JohnFT61 Posted January 12 Posted January 12 I have a Ambian 6.12.7-Edge-Rockchip64 minimum installation. How can I enable or upgrade to a desktop environment without changing the kernel? Thank you 0 Quote
Werner Posted January 13 Posted January 13 Check with armbian-config if this is implemented already or https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-e&q=debian+install+desktop+environment I won't recommend desktop with your unknown rk3588s device since hdmi and other related things are not fully implemented in mainline yet. Best desktop experience gives you vendor kernel. 0 Quote
eselarm Posted January 13 Posted January 13 10 hours ago, JohnFT61 said: How can I enable or upgrade to a desktop environment without changing the kernel? I don't know what RK3588S board it is, but you better do it the other way around; I have a NanoPi-R6C and Rock3A, they booth do great in terms of generic KDE6 Desktop with their respective KDE Neon images. GNOME I don't know, but I also guess look at the downloadable images. You need latest MESA and an some other thing, they aren't in vanilla Bookworm, also maybe not in vanilla Noble. That is why the dedicated images are there one can conclude. Also latest/rolling openSUSE Tumbleweed KDE6 Wayland with Armbian 6.12.6*rk3588 works fine. X11 does not work AFAIK. So use the GUI/Desktop images as base, then swap/add kernels. I have 2 or more installed and also manually copied. It takes time to get it a bit flexible (choice at boot time via serial console) but it also depends on what storage/boot devices there are. I only connected the boards to a BENQ 1080p60 LED monitor, via some 2-splitter HDMI-switch (Techhole). 1 side of that splitter is connected to N100 box and I push the switch button when I power on the Rockchip SBC. My Rockchips SoC's work slightly better than RPi3/4 in my experience, that has been a frustrating exercise every now and then (3 years or so) as they cause 1 or the other HDMI monitor not want to detect the Pi. 6.12.6*rk3588 on NanoPi-R6C works great with KDE6 Wayland, i think/assume later *rockchip64 includes all from *3588 as well, maybe just a rename, I have not checked. As long as the SoC is rk35xx it should work is what I would expect. What all does not work is various video codecs, but a rk3588 can decode most in software, same as BCM2712/RPi5 has to do. An as indicated, you might be unlucky with your HDMI monitor, some say only 4K works, but I don't have a 4K monitor. 0 Quote
JohnFT61 Posted January 15 Author Posted January 15 Thank you for the replies. Let me go into detail a little further: I have an Apache-Labs Anan-G2 HF Transceiver with a 7-inch front display. There is also an external monitor hooked up (1920 X1080). The radio featured a Raspberry Pi CM4 to power it. The rig runs under the Linux OS, and initially had a Desktop environment. Pull-down menus, folders... it was nice, and everything could be done from the Anan-G2 radio. The Raspberry Pi CM4 was marginal when used in the radio with a pihpsdr program. So the Radxa CM5 replaced the Raspberry Pi CM4, with much better results. 8 Cores instead of 4, with each core having a FPU... Some data lines in the Radxa CM5 used 1.8V, instead of 3.3V as in the Raspberry Pi CM4. This was solved by using a Raspberry Pi RP2040-PiZero, to convert the GPIO data from connector to USB. There are some issues to resolve, but it will work even better than the original Anan-G2 (with the pihpsdr program). Right now the screens (both on the Anan-G2 and external monitor have no desktop environment with GUI. I miss that! In order to make updates to the pihpsdr program, I have to log in to the radio with a separate PC. It is not as convenient! I am told that Labwc and perhaps Wayland can be used, I believe that is what they are using now in the radio. The only item that shows up on the screen is pihpsdr and a small menu when pressing the left mouse button. If I disable full screen mode on the pihpsdr program, I can drag it to the external display's monitor. 0 Quote
eselarm Posted January 15 Posted January 15 (edited) 5 hours ago, JohnFT61 said: The radio featured a Raspberry Pi CM4 to power it. The rig runs under the Linux OS, and initially had a Desktop environment. Pull-down menus, folders... it was nice, and everything could be done from the Anan-G2 radio This looks to me as older Debian, older than current/latest RPiOS64 bookworm based. So might use fakeKMS and X11. For efficient and successful modern DE you need KMS, DRM, Wayland and latest MESA and maybe more. W.r.t. labwc that RPIOS64 uses, it worked with Armbian rk3588 6.10.10 kernel. I only ran it for 5 minutes or so as I don't like that former/Pixel DE at all. It is a workaround for old 32-bit RPi boards that can't run GNOME or KDE IMHO, so they need something custom. So it seems to me that you need to port/move the SDR SW from RPi tweaked to more generic arm64 Linux, (with rk35xx additions). Edited January 15 by eselarm 0 Quote
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.