Lope

I'm testing the nightly image: Armbian_5.32.170704_Nanopineo2_Ubuntu_xenial_dev_4.11.8.img I've soldered 2x female A USB ports to the NanoPi Neo2 as per the pinout http://wiki.friendlyarm.com/wiki/index.php/NanoPi_NEO2#Diagram.2C_Layout_and_Dimension When I plugged in wifi dongles or USB flash drives, their light comes on, but I get nothing on lsusb and dmesg. Then I realized I had D+ and D- reversed, so I swapped them for each port, but there's still absolutely nothing when connecting devices to these ports. (I know that having D+ and D- swapped doesn't cause any damage) Do I need to somehow enable the USB ports in a fex file or in the kernel etc?

The reason PHP-cli is not my top level is at times when I need to do asynchronous stuff or maybe need functionality not available in PHP. But that's more in the terrirory of software than scripts. I've also come to much prefer ES6 syntax over PHP. PHP is really badly designed language. Not as bad as bash, but still very bad. It is however very useful, simple and convenient.

This reply is just for anyone interested in using NanoPi Neo2 to do useful things (which ideally should be apt-get upgradable) I completely respect that you don't support this and there's no need for armbian devs to spend time reading this, cos it's working. Okay I upgraded everything except armbian-firmware armbian-tools-xenial linux-dtb-dev-sun50iw2 linux-headers-dev-sun50iw2 linux-image-dev-sun50iw2 linux-u-boot-nanopineo2-dev linux-xenial-root-dev-nanopineo2 sunxi-tools And then just for fun I ran the upgrade to try your fix. The upgrade completed successfully. I rebooted. It was fine but gave the error about missing dtb file. I created the allwinner dir inside the allwinner dir, copied the file there. rebooted, nomore errors, except this CRC error U-Boot 2017.09-armbian (Sep 22 2017 - 09:14:02 +0200) Allwinner Technology CPU: Allwinner H5 (SUN50I) Model: FriendlyARM NanoPi NEO 2 DRAM: 512 MiB MMC: SUNXI SD/MMC: 0 *** Warning - bad CRC, using default environment In: serial Out: serial Err: serial but it boots and there's nothing more to upgrade.

Thanks Igor. I have some familiarity with Bash scripts, however every time I have worked on a complicated bash script I've sworn to myself to never work on a complicated bash script ever again. So I only use bash for very simple stuff. For complex things I use php7-cli scripts For very complex things I use node.js. I'll check it out though. ====== I found an alternative to apt-get upgrade, to upgrade things without breaking the image. `apt-get upgrade` N (then see what needs upgrading that's not firmware etc related) `apt-get upgrade apt hostapd` (etc)

Thanks Igor I reflashed a fresh image and it's working now. I was planning to test stability of the image using it as a home router. I thought I can contribute by doing an upgrade and then seeing what breaks or how to keep it working after upgrade? If you don't reply before I get this maybe I'll try upgrade again and then copy the file as you suggest. BTW it's amazing having one of these USB PL-2303HX hooked up to the NanoPi Neo2 for testing. It just works instantly and perfectly on Ubuntu 16.04 with 4.10 kernel with zero configuration of baud settings, parity etc, and I expect it will work with other SBC's like the Orange Pi's and RbPi's ? After re-flashing I saw the whole boot process all the way from U-Boot and then was offered a root console and could login and use the PC just like if I had attached a screen, kb and mouse, but so much more convenient of course because it's a terminal on my dev PC and I can probably paste into minicom.

I'm testing the nightly image: Armbian_5.32.170704_Nanopineo2_Ubuntu_xenial_dev_4.11.8.img I read somewhere that the NanoPi Neo2 has a shutdown issue where it reboots. This was my experience (serial console) `shutdown -h now` ends with [ OK ] Reached target Shutdown. [ 59.809788] reboot: Power down INFO: PSCI Affinity Map: INFO: AffInst: Level 0, MPID 0x0, State ON INFO: AffInst: Level 0, MPID 0x1, State ON INFO: AffInst: Level 0, MPID 0x2, State ON INFO: AffInst: Level 0, MPID 0x3, State ON Maybe there is a watchdog timer (that resets the CPU if some ticker stops or something) that needs to be disabled? I see there is no watchdog package installed in this image. As a workaround while connected via serial console, I hit enter when U-Boot got to this line "Hit any key to stop autoboot: 0", which only paused for a very brief moment.

I used the Armbian test image. I did apt-get upgrade I changed eth0 to static IP. But now, I started it up and eth0 green light won't stay on. Can't ping it or SSH. I connected a USB PL-2303HX from my PC to the NanoPi Neo2 (first time for me ever connecting to a Linux computer's serial console) With no configuration at all I got this output in minicom. U-Boot SPL 2017.09-armbian (Sep 17 2017 - 03:48:48) DRAM: 4096 MiB Trying to boot from MMC1 NOTICE: BL3-1: Running on H5 (1718) in SRAM A2 (@0x44000) NOTICE: Configuring SPC Controller NOTICE: BL3-1: v1.0(debug):aa75c8d NOTICE: BL3-1: Built : 02:45:22, Sep 17 2017 INFO: BL3-1: Initializing runtime services INFO: BL3-1: Preparing for EL3 exit to normal world INFO: BL3-1: Next image address: 0x4a000000, SPSR: 0x3c9 Looks like U-Boot can't find the kernel or whatever? Okay I removed the 5v wire from the USB serial adapter so I can rather power the board via microUSB 2A adapter than weak USB port power. I unplugged and replugged the 2A microUSB but it didn't help. With the microUSB unplugged the PCB's green LED still glowed faintly somehow powered from GND and tx/rx. rneese suggested I unplug and replug everything. I did and now it booted up and I can see it on the console. It's saying no ethernet found and it looks like a console so I'll give it a go. U-Boot 2017.09-armbian (Sep 17 2017 - 03:48:48 +0200) Allwinner Technology CPU: Allwinner H5 (SUN50I) Model: FriendlyARM NanoPi NEO 2 DRAM: 512 MiB MMC: SUNXI SD/MMC: 0 *** Warning - bad CRC, using default environment In: serial Out: serial Err: serial Net: No ethernet found. Hit any key to stop autoboot: 0 38518 bytes read in 134 ms (280.3 KiB/s) Unknown command 'bmp' - try 'help' switch to partitions #0, OK mmc0 is current device Scanning mmc 0:1... Found U-Boot script /boot/boot.scr 3362 bytes read in 179 ms (17.6 KiB/s) ## Executing script at 4fc00000 U-boot loaded from SD Boot script loaded from mmc 116 bytes read in 149 ms (0 Bytes/s) ** File not found /boot/dtb/allwinner/allwinner/sun50i-h5-nanopi-neo2.dtb ** libfdt fdt_check_header(): FDT_ERR_BADMAGIC No FDT memory address configured. Please configure the FDT address via "fdt addr <address>" command. Aborting! 4179 bytes read in 362 ms (10.7 KiB/s) Applying kernel provided DT fixup script (sun50i-h5-fixup.scr) ## Executing script at 44000000 5001834 bytes read in 452 ms (10.6 MiB/s) 12285960 bytes read in 868 ms (13.5 MiB/s) ## Loading init Ramdisk from Legacy Image at 4fe00000 ... Image Name: uInitrd Image Type: AArch64 Linux RAMDisk Image (gzip compressed) Data Size: 5001770 Bytes = 4.8 MiB Load Address: 00000000 Entry Point: 00000000 Verifying Checksum ... OK ERROR: Did not find a cmdline Flattened Device Tree Could not find a valid device tree SCRIPT FAILED: continuing... starting USB... No controllers found USB is stopped. Please issue 'usb start' first. starting USB... No controllers found No ethernet found. missing environment variable: pxeuuid missing environment variable: bootfile Retrieving file: pxelinux.cfg/00000000 No ethernet found. missing environment variable: bootfile Retrieving file: pxelinux.cfg/0000000 No ethernet found. missing environment variable: bootfile Retrieving file: pxelinux.cfg/000000 No ethernet found. missing environment variable: bootfile Retrieving file: pxelinux.cfg/00000 No ethernet found. missing environment variable: bootfile Retrieving file: pxelinux.cfg/0000 No ethernet found. missing environment variable: bootfile Retrieving file: pxelinux.cfg/000 No ethernet found. missing environment variable: bootfile Retrieving file: pxelinux.cfg/00 No ethernet found. missing environment variable: bootfile Retrieving file: pxelinux.cfg/0 No ethernet found. missing environment variable: bootfile Retrieving file: pxelinux.cfg/default-arm-sunxi No ethernet found. missing environment variable: bootfile Retrieving file: pxelinux.cfg/default-arm No ethernet found. missing environment variable: bootfile Retrieving file: pxelinux.cfg/default No ethernet found. Config file not found starting USB... No controllers found No ethernet found. No ethernet found. => => ls ls - list files in a directory (default /) Usage: ls <interface> [<dev[:part]> [directory]] - List files in directory 'directory' of partition 'part' on device type 'interface' instance 'dev'. => su Unknown command 'su' - try 'help' => help ? - alias for 'help' base - print or set address offset bdinfo - print Board Info structure boot - boot default, i.e., run 'bootcmd' bootd - boot default, i.e., run 'bootcmd' bootefi - Boots an EFI payload from memory bootelf - Boot from an ELF image in memory booti - boot arm64 Linux Image image from memory bootm - boot application image from memory bootp - boot image via network using BOOTP/TFTP protocol bootvx - Boot vxWorks from an ELF image cmp - memory compare coninfo - print console devices and information cp - memory copy crc32 - checksum calculation dhcp - boot image via network using DHCP/TFTP protocol dm - Driver model low level access echo - echo args to console editenv - edit environment variable env - environment handling commands exit - exit script ext2load- load binary file from a Ext2 filesystem ext2ls - list files in a directory (default /) ext4load- load binary file from a Ext4 filesystem ext4ls - list files in a directory (default /) ext4size- determine a file's size false - do nothing, unsuccessfully fatinfo - print information about filesystem fatload - load binary file from a dos filesystem fatls - list files in a directory (default /) fatsize - determine a file's size fatwrite- write file into a dos filesystem fdt - flattened device tree utility commands fstype - Look up a filesystem type go - start application at address 'addr' gpio - query and control gpio pins help - print command description/usage iminfo - print header information for application image imxtract- extract a part of a multi-image itest - return true/false on integer compare lcdputs - print string on video framebuffer load - load binary file from a filesystem loadb - load binary file over serial line (kermit mode) loads - load S-Record file over serial line loadx - load binary file over serial line (xmodem mode) loady - load binary file over serial line (ymodem mode) loop - infinite loop on address range ls - list files in a directory (default /) md - memory display mdio - MDIO utility commands mii - MII utility commands mm - memory modify (auto-incrementing address) mmc - MMC sub system mmcinfo - display MMC info mw - memory write (fill) nfs - boot image via network using NFS protocol nm - memory modify (constant address) part - disk partition related commands ping - send ICMP ECHO_REQUEST to network host printenv- print environment variables pxe - commands to get and boot from pxe files reset - Perform RESET of the CPU run - run commands in an environment variable save - save file to a filesystem saveenv - save environment variables to persistent storage setcurs - set cursor position within screen setenv - set environment variables setexpr - set environment variable as the result of eval expression showvar - print local hushshell variables size - determine a file's size sleep - delay execution for some time source - run script from memory sysboot - command to get and boot from syslinux files test - minimal test like /bin/sh tftpboot- boot image via network using TFTP protocol true - do nothing, successfully usb - USB sub-system usbboot - boot from USB device version - print monitor, compiler and linker version

It would be nice for the armbian downloads to have GPG signed SHA256SUMS like Ubuntu. Would it be hard to implement? Because currently the images are distributed in 7z files with a checksum file, nothing currently prevents both from being changed. My bad, I found the guide: https://docs.armbian.com/User-Guide_Getting-Started/

I think Xunlong should be able to make a Orange Pi Zero with 512MB RAM and Gigabit ethernet for around $10. If they did, would you buy it? Do you think it would be a good product? The H2/H3/H5 is capable of gigabit ethernet, they just need an external ethernet chip that costs about $1. If you think about it. To go from an Orange Pi PC which has 1GB RAM @ $15, to an Orange Pi 2E with 2GB RAM $35, thats more than double the cost to double the RAM. But if you go from an Orange Pi Zero with 100Mbit ethernet at $9 to 1000Mbit ethernet at $10, that's only a 0.1X increase in cost for a 10X increase in performance. That means you get about 10.5x more value for money (performance) by upgrading the ethernet vs upgrading the RAM. For many years Raspberry Pi (and alternatives) fans have wanted a low cost SBC with good IO capabilities. RaspberryPi has never delivered. Now Xunlong have come and provided us the Orange Pi 2E (thanks to Tkaiser's suggestion), it's got gigabit ethernet, lots of RAM and 4 real USB ports. It's great. But now if you want a cheap SBC with powerful IO, currently the only option is FriendlyArm NanoPi Neo2. But that board costs much more than necessary at $15 (if you just want IO) because it uses the H5 chip. One application is a router. Routers need a lot of IO, but not that much RAM usually. But it depends. Some routers deal with massive IPsets and do deep packet inspection VPN, VoIP and all kinds of stuff. So let's see who else thinks a Orange Pi Zero with 512MB RAM and Gigabit ethernet would be a good idea? Also another suggestion is I've seen comments that the H2 supports about 130 GPIO's. But there are only a few of them exposed on the 40 PIN RbPi style GPIO header. The new Orange Pi Zero can expose all the GPIO without much extra size as 0.1" spaced holes on the PCB, without increasing the cost much. That's another very cheap way to increase the IO capabilities and make this product really competitive with other options for people who need IO. To keep everyone happy, if the additional GPIO are placed at the end of the PCB, the few modders who care about a few mm of space and want a really tiny PCB can just cut the end off (at their own risk) Edit: I edited the questions so my answers got a bit messed up, but I won't edit the questions again.

I originally got a bit excited when I saw this board because I've been wanting to do an IOT project for a while. But the lack of a working linux image and working 2G Modem environment keeps me away from working with it. I'm a software developer but I've not delved into Linux yet. Also the sound of burning through microSD cards because there's no FEL or whatever is very offputting also. It means making small changes requires manual time wasting of swapping cards. On that note I once saw someone made a microSD emulator for RbPi development. But they never became popular. There are microSD extension cables, and it should be possible to hack one up between a embedded board and a USB microSD card reader with some digital switches or relays inbetween. @tkaiser thanks for sharing regarding the 2G shutdown. That's scary. I had no idea. I guess 2G will still be an option in developing countries for a while.

My Orange Pi one arrived yesterday. I'd like to mention that I was planning to solder wires to the additional USB D+/D- pins, but they're a lot smaller in real life than I thought they were by looking at the picture. It looks like a very sharp soldering iron tip would be best. They're also a bit hard to access because they're right next to the H3 and near some other taller components. It's a pity Xunlong made the pads so small and close together. It's probably doable, but it will be tricky.

@Tkaiser: Thank you so much for this excellent writeup! I've been away from the forums for a while, and now my OPi One arrived yesterday. Slow shipping to Malaysia, tracking disappeared for 51 days, then IT ARRIVED! I shipped it to Malaysia from Aliexpress. The tracking number worked while it was in China, but once it left China, it did not appear on the Malaysian postal tracking site until 51 days after it left China. During the 51 days, the Malaysian post office told me it was not on their system. Steven was helpful, always replied quickly and offered to refund me, but I said I was willing to wait. I've bought other items from Aliexpress and not had that problem before. Other packages came quickly and were trackable in Malaysia as soon as they left China. How to test Orange Pi board 1. What build/kernel should I run to test my board? I'm guessing this one? http://www.armbian.com/orange-pi-one/ (kernel 3.4.y) 2. What software to run to test it? I found this post you made about testing Orange Pi boards it's quite long and detailed and I don't have time to get deep into anything, I just need to do a quick test? It's great that you've put all of this information about the different boards up on this post, as well as the kernel development progress. This helps a lot, but I think we can improve the situation even more. Improving H3 user friendliness, increasing adoption and development I think there should be 3 pinned threads on this H3 forum. * H3 Board buyers guide * H3 What build/kernel to run * H3 How to test your board This is a simple 1,2,3 step process. First you choose what board to buy. Then you choose what software to run on it. Then you test it and send it back if there's a problem while your board is covered by buyer protection. I think this will improve the whole situation regarding H3 boards. Currently RbPi is dominating because they provide all of the above. People know what board to buy. They know what software to run, and get the latest working software. And the boards are well tested so there is peace of mind. If we can level up with H3 by providing the above threads, we should be able to improve adoption and quality. We don't want to see SBC's dominated by the RbPi foundation only. We want a wide selection of good quality low cost boards that are stable. With good adoption we'll have great community contributions, quicker mainline support, and even get stuff like KVM running on our H3's. For these pinned posts I think we need to keep them as short as possible. For example in this post above, you've outlined a fairly comprehensive history of H3 kernel development, and on the testing page above you also went into a lot of details about the history of testing and discussion of it etc. If we want to increase adoption and testing of these boards, I think we need to provide 2 levels for user interaction. Level 1: Tell the user the best boards to buy, the best software to run and give one command to test their board and share the results automatically. Level 2: Here's the source code and the whole discussion and history of everything. Comparing again to RbPi. This is the user experience at the RbPi site: 1. Someone goes to their site and sees a comparison of what boards to buy. 2. They choose one of the recommended software builds. 3. Testing not really required. For each of these 3 steps the interface is very clean, there is not much to read or decide. People can get a RbPi and be productive with it very quickly. I think this is what we should aim for. Supporting mass adoption. I can definitely help with this. I will have more time a month from now. Tkaiser, you probably know best about what's going on with the mainline kernel on H3... I've searched from time to time and in past discussions with you I've seen that a few people are running a more modern kernel, (version >=4) and there has been some success getting ethernet working on the Orange H3 boards with the mainline kernel (not sure if it's fast ethernet, gigabit ethernet or both) I would like to participate in testing and maybe some development of Mainline kernel on Orange Pi one. (that's what I have now, but I'm also interested in the 2E) Where is the latest mainline kernel development taking place? Where can a build be downloaded and tested? Is it OpenElec? : http://www.orangepi.org/orangepibbsen/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=648 https://github.com/jernejsk/OpenELEC-OPi2

Thanks for the links. We should try convince Xunlong to send a few complimentary boards to kernel devs who have the relevant experience. Being 2014 28nm DDR2/3. Do you think the H3 chip has a future? Interesting that it's such a great chip at a great price, but not much interest in it... The Banana Pi M3 Octa core A83T seems to have similar problems. No mainline kernel support. And it shares the same crappy design decisions as some of the previous Orange Pi boards. one USB port with a USB Hub chip. Crappy SATA chip. Etc. All that CPU performance but IO has been choked. Tkaiser: Just a quick note about SMP/HYP. I think rather than SMP, uboot should be setup to bring the CPU online in HYP mode rather. These chips all support virtualization. KVM works on the RbPi2, and by default, the RPi2 bootloader starts their CPU in HYP mode. The linux kernel is setup such that if HYP support is not compiled into the kernel, the kernel switches back to SMP mode automatically; but the CPU MUST be started in HYP mode before the kernel is started for virtualization to function. There's also the Odroid XU4 with the Samsung Octa-core SoC with USB3. Looks like a nice board. But again no Mainline kernel support. There's one hope I just thought of Xunlong seems to be open to your suggestions and prices their products competetively. What if Xunlong made a board with the A31S. Like the Banana Pi M2? Ideal SBC: Cost: Low CPU: Quad or Octa core SATA: Fast or nothing Network: Gigabit RAM: 1-4GB Bootloader: Uboot HYP (virtualization enabled) Kernel: Mainline eMMC: None Wifi: None USB ports: All exposed USB hub: Useful if SoC has less than 4 USB ports. But only pads should be exposed. USB OTG: useful for development CPU Voltage: High/low (user defined by trimpot within safe limits) or full range software controlled. Power: DC barrel Connectors: All unpopulated, sold separately. Most stuff like GPIO, USB, ethernet, audio is easy to solder in. I'd prefer solder pads for low profile and easier industrial integration.

I see, thanks for the updates guys. TKaiser: are the THS patches actually working? Have the THS patches been applied to your image or other mainline H3 Images? You guys have said USB is not working in the mainline, but Tkaiser you said you've been running a NAS on mainline kernel with a USB ethernet adapter on OPi PC, and mentioned about using some USB device tree. So is the dev branch missing the drivers you used, or do they not work anymore in the new mainline kernel? Is building a mainline kernel with the best USB and THS patches a very manual process each time?

Hi Tkaiser, Thanks for your awesome work on these boards and wise suggestions to Xunlong to make this board. It's got some good ethernet, plenty of RAM and no silly slow SATA bridges or hubs restricting bandwidth. Price - My opinions Price may not be so important for users who only buy one. But some companies consider using products like this in their own products. And then price becomes important, when considering ordering many units. But OPi's software support is not as good as the RbPi. Making OPi more suitable for developers, and product developers. So I think Xunlong should consider my opinions, maybe they can agree. Wifi: It's not worth including if it increases the selling price by more than $1.5. If it only adds marginal cost then it adds convenience and can serve non-demanding applications when the software is working properly. (if it's a stable functional chip) Price Vs the OPi PC: The 2E is $35. That's a $20 increase over the OPi PC @ $15. The only features it gained that are useful to me are an extra 1GB RAM and gigabit LAN. You linked the gigabit LAN chip in another thread, it was only about $1.50. I don't know what 2x 1GB RAM costs vs 2x 512MB RAM. eMMC: Not worth including if it increases the selling price by more than $7. To be really frank: There should be a version that only has gigabit LAN, 2GB RAM, all USB ports and nothing else. Everyone needs different things. The best is to make a version that only provides a strong foundation and nothing else. People who need good Wifi & SATA, can buy the USB devices they need. It doesn't make sense that everyone should have to pay for features that only a fraction of people want. I'd like a really bare bones version. Just CPU, 2G RAM, GBit PHY with no connectors, only solder pads. 2E makes the OPi lose it's price edge against the RbPi 2/3. At this price, price no longer becomes a reason to buy OPi instead of RbPi. But if my suggestions are implemented, maybe the OPi 2F could have better price AND better performance than the RbPi 2/3. 2E is near the price of BananaPi M2. (not referring to M2+) which is completely stable in Mainline and includes LVDS. Software I've been following the various threads about OPi One and OPi PC and their pages on armbian and the Mainlining progress etc. But a few things were not clear to me, so if you or anyone else with knowledge on this could please clarify that would be awesome. 1.1 Since OPi+2E uses external PHY, (who's driver should be in mainline) will it work right now with Mainline kernel? (I'm interested in using as a NAS so HDMI support does not matter to me) 1.2 What is the "common" kernel here? http://www.armbian.com/orange-pi-plus-2e/I watched the youtube vid, but the kernel version wasn't in there either. 2.1 You guys mention "Vanilla kernel". And I've seen "Kernel 4.x" mentioned nearby on some pages. Most of the Armbian Orange Pi pages seem to offer 2 images: "common" and "legacy kernel", but don't say what kernel version is in "common"? I followed the "compiled from scratch link" and scratched around in the github. I found this: https://github.com/igorpecovnik/lib/blob/34770652d4e76a35cb1272632cc58bae7dac6f66/config/boards/orangepione.conf Which uses family sun8i, which seems to refer to Normal https://github.com/igorpecovnik/linux(empty) Dev: https://github.com/wens/linux(looks like a 3.x kernel) 2.2 Is the above info deprecated? it doesn't seem capable of building a mainline kernel. 2.3 Is there a guide for compiling the kernel for Opi One/PC/Plus? 2.4 I saw you said the internal PHY of the orange Pi PC (and that should include OPi One as well) was working in (some?) 4.6 kernel? (and build info) 2.5 Who are the main people doing Kernel Dev on the H3? I saw you posted a link to Igor's 4.6 kernel (with a warning that it's dangerous) http://mirror.igorpecovnik.com/Armbian_5.10_Orangepih3_Debian_jessie_4.6.0-rc1.7z I looked on the above URL root, but I don't see any info there on how it was built. 2.6 Does Igor have a build blog or something? You said you'd be comfortable to use Mainline 4.7 on H3 once it has THS support. I searched linux 4.7 THS support and found: http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/linux/kernel/2309350 2.7 What is THS? Is it relating to throttling down CPU usage when the core temp goes high? or volatage regulation? Where does the danger come in? If it's only related to voltage regulation, then there shouldn't be a problem on the Opi one since it's voltage "regulation" can't break anything. So in that case, it should be safe to use on Opi One? Which models are affected by the danger? 2.8 Is it ALL new kernels >=4.0 on ALL OPi One/PC/Plus that are affected by the danger or only some? Thanks I hope you don't mind all the questions.

Hi Tkaiser, I just found out about the OPi One (and all the OPi's) yesterday and they look amazing. I've read many of your comments on this forum and on the cnx-software.com blog. You seem to be quite knowledgeable regarding the OPi hardware. I've got about 2 years experience with RPi's and Banana Pi and Linux on x86_64. This is what I've gathered from what I've read about OPi. * The Raspbian image should be avoided on OPI hardware (slow and it's just there to attract customers) * None of the Linux software images offered by orangepi.org are fully working right now. * To get a working Linux install you need to (IIRC) ** download some image from somewhere ** Run a kernel update script by loboris ** do something with fex files ** do another hack to get multiple cores running ** do something to set the clock speed and vcore to reasonable levels and enable thermal protection. I've seen bits of information about the above, scattered across various posts and pages and some of it might be outdated. Could you please list the steps to get a working Linux install for Orange Pi One and Orange Pi Plus? I'd REALLY appreciate it, and I will help where I can also. I'm going to order an Orange Pi One today. Maybe we can setup a forum post or a page somewhere with the latest recommended steps to get an optimal install working from scratch? Which distro works the best? * Orange OS (what distro is this based on?) * Debian * Lubuntu (A minimal Debian or Ubuntu distro would be my preference) Orange Pi Plus SATA performance? The main reason the Orange Pi Plus interests me is the SATA (and the extra RAM). You said the SATA chip on the Orange Pi Plus is slow. But then you were talking about connecting hard drives to the H3 via it's USB2 ports with UASP. This is surprising because UASP should do less than 40MB/s whereas a typical magnetic hard drive can do >100MB/s and SSD's scream. How can the SATA chip be worse than 40 MB/s? It's surprising/disappointing that they didn't expose the additional USB ports of the H3 via pads on the Orange Pi One PCB???