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Hi All, I'm struggling with my Orange PI 5 Plus and various Armbian Flavors for 3 days. My Preferred DE, Armbian_25.8.1_Orangepi5-plus_noble_vendor_6.1.115_kde-neon_desktop, after all setup on second boot... failed msg: wait until boot finishes... XFCE, Sound does not work over HDMI. Finally, Armbian_25.8.1_Orangepi5-plus_trixie_vendor_6.1.115_cinnamon_desktop, is doing well. Except for, I'm missing start button. If I want Firefox, I have to open it via cmd If I want to capture screen... I dont know even the name to call via cmd... See my Phone shot https://drive.google.com/file/d/1d6K4i_yshHCrKvXR-13VFkpWzPKx8GaA/view?usp=sharing Could somebody tell me what is wrong? Thanks,

I have built and used it with the latest source and still HDMI audio and analog audio does not work. Is there any way to get HDMI audio to work other than using the vendor kernel?

Hi all Cannot make usable wol on my orange pi 5 plus. Os: Armbian 24.5.1 Bookworm with Linux 6.1.75-vendor-rk35xx WOL tested in magic or unicast settings or all flags enabled (phy, unicast, multicast, broadcast, arp, magic) Test sending wol packets with running tcpdump -i enP3p49s0 '(udp and port 7) or (udp and port 9)' show that orange pi successfully receive wol packets on speeds 1000 or even 10 mbps while powered on. But after sending orange pi to suspend or power off I cannot bring it online via WOL. So I suppose network component outside orange pi is ok and it is something wrong with orange pi. Any ideas?

Continuing the tradition (1, 2) of micro-optimizations for single-board computers that come into my hands. This time I optimized or rather fixed the wake-up function via USB/WoL/WWoL on the Orange Pi 5 Plus. Also got the WiFi adapter RTW8852BE/RTW8852CE working (at least those are the ones I tested). I tested exclusively on the Vendor 6.1.x kernel since the main wake-up features via USB/PCIE/GPIO1-GPIO4 only work in it. I don't currently have the ability to test the new current kernel and I doubt that Power Management will work fully there. Armbian for Orange Pi 5 Plus from the official website, Vendor kernel (kernel 6.1.115-vendor-rk35xx), what does NOT work by default: 1. No WiFi modules that insert into the PCI-E M.2 socket E-Key work - fixed in dts below 2. Wake-up from USB (mouse/keyboard/even Bluetooth dongle) doesn't work - fixed in dts below 3. WoL via Ethernet (on two ports) - fixed in dts below I also conducted power consumption measurements in all these wake-up modes. Let's start with Ethernet ports (WoL won't work by default due to incomplete dts profile). You need to create an overlay file, links I've attached it to this message. To apply this overlay, you need to copy it somewhere on the single-board computer and execute the command: cd <path to rk3588-orangepi-5-plus-Wakeup-GPIO-RTC-USB-WoL-fixes.dts> sudo armbian-add-overlay rk3588-orangepi-5-plus-Wakeup-GPIO-RTC-USB-WoL-fixes.dts Reboot. (if it doesn't boot at all with it or something doesn't work, you can remove these changes from the /boot/overlay-user/ folder) Wake-up Timer Test: sudo sh -c "echo 0 > /sys/class/rtc/rtc0/wakealarm" sudo sh -c "echo `date '+%s' -d '+ 1 minutes'` > /sys/class/rtc/rtc0/wakealarm" sudo systemctl suspend (here we set wake-up in 1 minute from current time, you can choose seconds/minutes/hours and so on, maybe even days - haven't tested. Installing a battery on RTC is not necessary, Type-C power is sufficient) Power Consumption: Testing was performed on Imax B6 Evo / OWON HDS242S. Please note, power consumption of m.2 SSD, SD-card, eMMC is not accounted for here (ideally they should be powered off in sleep mode), but USB devices were not used, bare single-board computer was tested, each module will have its own consumption, especially USB-connected devices, add your values to the sleep mode consumption. Wake-up only via GPIO0 (this includes power button), RTC In this power-saving mode only the rk3588-orangepi-5-plus-Wakeup-GPIO0-RTC-only-fixes.dts profile is used, keep this in mind, it's not compatible with other dts, you need to choose only one option. I got these values: sudo shutdown -h now | 5.4V | 0.005W | 0.001A sudo systemctl suspend | 5.4V | 0.14W | 0.027A Wake-up via GPIO0, GPIO1-4, RTC, USB, WoL In this power-saving mode only the rk3588-orangepi-5-plus-Wakeup-GPIO-RTC-USB-WoL-fixes.dts profile is used, keep this in mind, it's not compatible with other dts, you need to choose only one option. sudo systemctl suspend | 5.4V | 0.25W | 0.046A RTL8125B (eth0 or eth1, can even be both): sudo ethtool -s eth0 wol g && sudo systemctl suspend | 5.4V | 0.33W | 0,061A RTW8852BE (external rtw8852be driver (rtw89 doesn't support WWoL for RTW8852BE in vendor 6.1 kernel)): sudo iw phy0 wowlan enable any && sudo systemctl suspend | 5.4V | 0.30W | 0,055A RTW8852CE (built-in rtw89 driver in the build): sudo iw phy0 wowlan enable magic-packet && sudo systemctl suspend | 5.4V | 0.27W | 0,051A (I want to note that the Ethernet ports on Orange Pi 5 Plus in WoL mode don't light up and don't show link activity, you can only find out if the link is working on the router or on the device to which the single-board computer is connected. In magic-packet standby mode the link switches to 10Mbit and for example on the router loses the assigned IP address, you can find out if the device is alive only by ARP scanning on the router itself or by the link light indication on the router itself. The same applies to WWoL (WiFi) - only on the router or device to which the single-board computer is connected can you check in active clients mode or ARP scan for the presence of MAC address) My Armbian build from the official website on Vendor 6.1 kernel where rtw89 (WiFi) modules are already compiled and pre-installed in the kernel has a peculiarity that this driver supports WWoL function only for RTW8852CE - this is a slightly different chip than the official proprietary WiFi module for Orange Pi 5 Plus which uses RTW8852BE. For WWoL to work on RTW8852BE you need to install a third-party driver, for example I recommend from this source. How to use WoL, WWoL: For wired network use ip and ethtool utilities, for wireless network iw. WoL over LAN WWoL over WiFi External Drivers: For RTW8852BE/RTW8852CE and others there are fairly recent drivers (at the time of writing this manual), here's a brief instruction on how to install them on Orange Pi 5 Plus. Issues: File: rk3588-orangepi-5-plus-Wakeup-GPIO-RTC-USB-WoL-fixes.dts File: rk3588-orangepi-5-plus-Wakeup-GPIO0-RTC-only-fixes.dts Original Link 4PDA

I understand that panthor is not supported for wayland but in that case I would expect libmali to fill in... but I ended up with lvmpipe. The overlay along with another recent post led me to believe that panthor was the expected default and libmali was an artifact, but I'm now questioning that after finding a thread identifying use cases where libmali can be preferred and a comment suggesting panthor wouldn't be available until 6.13. As a result, I am now questioning if there is a reason that software acceleration is the default and the user is expected to determine which path they want to go? I know support for the hardware has been slow going so I understand that it's not well supported yet, but hoping to get a better handle on expectations. Is there an expected default for a Rockchip RK3588 SoC with the Mali‑G610 GPU? Does it vary between 6.1/6.12 and the desktop/server builds?

I've already benchmarked a computer-interactivbe task (like image processing) on the Orangepi 5 plus's processor——and it wrapped up in just 40 minutes, which is impressively fast. Therefore, I' like to try the NPU. Anyone know how to tap into its NPU for AI workloads?

Why so few Debian (Trixie) images with this batch of newly released images? Not one full desktop image for Debian?

Hi Guys, I just did a new custom Armbian build ./compile.sh BOARD=orangepi5-plus BRANCH=vendor RELEASE=noble KERNEL_ONLY=yes KERNEL_CONFIGURE=no. The image is Armbian-unofficial_25.11.0-trunk_Orangepi5-plus_noble_vendor_6.1.115_cinnamon_desktop and when I installed it on orangepi I see it is not supporting Panfrost/Mail: glxinfo | grep -E "OpenGL renderer|OpenGL version" OpenGL renderer string: llvmpipe (LLVM 20.1.2, 128 bits) OpenGL version string: 4.5 (Compatibility Profile) Mesa 25.0.7-0ubuntu0.24.04.2 but for older image Old_Armbian-unofficial_25.08.0-trunk_Orangepi5-plus_noble_vendor_6.1.115_cinnamon_desktop All was well glxinfo | grep -E "OpenGL renderer|OpenGL version" OpenGL renderer string: Mali-G610 (Panfrost) OpenGL version string: 3.1 Mesa 25.0.7-0ubuntu0.24.04.2 I did need to enable "ARM Mail Display Processor" under Device Drivers -> Graphics support -> ARM devices before I perform custom build. And I did this for both OS version 25.11.0 and 25.08.0. But newer version is not able to use it. Thanks Manish

I have tried to download at least 3 times this image: Armbian_25.8.1_Orangepi5-plus_noble_vendor_6.1.115_gnome_desktop.img.xz All sha256sum verified Ok. And wrote 5 times on 3 different SDCards, and this img does not boot on my OPI-5-Plus. No image on monitor, partition armbi_root not expanded, no green lights... Just unusable (for me). Other img's that boot are OK: Deb-xfce, noble-cinnamon, noble-neon... Someone got success with this img??? I'm looking for a distro that works well on OPI5-Plus, well configured, and that works with HDMI audio. The best for now is Noble-Cinnamon but failed to setup Menu button, and I cant find support until now to solve this issue. Thanks, Cury

I've heard people say that the Orange Pi is a "budget alternative" to the Raspberry Pi. On one hand, the Raspberry Pi has an excellent community, with a large user base that could really help you in your learning journey. On the other hand, the Orange Pi offers great value for money, and it's really tempting because the Raspberry Pi can be a bit pricey. What's your suggestion?

I’m currently using the Armbian build system to generate images for the Orange Pi 5 Plus. To use the PREEMPT_RT kernel, I set the BRANCH to current, and with the PREEMPT_RT configuration on the 6.12 kernel I was able to successfully build the image and boot it. However, in this kernel version there are no dtbo files for peripherals like can0, i2c, etc., so I’m unable to use those interfaces. If I set the BRANCH to vendor, I can use the 6.1 kernel, but in order to use a PREEMPT_RT kernel I need to apply the RT patch. The RT patch currently provided is not compatible with the current BRANCH, so kernel build and image creation fail. My question is: while using the 6.12 current kernel, is there any way to copy and use the dtb and dtbo files from the 6.1 vendor kernel?

Hello, I've been using https://joshua-riek.github.io/ubuntu-rockchip-download/boards/orangepi-5-plus.html with a custom kernel that I built to activate my TPM2.0 device and it works. Now I'm asked to use an UEFI compatible image with my Orange Pi 5 Plus. So what I did is more or less the same thing that in here But instead of the legacy kernel I used the 6.1.115-rockchip-vendor-rk35xx kernel and my device booted, I got an HDMI output, etc. And then I updated it to my custom kernel (6.1.0-1027-rockchip) that has the necessary configurations to allow TPM over SPI. Now I'm trying to activate my TPM2.0 as I did before. To do that I added my compiled *.dtbo (rk3588-spi0-tpm-cs1.dtbo) to /boot/dtb/rockchip/overlay and activated it with armbian-config. After reboot this is my /boot/armbianEnv.txt orangepi@uefi-arm64:~$ cat /boot/armbianEnv.txt verbosity=1 bootlogo=true console=both extraargs=cma=256M overlay_prefix=rk3588 fdtfile=rockchip/rk3588-orangepi-5-plus.dtb rootdev=UUID=3e555b58-fdf4-4e2f-a3af-a8ecfd8034b6 rootfstype=ext4 overlays=spi0-tpm-cs1 param_spidev_spi_bus=0 However I still can't see my tpm under /dev/. I don't know what I'm missing, I'm quite new to this sorry Thank you for your time

Hi , I am trying to configure orangepi to turn on and turn off tv. I installed and used cec-ctl to register the boad as playbac device. And then was able to put the TV on standby mode via sudo cec-ctl --device /dev/cec0 --standby --to 0 but not able to find how to turn ON the TV. Can someone please help. Thanks Manish

Hello everyone! I was struggling to make wiring work on OrangePi 5 Plus armbian. Tried everything and came up with a solution that worked for me. I was constantly getting these errors: wiringPiSetup: mmap (PWM) failed: Operation not permitted wiringPiSetup: mmap (GPIO) failed: Operation not permitted I'm on 23.8.2. 1. Install armbian and update apt sudo apt update 2. As stated in OrangePi5Plus wiki page I got .deb installer for wiringPi on OrangePi Now here's the link to this file: https://github.com/orangepi-xunlong/orangepi-build/blob/next/external/cache/debs/arm64/wiringpi_2.51.deb 3. The most important step was described here: https://github.com/Joshua-Riek/ubuntu-rockchip/issues/273 echo "BOARD=orangepi5plus" | sudo tee /etc/orangepi-release Somehow this solves the issue. No idea how these things work tbh... 4. Check if pins are detected via gpio readall or add sudo sudo gpio readall You should get a table with all the pins and numbers like this: 5. Install wiringop-python just as stated in the manual: http://www.orangepi.org/orangepiwiki/index.php/Orange_Pi_5_Plus#How_to_install_wiringOP-Python # get the dependencies sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get -y install git swig python3-dev python3-setuptools # clone wiringOP-python repo, the branch should be "next" and NOT "main" or "master" git clone --recursive https://github.com/orangepi-xunlong/wiringOP-Python -b next cd wiringOP-Python git submodule update --init --remote python3 generate-bindings.py > bindings.i sudo python3 setup.py install The wiringOP-Python should be working now.

due to network limitations， how to compile Ubuntu 22.04 Gnome OS image in offline mode, build.sh need to download many debs，can I download them in advance，then install them locally. I have already downloaded kernel and uboot.

In settings -> keyboard -> view and customize shortcuts -> launchers -> search I am trying to set this to Windows Key + S, it doesn't register the windows key at all as being pressed, so what keyboard do I choose to be able to use the full k400r keyboard inclusive of the windows key. Many thanks Newbie (please be nice, I'm new to Armbian and SBC's)

I recently bought an orange pi plus and am using the armbian 6.12 server (https://dl.armbian.com/orangepi5-plus/Noble_current_server) I'm wanting to setup hardware acceleration for jellyfin but having trouble with the right steps. I'm using jellyfin inside docker on the orange pi inside armbian. I've found various tutorials but it seems like some of them reference things that no longer exist (like panfork seems to no longer be needed for latest mesa if I'm understanding correctly?), so wanting to see what I need to do to set this up. So it seems like I need to disable panthor and use mali instead, but I can't find in the armbian config menu the option to do that, and not sure if I know how to get the right mali. Any help would be greatly appreciated. armbianmonitor is at https://paste.armbian.com/nurazajipu I've seen these tutorials/posts for reference: * https://akashrajpurohit.com/blog/setup-jellyfin-with-hardware-acceleration-on-orange-pi-5-rockchip-rk3558/ * https://github.com/andyshrk/mesa/blob/panthor-v4/Panfrost-build-howto.md * https://forum.jellyfin.org/t-solved-hw-transcoding-rk3588-arch-not-working?pid=54084 * `https://forum.armbian.com/topic/49115-how-to-install-opencl-on-orangepi-5-plus/` * https://forum.jellyfin.org/t-rockchip-transcode-missing-dev-mali0

Hello, I just got a wifi 7 adapter (QCNCM865) and I was thinking the ath12k driver was available starting from kernel 6.13, I'm running the edge kernel 6.16.4 and the ath12k driver is failing to load and I can't find any wireless drivers in /usr/lib/modules/6.16.4-edge-rockchip64/kernel/net/wireless. Do I need to rebuild the kernel with the ath12k driver? or is there a kernel version available with that driver? Thanks for your help!

So I was messing around with my new OrangePi-5+ and installed the EDK2 UEFI firmware for Rockchip RK3588 platforms onto the SPI flash (/dev/mtdblock0). After which I tried all sorts of images and kernels with varying success, only the 5.10.160-legacy-rk3588 kernel would really have a working display. Until I tried a generic UEFI arm64 image (Jammy-CLI on a USB stick) which gave a working display, albeit at 1080p max. (my monitor is 4K) with no acceleration (after the extra steps), and installed the Mate desktop (just my preference). The big caveat is that it does not recognize the SD-card, EMMC or SPI-flash, just regular drives (e.g. sda/nvme0n1 etc) and I'm sure a lot of other hardware isn't properly recognized either. But all of that was fixed by simply installing the old legacy kernel with apt, making a symbolic link to the correct dtb in /boot and updating grub, and a reboot later everything worked fine, the desktop popped up in 4K with acceleration and all. In the end I installed the whole thing to an NVME with armbian-config, which didn't create the separate EFI partition, so I had to corrected it manually, but that is another story. What surprises me is that the UEFI-arm64 kernel does not seem to need a Device-Tree-Blob, in fact it doesn't even boot with its own rk3588-orangepi-5-plus.dtb. Anyway if anyone want's to try this I'd suggest using Balena etcher to write the ED2K firmware onto an SD-card, and a generic UEFI armbian to an USB stick so you won't have to mess up anything permanently. Plug the stick in a USB2 port as it chokes during boot on the USB3 (blue) ports. And you will need a lot of patience as booting from a USB2 stick will be rather slow to say the least. Install legacy kernel: sudo apt update sudo apt install linux-image-legacy-rk35xx Create the symbolic link: (If you try this on another board or with another kernel version, you will need to adjust the link for the appropriate DTB instead) sudo ln -s /usr/lib/linux-image-5.10.160-legacy-rk35xx/rockchip/rk3588-orangepi-5-plus.dtb /boot/dtb-5.10.160-legacy-rk35xx Bonus tip, set the legacy kernel as a GRUB's default: (optional, adjust for different kernels) sudo echo 'GRUB_DEFAULT="Armbian GNU/Linux, with Linux 5.10.160-legacy-rk35xx"' > /etc/default/grub.d/99-legacy.cfg GRUB should now automatically pick up on the DTB after updating: sudo update-grub So far the only downside I have found is that the audio outputs are all labeled "Built-in Audio Stereo", which was easy to solve by adding some udev-rules as the Armbian build system does when building a regular OrangePi-5+ image.

Hi Guys, I just did a new custom Armbian build ./compile.sh BOARD=orangepi5-plus BRANCH=vendor RELEASE=noble KERNEL_ONLY=yes KERNEL_CONFIGURE=no. The image is Armbian-unofficial_25.11.0-trunk_Orangepi5-plus_noble_vendor_6.1.115_cinnamon_desktop and when I installed it on orangepi I see it is not supporting Panfrost/Mail: glxinfo | grep -E "OpenGL renderer|OpenGL version" OpenGL renderer string: llvmpipe (LLVM 20.1.2, 128 bits) OpenGL version string: 4.5 (Compatibility Profile) Mesa 25.0.7-0ubuntu0.24.04.2 but for older image Old_Armbian-unofficial_25.08.0-trunk_Orangepi5-plus_noble_vendor_6.1.115_cinnamon_desktop All was well glxinfo | grep -E "OpenGL renderer|OpenGL version" OpenGL renderer string: Mali-G610 (Panfrost) OpenGL version string: 3.1 Mesa 25.0.7-0ubuntu0.24.04.2 I did need to enable "ARM Mail Display Processor" under Device Drivers -> Graphics support -> ARM devices before I perform custom build. And I did this for both OS version 25.11.0 and 25.08.0. But newer version is not able to use it. Thanks Manish

I'm adding this here as I want to contribute to the community, but I'm still not sure how. I've been playing with Armbian Build lately and found it's great for quick build images for testing purposes before it's officially made available. So I started build my own images with i3, mate, kde, and I noticed that, in my personal taste, the one that was better suited for my needs was Sway, but there's no desktop image with it. So I built a Server version and start installing it. I know it may not be of interest of everybody, so I was planning to do it for myself, so I can continue building with the interface, but having Sway "automatically" installed. If/when I'm able to do this, I could put this in CSC mode in the repo, or I shouldn't do that as it's going to bloat the system more as there's no interest in having yet another WM/DE available? I'm thinking of this as an alternative to i3,as I noticed that, in my board, Wayland is performing much better than XOrg/X11.

Hey @amazingfate, I have an issue with the build-in IR receiver on my OPI5+: ##O#O## OS: Armbian 25.8.1 noble aarch64 ####### Host: Orange Pi 5 Plus ########### Kernel: 6.1.115-vendor-rk35xx ############# Uptime: 2 mins ############### Packages: 1934 (dpkg), 5 (snap) ################ Shell: bash 5.2.21 ################# Resolution: 3840x2160 ##################### DE: GNOME 46.0 ##################### WM: Mutter ################# WM Theme: Adwaita Theme: Adwaita [GTK2/3] Icons: Adwaita [GTK2/3] Terminal: x-terminal-emul CPU: (8) @ 1.800GHz Memory: 2585MiB / 15957MiB After a reboot it works just fine, but once I suspend/resume it stops working. Logs look clear of errors. I have tried to troubleshoot with ChatGPT but goin' in circles and gave up. Lastly ended up with some speculations from it like: static int rockchip_pwm_remotectl_resume(struct device *dev) { struct remotectl_dev *rc_dev = dev_get_drvdata(dev); // Re-init or restart the device if (rc_dev && rc_dev->restart) rc_dev->restart(rc_dev); return 0; } static const struct dev_pm_ops rockchip_pwm_remotectl_pm_ops = { .resume = rockchip_pwm_remotectl_resume, }; static struct platform_driver rockchip_pwm_remotectl_driver = { .probe = rockchip_pwm_remotectl_probe, .driver = { .name = "rockchip_pwm_remotectl", .pm = &rockchip_pwm_remotectl_pm_ops, }, }; Do you think this is the problem, or if not can I share some details so you can try to find it?

Hi there I'm using Ubuntu 24.04 (Noble) KDE Neon image from may 26, 2025. After download this image and installing it, Wayland was working fine, not problems at all. Then, after a system upgrade, if i choose Wayland from session manager, the system freezes and i can't boot with Wayland, only X11... Before the update, the system was smooth, now it's really laggy....Like i said, i'm using Desktop image with Armbian Linux v6.12 KDE Neon (Ubuntu 24.04) There's something wrong with the update Anyone knows why is this happening, and any turnaround to use Wayland again?

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.

Sorry if I have come to the wrong place. A friend has given me an Orange Pi 5 Plus, fitted with a 1GB SSD, and I have been trying to get it started up. According to its previous owner, the SSD had been completely erased (I don't know why). It had no SD card with it when I got it. I downloaded the online instruction manuals, and set about trying to start it up, using a suitable 32GB SD card. I first tried with (OrangePi) Ubuntu, but ran into problems using Balena Etcher. It apparently transfers the Ubuntu Image to the SD card, but just as it appears to complete the process of verification, it produces a helpful error message ('There was an Error'....). I also tried with other OSes, with the same result, so it seems to be either me or the OPi which is having problems. After a bit of research, I found a description of using the Linux command 'dd' to transfer an image, so I did this, under a machine with Linux Mint - this appeared to go OK. I then plugged in the SD card, and powered up the OPi. After a delay, I get what looks like a Ubuntu 'splash' page on screen, and it appears to go through an installation process (? not sure if thats whats happening). However, after several minutes, there is a message saying there is an error, and a desktop session will be started to allow debugging - but I can't get anything else to happen. I have asked the previous owner, but he says probably the bootloader is missing. (I suspect he never got it running). Here I come unstuck - I can't find any info on bootloaders - like what it is, where to get it, what to do with it, etc, so I am hoping someone here can point me in the right direction. I have gone through the instruction manual, but it seems to be slightly out of date, and I had no success using its instructions. Ideally, I would like to boot the OPi from the SSD, if that is possible, but have no idea how to go about this - and there seems to be a great deal of conflicting (wrong?) info online. I did try the Orange Pi 'official' forums, but got lost in the chinese messages which came up.