NicoD
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Posts posted by NicoD
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52 minutes ago, 晓飞丁 said:
Have you guys ever try FEX-emu instead of box64? I heard FEX is 10%~20% faster than box64
I tried FEX-emu, but on our devices it's slower. It is optimised for snapdragon while box64 is more optimised for the lower-end SBC ARM-SOC.
Here a video I once made about it. Things have changed a lot, fex-emu has matured at lot in this time. I didn't know it was build for steam back then so didn't test that. Also have no steam games that would run. -
Here the link to the video. Thanks to Mike from Mekotronics.
https://mekotronics.wetransfer.com/downloads/9a21fbbbd8123b75cb5119d632bb565020251208034519/a7c7d3?t_lsid=dd63b65e-c41d-4c4e-81ea-66eea92954d0&t_network=link&t_rid=YXV0aDB8NjE4ZTI0ZjkyMDYzZGYwMDY5Y2FhMmFh&t_s=download_link&t_ts=1765165519 -
More info, but not yet the video that shows what pins.
QuoteMekotronics Maskrom mode is a low-level, last-resort recovery state for Rockchip-based boards (like the R58X) used to unbrick devices or force firmware flashing when normal boot fails, activated by physically shorting specific pins (like EMMC_CLKOUT to GND) or holding a special button while powering on, allowing tools like RKDevTool (linked in search results) to flash firmware directly to the eMMC or SPI flash.
Why Use It?
Unbricking: When your device won't boot due to a corrupted bootloader or bad flash.
Forced Firmware Update: To install operating systems (like Armbian) or custom images when standard methods fail.
How to Enter (General Steps for Rockchip Devices like Mekotronics):
Disconnect: Unplug all cables (power, data, peripherals) from the Mekotronics board.
Identify Pins/Button: Look for a small "Maskrom" button or pins (often near USB ports).
Short Pins/Hold Button:
Hardware Method: Use tweezers to carefully short the designated pins (e.g., EMMC_CLKOUT and GND).
Button Method: Press and hold the Maskrom button.
Connect & Power: While holding the button/shorting pins, connect a USB data cable to your PC and power the board.
Detect Device: Your PC should detect a "LOADER" or "MaskRom" device in a tool like RKDevTool.
Flash: Use RKDevTool (or similar Rockchip utility) to load the loader and image files and start the flashing process.
Reboot: Once complete, the device should reboot automatically, exiting Maskrom mode.
Important: This is a high-risk operation; consult specific documentation for your Mekotronics model (e.g., R58X) to avoid damage.
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6 minutes ago, Werner said:
Perhaps this one?
No. That's how to do it when the bootloader works.
My memory is slowly coming back, there's 2 pins on the back you need to short. But what pins I don't know. Let me open one and see if I remember more... -
I send them a mail to ask. Will let you know when I hear something, also asked someone who also got the video.
This happened a lot to me when testing tons of images for these boards. But haven't been doing that lately, time to start again. -
Hi. Forgive me for my memory is very bad.
There is a video somewhere on how to unbrick mekotronics Rockchip devices. I've been searching for it the last half hour but can't find it. I know I've got it on my pc somewhere.
Email mekotronics and they'll give you a link to it. If I find it I'll share it.
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That's probably the boot partition in fat32. You can't read linux partitions in Windows without tools. So it's normal you can't read an armbian image in windows since it doesn't use fat partitions.
Why it doesn't boot is another case. I would try to build my own image with either legacy or mainline kernel. I don't have the board so no idea what works on it. -
It is nog normal desktop images are not available.
You can always install a desktop to server images. I use taskset for desktops that need a lot of dependancies.sudo apt install taskset sudo taskset
For the xu4 there should be not much difference with the armbian desktop images except for the background image.
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Hi all.
In this video I show how to use armbian-gamingX86. A script to install Steam, PPSSPP, Retropie and Xonotic on Armbian Jammy/Noble X86.
Here link to armbian-gamingX86 : https://github.com/NicoD-SBC/armbian-gamingX86
Here my video about it.
Cheers, NicoD
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Did you format the NVMe and create a partition? Simular behaviour happens when you don't create a partition.
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@jrd6gBuilding your own images is easy to do.
You need an x86 or arm64 device with Ubuntu 22.04/Armbian Jammy.
Follow these 4 steps.
apt-get -y -qq install git git clone --depth=1 --branch=main https://github.com/armbian/build cd build ./compile.sh -
Where did you get this image?
To my knowledge there's no pi username on Armbian images.
The first time you boot you should be asked to create a username + password.
If that doesn't happen you need to login with 'root' pw '1234'
I do know a lot of images from makers that have username 'pi' and pw 'pi'.
And why the file attached? Looks fishy... -
I was using xfce4 back then. You don't need wayland for panfrost to work.
These days I use ubuntu-desktop (gnome) with wayland and it works just as well. There are issue's with kde desktop and wine not working.
Only for ps2 emulation I still use an x11 desktop since it performs a little better. -
14 hours ago, ioncube said:
@NicoD How one can install armbian-gnome-desktop on an armbian-server image?
There might be a package for Debian Bookworm server images.
sudo apt install armbian-bookworm-desktop-gnome
Or just install the default gnome desktop for any others like Noble or Jammysudo apt install gnome-desktop
I use the Ubuntu desktop on Ubuntu images
sudo apt install ubuntu-desktop
I think the only difference between default gnome and armbian gnome is the background image. So easy to adjust manually if you want. -
Hi. I'm not sure if anyone has this 5B+.
Might be there's a dtb file for it. You need to adjust /boot/armbianEnv.txt
To point to a dtb that's for your device. I just don't know/think there's one yet for that.
They make way too many versions of the same what makes supporting it all a hell. -
@DontMindMeYou can use the old 5.10 kernel. That works without a problem. If you want to build your own replace branch vendor with legacy.
Example :./compile.sh build BOARD=rock-5-itx BRANCH=legacy BUILD_DESKTOP=no BUILD_MINIMAL=no EXPERT=yes KERNEL_CONFIGURE=no RELEASE=jammy
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Retropie is an option. It should run fine. You can use armbian-gaming to install it and also some other emulators.
https://github.com/NicoD-SBC/armbian-gaming
This SoC should run ps1, some N64, snes, nes, gb, gba, ...
I don't think ppsspp would work on it.
I'm not aware of the GPU drivers for this SoC. So not sure about things that need gpu. Most retropie emulators don't use gpu. For doom on dosbox you don't need gpu drivers either. -
If it runs armbian for sure it's possible. Just install dosbox. Mount the folder to c
mount c /folder/path/to/doomplay the game.
You can run it native too, there are tons of possibilities. I think freedoom is one.
https://freedoom.github.io/
Chocolatedoom has deb packages for arm64
https://debian.pkgs.org/11/debian-main-arm64/chocolate-doom_3.0.1-1_arm64.deb.html
GZdoom
https://zdoom.org/downloads
And tons more. Only question is, does it run Armbian? -
Hi all.
I made a video about KDE Neon on the Raspberry Pi 5.
I love it, I'll be switching from ubuntu-desktop to this.
Greetings, NicoD -
Bionic, Focal, jammy Noble are all Ubuntu.
Buster, Bullseye, bookworm, sid are all Debian versions.
You use what you prefer or what fits your tasks best.
I use Armbian Jammy on my Rock5B since I use it as main desktop and that's the image that works best for that.
On my travel NanoPi R6S I use Armbian Noble because it has a better KDEnlive version to edit and render video's on my cycling trips.
On my NAS ZimaBoard I use Noble because it fixes an issue with mounted drives, but could just as well use a debian version.
For your tasks I would probably use Armbian Bookworm and install the apps.
You probably could use CasaOS on Jammy for these tasks. It is a webinterface that allows you to install and setup docker apps.
To install casaOS on Jammy :wget -qO- https://get.casaos.io | sudo bash
So both downloadable images are community releases and not official armbian supported images.
There is bookworm Debian 12 minimal which has only the essential things to boot a system and set it up.
The other is Jammy Ubuntu 22.04 with the Gnome desktop.
I would advice to build your own images with the distro version you want. -
For others. You need GPU drivers for many recent emulators. So either wait for mainline support with panthor or use Armbian Jammy with AmazingFate his GPU and multimedia ppa's for RK3588.
You can install tons of emulators with armbian-gaming. PPSSPP, Retropie, aethersx2, android emulation, box86/64 with wine for windows games...
https://github.com/NicoD-SBC/armbian-gaming
It is written for Jammy and should also work on Debian Sid. But with other distro versions not everything might work and I can't give support for it. Now waiting on Ubuntu 24.04 to see if the GPU problems will be fixed with official releas.
Else I'll focus on Debian releases instead. -
15 hours ago, krrmbn said:
• Beelink Mini S12 Pro w/ 12th gen intel-n100
• Beelink Mini SEi8 w/ 8th gen intel i3-8109u
I've not tried on those but I'm sure Armbian runs on it. I run Armbian on lower spec Intel SoC's and it runs well.
Armbian is perfect for headless work. Everything is configured for it.For me the advantage is to have the same OS on all my devices.
If anyone wants 32-bit OS then go for Debian. They still support 32-bit. -
That is a mainline (edge) image. Support for that isn't there yet. Use Vendor kernel if you want support.
Mainline is a work in progress. -
The speed of an sd-card is very dependent on the device used to read it. Most cheap tv-boxes have 20MB/s max. Some can do 70MB/s. I've not seen any go higher than that.
Highest I've seen on an SBC is 90MB/s. But the cards are theoretically able to do more. I just don't have a reader supporting it.
An eMMC is normally about 150MB/s to 350MB/s. Even the small 16GB eMMC will be faster than the best 256GB sd card.
Just do read write benchmarks on both and make up your own conclusions.
Gaming experience with Orange Pi 5 (RK3588) on Armbian
in Orange Pi 5
Posted
Another video you'd like to see.