Armbian on Orange Pi 3B with Vendor Images (Linux < 6.6) don't seem to work

[Manuel R]

Hi,

 

First of all, kudos to the entire Armbian team! I am fond of SBC Linux systems, and having a single minimalistic distro for all of them is a great initiative. 👏

 

I am trying to boot Armbian on my Orange Pi 3B without success using the following vendor images:

 

• Armbian_community_24.8.0-trunk.369_Orangepi3b_bookworm_vendor_6.1.43_minimal.img
• Armbian_community_24.8.0-trunk.399_Orangepi3b_bookworm_vendor_6.1.43_minimal.img

 

The following edge images work fine:

 

• Armbian_23.11.1_Orangepi3b_bookworm_edge_6.6.2.img
• Armbian_community_24.8.0-trunk.399_Orangepi3b_bookworm_edge_6.9.9_minimal.img

 

From what I understand from other posts, it seems like anything below Linux 6.6 is broken.

 

I can confirm that images with Linux 6.6.2 and 6.9.9 works on the Orange Pi 3B, while the ones with 6.1.43 does not. Attached is the console log for the trunk.399 vendor image.

 

I am sticking with Armbian 23.11.1 for now; however, I would prefer to use vendor (more stable) images because this system will be for a long-term project.

 

Any comment or suggestion about running stable releases or what stable image is the preferred (or available) for the Orange Pi 3B will be highly apreciated. 😁

 

 

boot_24.8.0-trunk.399_Orangepi3b_bookworm_vendor_6.1.43.txt

Edited July 21 by Manuel R
including console boot log

[heyrict]

I have been running the legacy kernel (5.10) pretty stable for months on the v1 variant of orange pi 3B. You can build one yourself (https://github.com/armbian/build/).

 

Latest v2 images from vendor (orangepi homepage) doesn't work either for v1. I think they did some breaking changes and dropped support for v1 orangepi 3B.

 

I'm getting repeated HDMI connection errors in the latest 6.9 kernel, and HDMI audio does not work for 5.10 kernel.

FYI, there is an old thread by Protx about solving the 6.1 kernel error. I think it worth a try if you would like to have v6.1 kernel running on your SBC.

Look forward to your feedback.

[Manuel R]

Thank you very much for your response @heyrict, and for pointing me in the direction to build a 6.1 kernel for the Orange Pi 3B 😁.

 

Since I am new to Armbian, I am a little confused about the kernel classification:

• I downloaded the Debian flavor of the Orange Pi 3B OS from orangepi.org, which has a 5.10 kernel.
• The images from armbian.com labeled as vendor have a 6.1 kernel, and the edge images have a 6.6 kernel.

Why are the Armbian images with the 6.1 kernel labeled as vendor? I just want to understand the naming scheme for the Armbian images.

 

On the other hand, what got me to test Armbian is that I didn’t like the nature of the Orange Pi OS, from the several kernel warnings about being a DEBUG kernel to the customized user space.

 

I want to have a stable and minimal system for my Orange Pi 3B to do mainly networking tasks and nothing graphic.

 

Would you recommend building an Armbian stable release (24.5.1) image with a 5.1 kernel? Is there anywhere I can find such image?

[Igor]

2 hours ago, Manuel R said:

I am a little confused

This is custom hardware world. There are many models, some are similar, some different, some very different. Some vendors sets names with complete absence of any logic ... and there is little we can do about.

 

2 hours ago, Manuel R said:

I downloaded the Debian flavor of the Orange Pi 3B OS from orangepi.org, which has a 5.10 kernel.

 

Orangepi Debian and Orangepi Ubuntu are Armbian fork. They generate those images with Armbian tools that were forked few years ago and where they removed all other vendors out. Instead of cooperating with us on the same code base of the build FW, they "maintain" their own. Also kernels are maintained by https://github.com/orangepi-xunlong/linux-orangepi/commits/orange-pi-5.10-rk35xx/ (one person) vs. Armbian + community maintained (10+ people) https://github.com/armbian/linux-rockchip/branches. We have ditched this very old (named legacy at Armbian) kernel 5.10 few months ago and we just released 3rd version of (named vendor at Armbian) kernel 6.1.y. Both, legacy and vendor are provided by Rockchip and are containing many non-standard solutions that cannot and will never be mainlined. Then there are mainline based kernels, named current and edge, which are derived from kernel.org but heavily patched to provide as good as possible functionality. This latter does not interest HW vendors much as its beyond their control.

 

2 hours ago, Manuel R said:

On the other hand, what got me to test Armbian is that I didn’t like the nature of the Orange Pi OS, from the several kernel warnings about being a DEBUG kernel to the customized user space.

You need to have a strong reason to run their software. It's purpose is to sell hardware.

 

2 hours ago, Manuel R said:

I want to have a stable and minimal system for my Orange Pi 3B to do mainly networking tasks and nothing graphic.

Armbian bookworm current is what you want. Only problem here is that we (Armbian staff) don't have re$ources to spent on this device, so it will remain community supported. There is also a version of this board that is broken and will only cause additional expenses. And our time is too precious. 
 

2 hours ago, Manuel R said:

Would you recommend building an Armbian stable release (24.5.1) image with a 5.1 kernel?

Absolutely not. Forget about kernel 5.1.y Its dead end, nobody is maintaining it anymore.

[Manuel R]

Thanks for your reply, Igor. I also see you're very active in the forums and in Armbian development. Kudos for your contributions! 👏

 

On 7/23/2024 at 1:29 PM, Igor said:

Orangepi Debian and Orangepi Ubuntu are Armbian fork. They generate those images with Armbian tools that were forked few years ago and where they removed all other vendors out. Instead of cooperating with us on the same code base of the build FW, they "maintain" their own. Also kernels are maintained by https://github.com/orangepi-xunlong/linux-orangepi/commits/orange-pi-5.10-rk35xx/ (one person) vs. Armbian + community maintained (10+ people) https://github.com/armbian/linux-rockchip/branches. We have ditched this very old (named legacy at Armbian) kernel 5.10 few months ago and we just released 3rd version of (named vendor at Armbian) kernel 6.1.y. Both, legacy and vendor are provided by Rockchip and are containing many non-standard solutions that cannot and will never be mainlined. Then there are mainline based kernels, named current and edge, which are derived from kernel.org but heavily patched to provide as good as possible functionality. This latter does not interest HW vendors much as its beyond their control.

 

I'm glad to learn about the history behind Orange Pi OS and Armbian, now it's clear to me the differences between legacy, vendor, current and edge kernels. 

 

And as I understand, I can switch between them relatively easily with armbian-config, right?

 

On 7/23/2024 at 1:29 PM, Igor said:

Armbian bookworm current is what you want. Only problem here is that we (Armbian staff) don't have re$ources to spent on this device, so it will remain community supported. There is also a version of this board that is broken and will only cause additional expenses. And our time is too precious. 

 

Regarding Armbian releases (the userspace as I understand) for the Orange Pi 3B, do you suggest using the most recent rolling release (previews of 24.8), an archive version (most recent is 23.11.1), or building my own version for the latest stable Armbian release (24.5.1) with a current kernel?

 

[heyrict]

Quote

And as I understand, I can switch between them relatively easily with armbian-config, right?

Switching kernel is a risky operation and armbian-config may not find the right combination of kernel+header+dtb for you. You would probably mess up with your system if you are not familiar with how linux works on embedded systems. Afaik it is recommended to manually upgrade/downgrade kernel using apt in case of version incompatibility.

 

Quote

Regarding Armbian releases (the userspace as I understand) for the Orange Pi 3B, do you suggest using the most recent rolling release (previews of 24.8), an archive version (most recent is 23.11.1), or building my own version for the latest stable Armbian release (24.5.1) with a current kernel?

My suggestion is, you would better try it out yourself. If you think your system works stable for you, use that one.

[062621AM]

On 7/24/2024 at 3:29 AM, Igor said:

There is also a version of this board that is broken

Can you share which OrangePi 3B board version is broken?

i have two but both has no issues to boot up bleeding edge image, Bookworm

Edited August 27 by 062621AM

[Igor]

4 hours ago, 062621AM said:

Can you share which OrangePi 3B board version is broken?

 

I read about this on this forum or chat. Try this way https://forum.armbian.com/search/

[Giordano Sologuren]

@062621AM Hello, I have been an Ob3pi user for a few months. The problem that I have seen is that there are 3 types of models v1, v1.1.1, v2.1, it is in the latter where the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip changes and also the size of the NVME (2280). For these changes to work correctly in the official distribution, they add a dts (orangepi3b-v2.1.dts). The latter is not integrated into any old distribution, since the manufacturer just distributed this board a few months ago. If you use the hardware as a server, you may not notice errors in the GPU, VPU, BLUETOOH or WIFI. Until the moment I write this comment, the only distro that I have been able to use is the Ubuntu - Rockchip project. But even this has problems with the hardware already mentioned.

[ioncube]

@Giordano Sologuren here its a stable OS only 1xUSB2.port & 3.5mm audio out is not working but I am working on it reddit github link

 

For the latest Armbian_community_24.11.0-trunk.66_Orangepi3b_noble_vendor_6.1.75_gnome-kisak_desktop.img.xz nothing works. Boot doesn't occur

 

 

 

 

putty.log

[Manuel R]

Hello everyone,

 

I’m the original poster and I’ve been successfully running Armbian 23.1.1 on my Orange Pi 3B v1.1.1 for 60 days.

 

The image I used is Armbian_23.11.1_Orangepi3b_bookworm_edge_6.6.2.img.xz, which I downloaded from the Armbian archive https://archive.armbian.com/orangepi3b/archive/

 

$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID:    Debian
Description:    Armbian 23.11.1 bookworm
Release:    12
Codename:    bookworm

 

I successfully used armbian-config to switch to a 6.6.39 kernel:

 

$ uname -a
Linux latita 6.6.39-current-rockchip64 #1 SMP PREEMPT Thu Jul 11 10:49:22 UTC 2024 aarch64 GNU/Linux

 

Thanks to @heyrict and  @Igor for their feedback!

Edited September 24 by Manuel R
Confirm board revision