team contributed to this release. View the full article

Kernel 6.1 is Vendor.
Kernel 6.12 is Current / Mainline
Kernel 6.16 is Edge.
 
It's simple to change to edge. Just run armbian-config (it's available in the menu, or just type it in the command line using sudo). In armbian-config, as you make the selections, you'll find that you keep pressing ENTER until you get to the long list of kernels. Then scroll down to the latest Edge, which as of I last looked was 6.16.4. It may also say Armbian 25.8.1.
 
 

This was originally meant as a reply to a user having problems enabling openVFD on a Tannix T3-Mini, a device I happen to own. I have recently been through this journey myself, and having searched the forums, I cannot find a recent topic on how to build this for Armbian, so have decided to make a new post that may be of use to some.
 
Hold on to your hat, because this is going to be long.
 
Caveats
These instructions are, specifically, for the Tannix TX3-Mini. However, with a bit of fiddling, the general approach should work for any supported TV Box. I have added notes where you will need to look to edit a different file for your specific device There are many, many variants of the TX3-Mini out there. What works for me, may not work for you. Do not expect any help or support from me, I am just posting this as a courtesy for how I got this working... your mileage may vary. I am not going to troubleshoot anyone's issues These instructions are quite verbose, as they may also help users of other TV Boxes to get their displays working. It also may not. Like I say, I am not here to be tech support, but we can all agree not having a display stuck on "boot" is a nice thing to have As this is a kernel module it will most likely stop working after each kernel update. You will probably want to create a DKMS to rebuild the module whenever you download a new kernel. This is outside of scope here. Use Google. At the end of this, if all goes well, you will have a display showing the current time. If you want to do more with the display then this is outside of scope and you will need to look elsewhere. However, this link is useful for how to trigger the icons: https://github.com/arthur-liberman/linux_openvfd/blob/master/led_control.txt (note: only items 1 to 6 are valid for the tx3-mini) A lot of this can be done in a chroot, but the actual building of the kernel module itself must be done on the target device. To simplify things all of these instructions are to be executed on the device itself. If you want to do this in a chroot, then knock yourself out, but you are on your own.  
My setup
At the time of writing, these instructions are confirmed working for the 7 Segment display and all icons on:
Tannix T3-Mini S905w with 2GB RAM Armbian 25.11 Kernel 6.12.48-current-meson64 Debian stable (trixie) (13)  
Instructions
Note: Every code block here is meant to be pasted and executed in one go, even the multi-line blocks
We will work from the home folder to keep things simple. Don't worry, there will be no clutter as we will remove files we no longer require as we go
cd ~ Device Tree Blob
The first thing we are going to want to do is enable kernel support for openvfd in our DTB. Normally I'd do this with an overlay, but this does not appear to be enabled on the aml-s9xx-box image, so we will apply an overlay to the DTB directly:
Install the device tree compiler: sudo apt install -y device-tree-compiler --no-install-recommends Back up the existing DTB (if anything goes wrong you can always just restore the backed up DTB) :
Note: If your device is not a Tanix T3-Mini, then you will want to amend the following to point to the actual DTB you are using (you can find this in '/boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf') sudo cp /boot/dtb/amlogic/meson-gxl-s905w-tx3-mini.dtb /boot/dtb/amlogic/meson-gxl-s905w-tx3-mini.dtb.orig  
Create the overlay source code: cat << EOF > ~/openvfd.dts /dts-v1/; /plugin/; / { fragment@0 { target-path = "/"; __overlay__ { openvfd { compatible = "open,vfd"; dev_name = "openvfd"; status = "okay"; }; }; }; }; EOF Compile the overlay: dtc -@ -I dts -O dtb -o ~/openvfd.dtbo ~/openvfd.dts  
Merge the overlay into your DTB:
Note: If your device is not a Tanix T3-Mini, then you will want to amend the following to point to the actual DTB you are using sudo fdtoverlay -i /boot/dtb/amlogic/meson-gxl-s905w-tx3-mini.dtb -o /boot/dtb/amlogic/meson-gxl-s905w-tx3-mini.dtb ~/openvfd.dtbo Delete the overlay source: rm ~/openvfd.dts [Optional] Delete the compiled overlay:
If your build is static (that is, you will never pull an updated DTB through apt) then you can also delete the compiled .dtbo overlay file. I prefer to keep this around, as you can just re-patch the new DTB with the "sudo fdtoverlay ..." command above. It is also possible to automate the update of a newly installed DTB file by creating a postinst.d script, but that is outside of the scope of this document. Google is your friend. rm ~/openvfd.dtbo  
Reboot so when we load the module later, our device knows what to do with it sudo reboot now  
Once your device has been rebooted, you can confirm that your change has been applied correctly with the following command: dtc -I fs -O dts /proc/device-tree | grep -A3 openvfd Again, this will generate a lot of warnings! This is normal. At the end of the warnings you should see the openvfd entry that you added to your DTS in the earlier step. If you do not, then you have not edited the file correctly, and you should go back and try again.  
OpenVFD Config file
We need to create a configuration file which tells the OpenVFD module which GPIO pins are connected to the LCD display. We put this in the /etc folder as this is where we should be storing system configuration files for *deb based systems
The contents of this file were extracted from  https://github.com/arthur-liberman/vfd-configurations  so if you are using a different device, you must replace the following config with the relevant one from the link. If you are having issues with your config not working, direct them to the repo owner, not me. I do not know your device or what may be wrong.
Note: I remove the final functions='usb colon eth wifi' line as whilst the driver works fine with it included, it generates errors/warnings, which I would rather not see, and it appears to serve no purpose for Armbian
Execute the following to generate the config for the TX3-Mini
Note: If your device is not a Tanix T3-Mini do not execute the following. Instead, find your config at https://github.com/arthur-liberman/vfd-configurations and save it as /etc/openvfd.conf sudo bash -c "cat << 'EOF' > /etc/openvfd.conf vfd_gpio_clk='0,76,0' vfd_gpio_dat='0,75,0' vfd_gpio_stb='1,4,0' vfd_chars='4,3,2,1,0' vfd_dot_bits='0,1,3,2,4,5,6' vfd_display_type='0x01,0x00,0x00,0x00' EOF"  
Build the Kernel Module
Now for the nitty gritty, we need to build the kernel module.
The first thing we need is the kernel headers.
Note: the headers version must match your installed kernel version exactly. Do not try installing the headers for a different kernel version. You will run into issues
If you are on a standard image, or your kernel has been upgraded since you built your image, this is straightforward: sudo apt install linux-headers-$(uname -r) However, if you have built the image yourself, and you have not upgraded your kernel, then most likely the version available from the apt repository will not be compatible and your build may fail or the driver may not work at all. In these instances, you will need to go back to your build system and add the following switch to your ./compile.sh command: INSTALL_HEADERS=yes  
Install the required build tools
sudo apt install -y git build-essential --no-install-recommends  
Clone the openvfd repo.
At the time of writing the openvfd repo is not compatible with later Linux kernels. I have raised a PR against the repo to enable support, however it has not yet been accepted. If/when it is accepted I will be deleting my fork of the repo, but in the meantime, you can clone my fork with:
git clone https://github.com/torzdf/linux_openvfd.git ~/linux_openvfd If the above does not work, it is because I have deleted my fork as the changes have been merged, and I am unable to come back and edit this post. If this is the case then run the following:
Note: DO NOT run the next line, if the above git clone worked
git clone https://github.com/arthur-liberman/linux_openvfd.git ~/linux_openvfd  
Enter the driver folder of the cloned repo
cd ~/linux_openvfd/driver  
Create a Makefile. The provided Makefile will not work, so we need to replace it with our own:
cat << 'EOF' > ./Makefile ifeq ($(KERNELRELEASE),) PWD = $(shell pwd) KERNELDIR = /lib/modules/`uname -r`/build modules: $(MAKE) -C $(KERNELDIR) M=$(PWD) modules modules_install: $(MAKE) -C $(KERNELDIR) M=$(PWD) modules_install clean: rm -rf *.o *.ko .tmp_versions *.mod.c modules.order Module.symvers ssd253x-ts.* else obj-m := openvfd.o openvfd-objs += protocols/i2c_sw.o openvfd-objs += protocols/i2c_hw.o openvfd-objs += protocols/spi_sw.o openvfd-objs += controllers/dummy.o openvfd-objs += controllers/seg7_ctrl.o openvfd-objs += controllers/fd628.o openvfd-objs += controllers/fd650.o openvfd-objs += controllers/hd44780.o openvfd-objs += controllers/gfx_mono_ctrl.o openvfd-objs += controllers/ssd1306.o openvfd-objs += controllers/pcd8544.o openvfd-objs += controllers/il3829.o openvfd-objs += openvfd_drv.o endif EOF  
Compile the kernel module:
make -j$(nproc)  
Install the kernel module:
sudo make modules_install  
Update the kernel modules:
sudo depmod -a  
Create the helper service
Next we need to compile and install the helper service
Enter the folder that contains the source code for the helper service: cd ~/linux_openvfd  
Build the helper service: make OpenVFDService  
Make the helper service executable: chmod +x OpenVFDService  
Install the helper service: sudo cp OpenVFDService /usr/bin/  
Clean up
We have built everything we need from the OpenVFD repo, so we can get rid of the source code
Go back to our home folder and delete the source code cd ~ && sudo rm -r linux_openvfd  
systemd Service file
The final step. We need to create a service file that will load the kernel module, launch the helper service, and enable it on boot
Create the systemd service file:
note: If you prefer a 12 hour clock rather than a 24 hour clock, edit the 'Environment="OPTS=-24h"' line to 'Environment="OPTS=-12h"' sudo bash -c 'cat << '\''EOF'\'' > /etc/systemd/system/openvfd.service [Unit] Description=openvfd Wants=network-online.target [Service] Type=simple Environment="OPTS=-24h" ExecStartPre=/usr/bin/sh -c ". /etc/openvfd.conf; /usr/sbin/modprobe openvfd vfd_gpio_clk=$vfd_gpio_clk vfd_gpio_dat=$vfd_gpio_dat vfd_gpio_stb=$vfd_gpio_stb vfd_chars=$vfd_chars vfd_dot_bits=$vfd_dot_bits vfd_display_type=$vfd_display_type;" ExecStart=/usr/bin/OpenVFDService $OPTS & ExecStop=/usr/bin/killall OpenVFDService ExecStopPost=-/usr/sbin/rmmod openvfd [Install] WantedBy=multi-user.target EOF'  
Reload the systemd daemon: sudo systemctl daemon-reload  
Start the openvfd service: sudo systemctl start openvfd.service At this point your LCD should now be showing the time. If it is not, you can check for errors with: sudo systemctl status openvfd.service  
Enable the service at boot: sudo systemctl enable openvfd.service  
 
And that's it. If all has gone well, you now have a working LCD Display for your TV Box running a recent Armbian build

 

Expected. current had a bare minimum of hdmi support before it became recent LTS kernel. Therefore no fixes will hit there until rollover to next LTS.
Needs to be enabled. Either enable panthor overlay (the mainline panthor driver was backported to vendor kernel but is disabled by default) and install more recent mesa packages (depends on userspace). Or install proprietary mali blobs.
Having or building an image with mesa-vpu extension enabled handles that for you. There is no automatic method of installing afterwards yet. https://github.com/armbian/apa/issues/20

As the title says, how can I install the ntsync kernel module for use with Wine/Proton?
 
 

@The Tall Man Thanks again, it works
 
 

Terrific! You're welcome!

I Did It! I Got It Working!!
 
ES8388 Analog Audio Output
 
Here's How (this is very easy to do):
It just involves making one simple modification to the devicetree.
 
Note: I did this with the Edge kernel. My guess is that it will also work with the Current kernel. You can also try the Vendor kernel if its devicetree has the same code.
Update: I've addressed the Current and Vendor kernels in this comment below:
https://forum.armbian.com/topic/52118-hdmi-audio-and-analog-audio-do-not-work-on-opi5plus/#findComment-225009
 
 
I manually applied this patch:
https://patchwork.kernel.org/project/linux-rockchip/patch/20250823-orangepi5-v1-1-ae77dd0e06d7@hotmail.com/
 
If you scroll to the bottom where it gives the patch, the GPIO_ACTIVE_LOW needs to be changed to GPIO_ACTIVE_HIGH in the given section of the devicetree.
 
Here's the simple / quick way to fix it, without having to go through any lengthy (re)builds.
Modify the already installed devicetree file (/boot/dtb/rockchip/rk3588-orangepi-5-plus.dtb).
 
1. Install the package: device-tree-compiler
2. Backup the original, and convert to .dts format as follows:
 
# Go to your devicetree directory cd /boot/dtb/rockchip/ # Make a backup of your original devicetree: sudo cp rk3588-orangepi-5-plus.dtb rk3588-orangepi-5-plus.dtb.bak # Use device-tree-compiler to convert the file from the binary .dtb format to source (text) .dts format (ignore the warnings) sudo dtc -I dtb -O dts -o rk3588-orangepi-5-plus.dts rk3588-orangepi-5-plus.dtb # Safety-Check Part 1: Convert right back to .dtb format (another filename), ignore the warnings. sudo dtc -O dtb -I dts -o rk3588-orangepi-5-plus-test.dtb rk3588-orangepi-5-plus.dts # Safety-Check Part 2: Compare the newly converted file with the original. They should be identical (this command should produce no output) cmp -l rk3588-orangepi-5-plus-test.dtb rk3588-orangepi-5-plus.dtb  
3. Using a text editor in sudo mode, edit the source (text) file:
rk3588-orangepi-5-plus.dts
 
Search for this phrase: simple-audio-card,hp-det-gpios
I should appear exactly once in the file.
 
# Here is what that line looks like (for me): simple-audio-card,hp-det-gpios = <0x133 0x1b 0x01>; # This is that same line before original compilation simple-audio-card,hp-det-gpios = <&gpio1 RK_PD3 GPIO_ACTIVE_LOW>;  
4. Notice between the brackets, there are 3  values, separated by spaces. The third value is the value to modify from GPIO_ACTIVE_LOW to GPIO_ACTIVE_HIGH, or for us, from 0x01 to 0x00.
 
5. Convert your modified .dts file to a .dtb file (ignore the warnings):
sudo dtc -O dtb -I dts -o rk3588-orangepi-5-plus-fixed.dtb rk3588-orangepi-5-plus.dts # Optional: Quick Comparison Check (this should output exactly 1 line with 3 numbers: [big number] 0 1) cmp -l rk3588-orangepi-5-plus-fixed.dtb rk3588-orangepi-5-plus.dtb  
6. Copy the new fixed file to (overwriting) your original:
sudo cp rk3588-orangepi-5-plus-fixed.dtb rk3588-orangepi-5-plus.dtb  
7. Reboot (and have ES8388 analog audio out).
 
Note: Whenever you do a kernel change or update, you will need to repeat this process until the Armbian kernel updates catch up with this patch.
 
 
Here's the lengthier explanation (this is repeatable if you want to check it out yourself)
1. I downloaded the source code for version 25.8.1:
https://github.com/armbian/build/releases/tag/v25.8.1
 
2. I extracted the archive and started the building process (./compile.sh) with the edge kernel (and a desktop image).
It would not build because it rejected two of the kernel patches, but it did download everything into the cache.
 
3. I then found the file described in the patch:
./build-25.8.1/cache/sources/linux-kernel-worktree/6.16__rockchip64__arm64/arch/arm64/boot/dts/rockchip/rk3588-orangepi-5-plus.dts
 
4. In that file, I searched for the line indicated in the patch, just prior to the line to modify:
simple-audio-card,aux-devs = <&speaker_amp>, <&headphone_amp>;  
...and found the appropriate section. I confirmed the line that followed matched the original (incorrect) version mentioned in the patch entry.
 
5. I then scrolled to the top of the .dts file and looked at the files #included, to find where the GPIO_ACTIVE_LOW macro was defined. I figured dt-bindings/gpio/gpio.h was a reasonable place to look first. I found it here:
./build-25.8.1/cache/sources/linux-kernel-worktree/6.16__rockchip64__arm64/include/dt-bindings/gpio/gpio.h
 
Near the top of the file were these #defines:
/* Bit 0 express polarity */ #define GPIO_ACTIVE_HIGH 0 #define GPIO_ACTIVE_LOW 1  
6.  See the simple fix above for the rest.
 
Tags:
@Werner, @Igor, @laibsch
@dimaxus, @EricaLina, @ricardo_brz, @eselarm

Thank you for having a look and catching my mistake.  I have marked the PR as still work-in-progress for now while I look into where to patch this correctly in Armbian itself.

Anybody here with the Opi 5 Pro?  Does it need the same change?
 
https://github.com/armbian/build/pull/8568

Wow, that is awesome and thank you so much for sharing your findings.  Let's get this applied in our repo for the benefit of all Armbian users.

I Did It! I Got It Working!!
 
ES8388 Analog Audio Output
 
Here's How (this is very easy to do):
It just involves making one simple modification to the devicetree.
 
Note: I did this with the Edge kernel. My guess is that it will also work with the Current kernel. You can also try the Vendor kernel if its devicetree has the same code.
Update: I've addressed the Current and Vendor kernels in this comment below:
https://forum.armbian.com/topic/52118-hdmi-audio-and-analog-audio-do-not-work-on-opi5plus/#findComment-225009
 
 
I manually applied this patch:
https://patchwork.kernel.org/project/linux-rockchip/patch/20250823-orangepi5-v1-1-ae77dd0e06d7@hotmail.com/
 
If you scroll to the bottom where it gives the patch, the GPIO_ACTIVE_LOW needs to be changed to GPIO_ACTIVE_HIGH in the given section of the devicetree.
 
Here's the simple / quick way to fix it, without having to go through any lengthy (re)builds.
Modify the already installed devicetree file (/boot/dtb/rockchip/rk3588-orangepi-5-plus.dtb).
 
1. Install the package: device-tree-compiler
2. Backup the original, and convert to .dts format as follows:
 
# Go to your devicetree directory cd /boot/dtb/rockchip/ # Make a backup of your original devicetree: sudo cp rk3588-orangepi-5-plus.dtb rk3588-orangepi-5-plus.dtb.bak # Use device-tree-compiler to convert the file from the binary .dtb format to source (text) .dts format (ignore the warnings) sudo dtc -I dtb -O dts -o rk3588-orangepi-5-plus.dts rk3588-orangepi-5-plus.dtb # Safety-Check Part 1: Convert right back to .dtb format (another filename), ignore the warnings. sudo dtc -O dtb -I dts -o rk3588-orangepi-5-plus-test.dtb rk3588-orangepi-5-plus.dts # Safety-Check Part 2: Compare the newly converted file with the original. They should be identical (this command should produce no output) cmp -l rk3588-orangepi-5-plus-test.dtb rk3588-orangepi-5-plus.dtb  
3. Using a text editor in sudo mode, edit the source (text) file:
rk3588-orangepi-5-plus.dts
 
Search for this phrase: simple-audio-card,hp-det-gpios
I should appear exactly once in the file.
 
# Here is what that line looks like (for me): simple-audio-card,hp-det-gpios = <0x133 0x1b 0x01>; # This is that same line before original compilation simple-audio-card,hp-det-gpios = <&gpio1 RK_PD3 GPIO_ACTIVE_LOW>;  
4. Notice between the brackets, there are 3  values, separated by spaces. The third value is the value to modify from GPIO_ACTIVE_LOW to GPIO_ACTIVE_HIGH, or for us, from 0x01 to 0x00.
 
5. Convert your modified .dts file to a .dtb file (ignore the warnings):
sudo dtc -O dtb -I dts -o rk3588-orangepi-5-plus-fixed.dtb rk3588-orangepi-5-plus.dts # Optional: Quick Comparison Check (this should output exactly 1 line with 3 numbers: [big number] 0 1) cmp -l rk3588-orangepi-5-plus-fixed.dtb rk3588-orangepi-5-plus.dtb  
6. Copy the new fixed file to (overwriting) your original:
sudo cp rk3588-orangepi-5-plus-fixed.dtb rk3588-orangepi-5-plus.dtb  
7. Reboot (and have ES8388 analog audio out).
 
Note: Whenever you do a kernel change or update, you will need to repeat this process until the Armbian kernel updates catch up with this patch.
 
 
Here's the lengthier explanation (this is repeatable if you want to check it out yourself)
1. I downloaded the source code for version 25.8.1:
https://github.com/armbian/build/releases/tag/v25.8.1
 
2. I extracted the archive and started the building process (./compile.sh) with the edge kernel (and a desktop image).
It would not build because it rejected two of the kernel patches, but it did download everything into the cache.
 
3. I then found the file described in the patch:
./build-25.8.1/cache/sources/linux-kernel-worktree/6.16__rockchip64__arm64/arch/arm64/boot/dts/rockchip/rk3588-orangepi-5-plus.dts
 
4. In that file, I searched for the line indicated in the patch, just prior to the line to modify:
simple-audio-card,aux-devs = <&speaker_amp>, <&headphone_amp>;  
...and found the appropriate section. I confirmed the line that followed matched the original (incorrect) version mentioned in the patch entry.
 
5. I then scrolled to the top of the .dts file and looked at the files #included, to find where the GPIO_ACTIVE_LOW macro was defined. I figured dt-bindings/gpio/gpio.h was a reasonable place to look first. I found it here:
./build-25.8.1/cache/sources/linux-kernel-worktree/6.16__rockchip64__arm64/include/dt-bindings/gpio/gpio.h
 
Near the top of the file were these #defines:
/* Bit 0 express polarity */ #define GPIO_ACTIVE_HIGH 0 #define GPIO_ACTIVE_LOW 1  
6.  See the simple fix above for the rest.
 
Tags:
@Werner, @Igor, @laibsch
@dimaxus, @EricaLina, @ricardo_brz, @eselarm

So 25.05 and 25.5 are the same version? That threw me off for a while...

I usually check here every couple of days: https://patchwork.kernel.org/project/linux-rockchip/list/
Yes, they will be included in edge kernel and in a year or two when the next LTS kernel hits they'll be included in current as well.

vendor kernel has rknpu enabled by default.
edge will receive initial support for it (called Rocket then) with 6.17 iirc.

True, it's not critical to compile the ideal kernel into the image as long as I get one that works, I can always update it later from within the image. But I do prefer to do things right the first time, and to be utilizing the version I think I am and intend to be using. Btw, I boot from grub as well.
 
For my Orange PI 5 Plus, The edge kernel is the only one that's actually useful to me because the Vendor kernel has no GPU acceleration at all, the Mainline kernel has no video output to my DVI monitor, and all 3 kernel branches aren't correctly utilizing the ES8388 analog audio, which I need. The audio volume is barely audible even when all volume controls are maxed out. It's been that way in every operating system I've tried (except those with old barebones Vendor Kernels from Orange PI).
 
So ultimately I want to compile the latest (relatively) stable edge kernel myself, so I can modify the source code in an attempt to fix the audio, and of course share the solution when / if I find it.
I've already found that the ES8388 and ES8328 are compatible - hence the es8328 modules used in the kernel for the ES8388. And I've narrowed down where the issue most likely is:
 
Directory: sound/soc/codecs
Files: es8328.h, es8328.c, es8328-i2c.c