Orange Pi Zero 3

[SergioAiello]

I did not find the build for Orange Pi Zero 3

Vice versa I found the build for Orange Pi Zero2

Both SBCs are equipped with Allwinner H6 CPU (H618 for the board Zero 3 and H616 for the board Zero2).

 

Is the build for Orange Pi Zero2 compatible with Orange Pi Zero 3 as well? 

[Werner]

They are not compatible and Armbian does not support the Zero3. However support can be added if someone steps up for this task.

Any Armbian images you may find for the Zero3 in the web are not ours.

[SergioAiello]

not important question: between Zero2 and zero3 I would choose Zero3: performances are similar, but Zero3 is newer. Why Armbian decided to not support it?

BR, S.  

[SteeMan]

No resources to support it.  Armbian is volunteer based with only has a few core volunteers. There are hundreds of boards out there, more practically every day.  This is open source so the Armbian build environment is there for anyone to step up and contribute.  And if you don't have the coding skills there are many ways to contribute and give back to the community:

https://docs.armbian.com/Process_Contribute

[Werner]

If we'd had infinite resources  Armbian would run on any ARM based hardware on the planet. However quite the opposite is the case so we have to limit ourselves

 

[Daniel Müller]

Is Orange pi Zero 3 included in the list of Boards in the build script? 

[Werner]

20 minutes ago, Daniel Müller said:

Is Orange pi Zero 3 included in the list of Boards in the build script? 

https://github.com/armbian/build/tree/main/config/boards

[kingfish600]

Do I need to be a programmer to make image for the orange pi zero 3 and get it included here?  I am not a programmer but might enjoy learning  how to create it.

[Werner]

https://docs.armbian.com/Developer-Guide_Adding-Board-Family/

[ag123]

check in this thread

there are some *unofficial* images created by others and placed elsewhere (not sure if they are still valid), there are various issues e.g. with wifi not working, issues with boot loader etc discussed in the thread

 

to support the new board would take quite a lot of effort off *everyone* who wants to use the board (development and tests, and contnuous maintenance over long term, kernel updates, distribution updates etc, perpetual) and possibly needs to be funded here.

but that orange-pi-zero-3 is an important board first of all that it has up to 4GB memory which is much more than orange-pi-zero-2

so it still matters (a lot)

there are some efforts at the "bleeding edge" in the mainline kernels, those are very much 'in development' at the "bleeding edge" and those changes have not been back ported in any way into the existing  armbian kernels.

 

https://linux-sunxi.org/Xunlong_Orange_Pi_Zero3

 

Edited November 7, 2023 by ag123

[Guest]

Hey, guys!

 

First of all, I want to say that I understand that the Armbian project is an open source and voluntary project. I understand that no one is forced to do anything, as everything is done willingly. However, this card appears to be one of the best value for money in the segment, so I consider it important to add it to the supported cards.

 

My question is: even if there is no forecast, is there at least some work underway to support this card?

[Igor]

Quote

no one is forced to do anything

Sadly, this is not the case  There is constant pressure from end users, vendors and groups organised by people that copy Armbian at industrial scale and contribute nothing back or to open source.

Can be well explained with this particular case:

This Orangepi employee https://github.com/leeboby made images with various hot brands, well known operating systems, all what you would expect to run on those boards, including Armbian https://github.com/leeboby/armbian-images. All those images are of course FAKE UNOFFICIAL builds which will break on first upgrade and then you came here and blame us, demand fixing, demand support (not Orangepi as they are officially not tied to that shit made software and because they anyway don't provide any support) ... which is force. We have to respond. At least with such reply - which is again forced and it creates us only damages. To reputation and lost of time. And you see us as a bad guys ... "dirty Armbian because don't help maintain my new super value hardware". You don't even think that you were fooled by dealer from Aliexpress in 1st place and we have absolutely no means to help you. All "partners" in this game are trying to abuse us: you, vendors, competitors.

 

Software support is hard work, direct loss of precious time (money). You expect top notch support, answering on all questions ... how many people can afford to do that? Ratio is 1 person that knows something on 1000 people that knows nothing or wants something, give nothing. Support is dealing with never satisfied (this means you never even donate, which represent around 0.5% of costs we have with you) customers that expect free service. Often not even "thank you", to show some respect. You are welcome try doing support job at this forum. Every day, 20/7. Let see how long you will last  This is what users expect and this is what someone needs to volunteer in order to match. Ofc this does not exists, but expectations are.

 

Since "Armbian" images exists and this is Armbian support forum, you will keep coming ...  also years after as software support is never ending story, there are upgrades all the time ... while vendor is already gone from the picture, selling you something new with the same story.
 

As this is not bad enough, there are 3rd party organised groups that are constantly harassing and blackmailing opensource developers - example, where again we are bad guys because we are turning you down ( you don't want to hear reality, that it can take several years before bug can be fixed and/or compensation must be provided). Considering this, when constant abuse attempts are in place, we can't talk about voluntarism. There are many more reasons why this is everything but fairy tail one picture as "open source voluntarism". If you want to look deeper ...

 

Quote

 one of the best value for money in the segment

 

Just keep in mind that slave labor is providing this value.
 

Quote

is there at least some work underway to support this card?

 

 Officially not, but it might be brought up by someone random, so community support perhaps.

[Guest]

My English is terrible and I mainly use Google Translator, so I apologize if I expressed myself badly and offended you. That was not my intention, on the contrary, my intention was to make it clear in my post that there was no insinuation of “charge” or “demand”, as I understand that no one here owes me anything.

 

I understand your point of view regarding lobbying and I understand that there are charges, but in essence Armbian is open source, it is in essence voluntary, and I published my post with that in mind. I did not want to cause confusion, inconvenience or create or spice up an argument. My intention was to contribute by adding my favorable position, and asking a simple question, without any pretense.

 

I just want to add regarding your comment about me being deceived by the seller: I was not. Unfortunately, this card is the most I can afford. If I had the financial means, I would undoubtedly opt for another card.

 

My most sincere apologies to everyone. I authorize the forum moderator to delete my comments.

Edited November 24, 2023 by Jean Carlo EM

[Igor]

7 hours ago, Guest said:

I apologize if I expressed myself badly and offended you

 

No worries, you didn't offend me.

I only tried to describe you:

- strong forces that are working against voluntarism,

- that open source become place of high abuse. 

- that most of people doesn't understand that we are all loosing.

 

7 hours ago, Guest said:

My intention was to contribute by adding my favorable position, and asking a simple question, without any pretense.

People usually expect clarification.

[ag123]

Linux 6.6 LTS release – Highlights, Arm, RISC-V and MIPS architectures

https://www.cnx-software.com/2023/10/30/linux-6-6-release-highlights-arm-risc-v-and-mips-architectures/

Quote

New board – Orange Pi Zero 3 (Note: WiFi/BT not supported at this time)

 

Edited November 27, 2023 by ag123

[ag123]

agree with @Igor, supporting a board is a long term commitment and no easy feat.

those who are reading this thread should take it that there is no official Armbian release for this board (yet).

These are 'community efforts', attempts to run it on Orange Pi Zero 3.

 

But I'm hoping that we can build up enough *community* support and involvement for Orange Pi Zero 3 here.

Note that for a supported board, it would call on the community for continuous maintenance and integration,  as well as being involved in doing tests when new releases are made. Armbian isn't just supporting one single board after all.

It'd also means that the community would need to support this effort financially as well, i.e. supporting Armbian.

 

---

Board testing (Orange Pi Zero3) and many issues:

 

For the record, I've tried using the board with the vendor's Debian (bookworm) images (it is an early image released in August 2023, there is a more recently release in Oct 2023).

 

The scenario tested is setting up this Orange Pi Zero 3 as a Wifi hotspot.

 

The distribution is running hostapd and for the record I managed to set up a 5Ghz 802.11ac hotspot on this little board. It clocked like in excess of 100 Mbps (100 mega bits per second) through the WiFI UWE5622 and the (gigabit) Ethernet interface. it is quite an 'eyebrow raiser' (wow).

 

The trouble is there apparently (it seems) is some real hardware bugs/defects in the gigabit Ethernet chip, within less than a day the ethernet hardware stall on me, ethernet connection goes offline. And Network manager disabled the ethernet interface.

I've had to manually re-enable that from network manager, and not just that, power cycle the board completely off, disconnect and re-connect ethernet cable in an attempt to restore it. It has become frustrating as this is becoming frequent, like less than an hour.

--

just 2 cents: Orange Pi Zero 3 is still a 'significant' board, due to an updated Cortex A53 from Allwinnner H616 to H618, accordingly things are similar except that OrangePi Zero 3 is using LPDDR4 while OrangePi Zero 2 is using DDR3, and a different PMIC 

OrangePi Zero 3 supports up to 4GB memory (important for various apps), the performant gigabit ethernet and 5Ghz 802.11ac capable Wifi is a big plus. It makes this board perfect for a WiFi hotspot, pretty sure open source router distributions like OpenWrt would have noticed it. The trouble is I'm not sure if the ethernet chip (hardware) defect is after all true, that is a real bummer.

Edited November 27, 2023 by ag123

[ag123]

Note that I've another thread here:

 

[fich]

Here is image , build just for testing. Kernel 6.6.12 .  No audio. No bluetooth. SD card read speed just 23 MB/s ( SDR50 ) .

Kernel 5.4.125 SD card read speed exceed 65 MB/s, for example.  Video was not tested, because I do not need it.

Various nodes missing from DT ( compared to Xunlong provided images ).

  Image  from leeboby  has WiFi issue. Needs replacement of wcnmodem.bin ( firmware ) in /usr/lib/firmware/uwe5622 .

Get one from Xunlong images.

 

[Igor]

49 minutes ago, fich said:

Here is image , build just for testing.

 

If you didn't improve anything ... we provide daily / weekly automated builds for everything, supported or non-supported.

https://github.com/armbian/os/releases/latest

https://github.com/armbian/community/releases/latest

 

49 minutes ago, fich said:

Image  from leeboby  has WiFi issue.

Leeboby is Xunlong employee which made those fake and broken Armbian / Kali / * images ... to trick you that Armbian support this hardware. No, we don't. Yearly budget is far less then zero.

 

49 minutes ago, fich said:

Kernel 5.4.125 SD card read speed exceed 65 MB/s, for example.

This is fake Linux / "Android kernel" you don't want to use in production. It shows HW features, nobody maintains it. You can see leeboby commits there too.
https://docs.armbian.com/User-Guide_FAQ/#why-does-hardware-feature-xy-work-in-old-kernel-but-not-in-more-recent-one

[fich]

@Igor. Thank you for clarification.

[Pitti Rikant]

I understand that no one is forced to do anything, as everything is done willingly. However, this card appears to be one of the best value for money in the segment, so I consider it important to add it to the supported cards.

[ag123]

it is there in 'community releases' 

https://www.armbian.com/orange-pi-zero-3/

scroll to the bottom of that page

get a 'whole number' (1GB, 2GB, 4GB) dram size board, for 1.5GB there it is still under 'research', you + (community) need to find a way to tell u-boot (the bios and boot loader) that the board is 1.5GB

once that is figured out, it is possible to practically use any board with any amount of memory.