mrdeathjr

Orange Pi 4A (Allwinner T527 / A523, sun55i-a523) — new mainline image coming in a few days
Hi all,
A quick heads-up for anyone following the Orange Pi 4A / Allwinner T527 (A523) mainline effort: a new image, v0.3, is coming in the next few days. It's based on mainline Linux 6.18 (longterm) and it's a decent step up from v0.2, so I wanted to give some advance notice.
What's new in v0.3:
Hardware video decode (VPU): H.264/H.265 decoded on the Cedar VPU — smooth video in the bundled web browser (WebKitGTK), using Allwinner's own cedar + libcedarc stack.
GNOME on Wayland (replaces Plasma), accelerated by Panfrost (Mali-G57). The X11 session is intentionally not used — Wayland is much faster on this GPU for both desktop and video.
Low-RAM fix: compressed in-RAM swap (zram) is on by default, so the 2 GB board stays responsive under a browser + video instead of freezing.
Robustness: the VPU driver now survives a client crashing mid-decode without wedging the board, plus a round of code-audit fixes across the clock, PCIe, DRM, VPU and audio-codec drivers.
Everything from before still works: display/KMS, GPU, HDMI + analog audio (headphones with jack detection), Ethernet, WiFi, USB, PCIe/NVMe (not yet tested with a real drive), thermal and cpufreq/DVFS.
How it's built: on top of mainline Linux and public community work (linux-sunxi, Armbian and others — credited in the tree), with Allwinner's public documentation and vendor BSP as the hardware reference, plus the project's own patches, each one validated on real hardware. Some of this has been posted to the linux-sunxi / upstream lists and picked up by maintainers.
This is a spare-time hobby project, shared as-is (async, no live support). Sources, patches and images are on GitHub — I'll post here again when the release is up:
GitHub: https://github.com/ut-slayer/orangepi-4a-mainline
Testers and feedback are very welcome. Thanks!

Hi all-
 
I also noticed this board as having favorable price-to-performance and *importantly* availability of inventory in the US. As a result I too wanted to be able to run Armbian on it.

I've managed to get an Armbian build working using the vendor (xunlong/Orange Pi) supplied kernel source and bootloader. I was able to successfully compile and run Bookworm and Trixie including installation to an installed NVMe SSD drive.

I also used some of the work by @Nick A in https://github.com/NickAlilovic/build/tree/Radxa-mainline-WIP as a basis. I tried to keep everything Orange Pi specific out of the "sun60iw2.conf" family file and put it in the board.csc with hope that the family file can be shared by both Radxa and OPi A733 based boards in the future.

https://github.com/armbian/build/pull/9967

Notably missing is support for the GPU or hardware acceleration. Video output still works but it is not taking advantage of the video capabilities of the A733 chip so graphics performance is very limited. Full disclosure: my main use case is for a headless server.

@Sand_Death
Really interesting read! Would it be possible to submit these changes through GitHub or as a kernel patch? We'd love to see the full context of the changes—the code actually provides such a clear picture of what's happening (even more so than the docs!), so a proper review of the diff would be great.
 
EDIT: Looking at the description, it seems Claude addressed the issue on the Hailo driver side rather than fixing it in the PCIe driver. Personally, I don't think that's the ideal approach, since the BSP PCIe driver appears to be the root cause. If you get a chance to try my patch instead, I'd be interested to hear how it works for you.

A733 User Manual: GitLab Link https://gitlab.com/tina5.0_aiot/product/docs/-/blob/product-aiot-stable/A733/Hardware硬件类文档/芯片手册/A733_User Manual_V0.92.pdf?ref_type=heads
Decompiled boot0: https://paste.armbian.eu/akajigufep.kotlin
My ATF Fork: https://github.com/rvdr/arm-trusted-firmware/tree/sun60i-a733
My Armbian Build Tree (containing the U-Boot/Kernel patches): https://github.com/rvdr/build/tree/cubie-a7a-7.0
 
Can somebody look into the u-boot patches (in the v2026.01 directory). I cant even get UART output and I would be grateful if somebody could look into it to check for errors or if something is missing entirely.

@mrdeathjr Mainline Linux support for the A733 is still in its early stages. I currently have a Armbian build using a collection of patches sourced from the kernel mailing lists. However, I’m getting a lot of errors and haven't managed to boot to a login prompt.
 
https://oftc.catirclogs.org/linux-sunxi/2026-03-23 13:07 <indy> hi all, is there any a733 upstreaming effort? 13:29 <apritzel> indy: effort is underway: pinctrl is WIP (patches have been on the list), and the clock patches have recently been posted 13:30 <apritzel> RTC and AXP are on the list as well, that would conclude the basic necessities to get a DT merged that wouldn't break in the future 15:25 <indy> apritzel_, is it targeted for 7.0? 15:29 <apritzel> indy: no, that's way too late, v7.0 is due to be released in like three weeks already. It's even too late now for v7.1. 15:30 <apritzel> and it's the usual bottleneck: reviews ... I hope I find some time soon to look at the clock patches
With @alexc hard work porting the v1.4.8 BSP driver to kernel 6.18, I was able to create a working Armbian build for the Radxa A7Z.
https://github.com/NickAlilovic/build/tree/Radxa-mainline-WIP

some things are happening at the bleeding edge
https://lore.kernel.org/u-boot/?q=a733
pay attention to u-boot, the most important thing are dram controller, pmic, mmc/sd etc
then of course kernel as well
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-sunxi/?q=a733
 

I really hope that Armbian will be released soon for this board. I have it, but the official ISO has an old kernel and no RT capability.
 

This case is a clone of X88PRO:
 
 
However i use HK1 rom because regular x88pro lack of many features like saf  and without this dolphin-emu and others dont allow use external devices

another thing added in HK1 rom is cpu thermals, cpu load and memory load in status bar

but use this rom make frontal screen in tvbox dont work
 
 
In my case armbian works using information from this themes:
 
 
 
armbian used is based on station-m2 image from here:
 
https://www.armbian.com/station-m2/

https://github.com/armbian/community
 
 
HDMI - works (need to check hot plugging)
HDMI sound - works
USB 2.0 - works
USB 3.0 - works (using now usb 3.0 hub with power adapter)
LAN - Works
WLAN - Works
SD-Card booting and detection - works
RKDevTool installing and loading images on/from eMMC - works
GPU - works
Hardware video acceleration (except for browsers) - works
Dualboot if you flash new bootloader (SD-Card boot high priority) - works
 
Loader* from vontar work ok for use sd boot
 
*For use this follow steps in vontar guide, work ok in dual boot (armbian on sd and android in emmc)
 
sd used is a microdata 64gb from aliexpress (work ok):
 
https://es.aliexpress.com/item/1005007142224952.html
 
 
rk3566-box-demo.dtb dont recognize usb keyboard but using rk3566-box-demo_x96x6_24_custom.dtb from x96 x6 theme work correctly and hub work on usb 2.0 and on usb 3.0 too

also in usb 3.0 port have a 500GB HDD Laptop USB Drive 
 
In other things can install xfce desktop, lightdm,  xorg, chromium, firefox, nm (for lan), xarchiver, dolphin appimage

also can enable panvk using this:

VK_ICD_FILENAMES=/usr/share/vulkan/icd.d/panfrost_icd.aarch64.json PAN_I_WANT_A_BROKEN_VULKAN_DRIVER=1
 
from here:
 
 
 
Add some images of tvbox, i make a mod (i dont have experience with tools) for add a fan, results are very impressive this tvbox at max stay around 79 to 80 degrees but now with fan stay around 35 to 45 degrees
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 
Images from system
 

 
 

 
 
Dolphin-emu 2506
 

 

 

This case is a clone of X88PRO:
 
 
However i use HK1 rom because regular x88pro lack of many features like saf  and without this dolphin-emu and others dont allow use external devices

another thing added in HK1 rom is cpu thermals, cpu load and memory load in status bar

but use this rom make frontal screen in tvbox dont work
 
 
In my case armbian works using information from this themes:
 
 
 
armbian used is based on station-m2 image from here:
 
https://www.armbian.com/station-m2/

https://github.com/armbian/community
 
 
HDMI - works (need to check hot plugging)
HDMI sound - works
USB 2.0 - works
USB 3.0 - works (using now usb 3.0 hub with power adapter)
LAN - Works
WLAN - Works
SD-Card booting and detection - works
RKDevTool installing and loading images on/from eMMC - works
GPU - works
Hardware video acceleration (except for browsers) - works
Dualboot if you flash new bootloader (SD-Card boot high priority) - works
 
Loader* from vontar work ok for use sd boot
 
*For use this follow steps in vontar guide, work ok in dual boot (armbian on sd and android in emmc)
 
sd used is a microdata 64gb from aliexpress (work ok):
 
https://es.aliexpress.com/item/1005007142224952.html
 
 
rk3566-box-demo.dtb dont recognize usb keyboard but using rk3566-box-demo_x96x6_24_custom.dtb from x96 x6 theme work correctly and hub work on usb 2.0 and on usb 3.0 too

also in usb 3.0 port have a 500GB HDD Laptop USB Drive 
 
In other things can install xfce desktop, lightdm,  xorg, chromium, firefox, nm (for lan), xarchiver, dolphin appimage

also can enable panvk using this:

VK_ICD_FILENAMES=/usr/share/vulkan/icd.d/panfrost_icd.aarch64.json PAN_I_WANT_A_BROKEN_VULKAN_DRIVER=1
 
from here:
 
 
 
Add some images of tvbox, i make a mod (i dont have experience with tools) for add a fan, results are very impressive this tvbox at max stay around 79 to 80 degrees but now with fan stay around 35 to 45 degrees
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 
Images from system
 

 
 

 
 
Dolphin-emu 2506
 

 

 

This case is a clone of X88PRO:
 
 
However i use HK1 rom because regular x88pro lack of many features like saf  and without this dolphin-emu and others dont allow use external devices

another thing added in HK1 rom is cpu thermals, cpu load and memory load in status bar

but use this rom make frontal screen in tvbox dont work
 
 
In my case armbian works using information from this themes:
 
 
 
armbian used is based on station-m2 image from here:
 
https://www.armbian.com/station-m2/

https://github.com/armbian/community
 
 
HDMI - works (need to check hot plugging)
HDMI sound - works
USB 2.0 - works
USB 3.0 - works (using now usb 3.0 hub with power adapter)
LAN - Works
WLAN - Works
SD-Card booting and detection - works
RKDevTool installing and loading images on/from eMMC - works
GPU - works
Hardware video acceleration (except for browsers) - works
Dualboot if you flash new bootloader (SD-Card boot high priority) - works
 
Loader* from vontar work ok for use sd boot
 
*For use this follow steps in vontar guide, work ok in dual boot (armbian on sd and android in emmc)
 
sd used is a microdata 64gb from aliexpress (work ok):
 
https://es.aliexpress.com/item/1005007142224952.html
 
 
rk3566-box-demo.dtb dont recognize usb keyboard but using rk3566-box-demo_x96x6_24_custom.dtb from x96 x6 theme work correctly and hub work on usb 2.0 and on usb 3.0 too

also in usb 3.0 port have a 500GB HDD Laptop USB Drive 
 
In other things can install xfce desktop, lightdm,  xorg, chromium, firefox, nm (for lan), xarchiver, dolphin appimage

also can enable panvk using this:

VK_ICD_FILENAMES=/usr/share/vulkan/icd.d/panfrost_icd.aarch64.json PAN_I_WANT_A_BROKEN_VULKAN_DRIVER=1
 
from here:
 
 
 
Add some images of tvbox, i make a mod (i dont have experience with tools) for add a fan, results are very impressive this tvbox at max stay around 79 to 80 degrees but now with fan stay around 35 to 45 degrees
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 
Images from system
 

 
 

 
 
Dolphin-emu 2506