Orange Pi 5 Plus - Dual boot - is possible ?

[costel]

Hello,

Long time Gentoo and Raspberry Pi user, but I am interested in a more powerful Arm device. 

Will buy an Orange Pi 5 plus device if it meets my requirements.

I am interested about dual or multiple boot: let's say Linux and Android or, at least multiple Linux distro - let's say Armbian and Gentoo. It is possible ?

On Raspberry Pi 4 with a larger boot partition I switch content of /boot from boot/debian /boot/gentoo, have multiple partition on SATA SSD connected via USB edit root parameter in /boot/cmdline.txt and that way I choose which distro to boot.

On Orange PI 5 (Plus) I read that SPI chip have to be flashed to choose the boot device from SDCard (default) or NVME disk - I am not sure about eMMC memory, but it is ok to use SD card as boot partition and change root to Gentoo/Armbian/Android partition.

No problem using command line, dd, tar partitioning.

So questions:

1. Is dual boot possible now on Orange Pi 5 Plus ?

2. If yes, is possible to switch between Linux and Android ?

3. Or just between multiple Linux installations ?

 

I am convinced that Raspberry Pi support is better, I put this question here, because on Orange Pi forum I am not yet able to make a new post.

What to expect from Raxda/Orange ? 

I am referring to hardware drivers support like mesa, kernel etc, not questions, community, or simply technical support.

On panfork I see a new package created on 2023-08-16 - https://launchpad.net/~liujianfeng1994/+archive/ubuntu/panfork-mesa , but no commit on git in the last 8 months. Nothing about mesa 23.1, it stay to mesa 20.0 from the beginning.

On the other hand Rock Pi 4 also started from kernel 5.10, but now has support for kernel 6.1 - latest stable one, on Armbian.

 

Thank you for your support!

[Igor]

Welcome!

 

1 hour ago, costel said:

It is possible ?

Possible, officially not. Some people made some experiments, do extensive search on forums and around. Android? We don't touch it here ... Good luck.

 

If you are coming from Gentoo world, you must dive into our build framework. Perhaps you can give us some hints: https://github.com/armbian/build

 

1 hour ago, costel said:

On Raspberry Pi 4 with a larger boot partition I switch content of /boot from boot/debian /boot/gentoo, have multiple partition on SATA SSD connected via USB edit root parameter in /boot/cmdline.txt and that way I choose which distro to boot.

Universal ways are, like mentioned, in experimental phases. Can't point you to any solution.

 

1 hour ago, costel said:

I am convinced that Raspberry Pi support is better

Absolutely no doubt about.

 

1 hour ago, costel said:

I put this question here, because on Orange Pi forum I am not yet able to make a new post.

There is nobody but spam bots, Radxa forums are better but also pretty not moderated and mainly populated with repeated novice questions.

 

1 hour ago, costel said:

I am referring to hardware drivers support like mesa, kernel etc, not questions, community, or simply technical support.

 

- they have nothing to do with MESA
- they ship and maintain (usually with 1-2 people) kernel they got from chip maker. They are behind legacy kernel development.

- support they provide is mainly leaned to community.

 

Profit margins putting SoC on PCB are not enough to cover wasteful end user support or extensive R&D. In most cases support is done by their clients if there are any. Just like with Raspberry Pi. Or sponsored by groups like ours. Some vendors afford to cover for a person on their forums, mainly not. In contrast - Armbian is more developers oriented community towards mainline based software oriented community that is above vendor specifics.

 

1 hour ago, costel said:

On panfork

Panfork is hacked unofficial one man fork of mesa that is not recognized and approved by upstream. Google if you want to understand dirty details ... But if you don't care, use it. It works, just adjust expectations.

 

1 hour ago, costel said:

On the other hand Rock Pi 4 also started from kernel 5.10, but now has support for kernel 6.1 - latest stable one, on Armbian.

Yes. We are getting there too. I am already experimenting running GitHub runners on 3588 devices with mainline kernel. Headless is conditionally usable to some degree, but if you have questions ... download and play with it. If something you need doesn't work, don't waste time asking. Its almost certainly not developed yet.

 

Also worth checking:
https://docs.armbian.com/User-Guide_FAQ/

[costel]

Hello,

 

Thank you for your insights. It's seems from your answers that Orange Pi 5 is still too new  and need more time to mature. 
What I need (mostly):

- more CPU power;

- GPU with hardware acceleration;

- ksmbd support (5.15 LTS minimum requirement).

I intend to use it mostly for server: web, rsync, smb, but occasionally to fire up and use a virtual machine with desktop environment. 

It won't be directly exposed to Internet, but accessed via a wireguard connection to my Mikrotik router, ssh and via vnc if desktop is required, that's why I care about mesa development for this board.

CPU power, crypto/AES extensions - check;

HW acceleration for GPU - maybe, in time;

ksmbd - with a test/unofficial build, probably by loosing desktop availability. 

 

It is correct to expect to meet my requirements in 6/12 months ?

 

Thank you!

 

[Efe Çetin]

Yes dual boot is possible. 

 

You can use uboot to load EFI files and then you can use a bootloader like grub, systemdboot.

 

 

Btw you can use https://github.com/edk2-porting/edk2-rk3588 too. It works well with 5.10 legacy kernel.

[costel]

That's awesome. 

Thank you!

[Facundo Godoy]

Hi! can you explain how to make u-boot load efi files to use grub? thx😀

[ozacas]

Perhaps this would work for you? https://forum.armbian.com/topic/35168-generic-uefi-arm64-on-orangepi-5/