Using the Armbian Build Environment

[asayed]

Hello again,

 

Based on the recommendations provided in a previous ticket, I have decided to attempt to build a custom image for the Orangepi 5 Plus.

 

I read the docs provided in the link of that post and noticed that there is no mention of installing the cross complier tool chain for arm in ubuntu 22.04, which I just downloaded for this purpose.  Do I need to install those tools or will that be addressed once I clone the git repo and run the compile.sh BOARD=orangepi5-plus ?

 

Also the instructions mention Multipass and Docker, I have a Debian 12 workstation with virt-manager installed, will that work or will I need a dedicated ubuntu 22.04 host, because in that case I can just build on the host and not in a Multipass VM.

 

thanks

-ali

 

[Werner]

6 minutes ago, asayed said:

Do I need to install those tools or will that be addressed once I clone the git repo and run the compile.sh BOARD=orangepi5-plus ?

You don't have to do that. The build framework will handle all dependencies by itself.

6 minutes ago, asayed said:

I have a Debian 12 workstation

Debian 12 may work but we won't accept any reported bugs that might occur.

7 minutes ago, asayed said:

with virt-manager installed

Is not used by the build framework. Though Docker would be used and accessible.

 

[asayed]

Hi -

 

What I meant by the Debian 12 with virt-manager environment was that I can run Ubuntu 22.04 as a virtual machine in Debian 12 and use that as a supported build environment.  I would still be building in Ubuntu 22.04 but it would be hosted on a Debian platform running qemu/libvitr and not on a Ubuntu platform running Multipass or Docker. If the virtual machine still needs Docker, it should be able to install that inside the VM. I have more than 50 GB of storage available.

 

Sorry if that didn't come across clearly.

 

thanks

-ali

 

[Werner]

Ah alright. If this virt-manager creates a full-fledged vm with its own OS, own kernel and all the good stuff then it will work. You CAN use docker, but you don't have to.

 

Cheers

[going]

@asayed I have been using QEMU KVM + Virtual Machine Manager for over 10 years.
Just install the official ubuntu 22.04 server image in the VM and clone the armbian repository inside the VM.

 

With respect.

 

P.S.

This allows you to quickly roll back to the snapshot in case of a crash and not ruin your running OS on host.
It is necessary to have 45-50 GB of free space inside the VM before the first start.

Edited January 14 by going
Add P.S.

[asayed]

Hello -

 

Quick question:

 

I got the build environment setup in a QEMU virtual machine with Ubuntu 22.04.5 and ran a test case as:

                               ./compile.sh  build PREFER_DOCKER=no

 

All I got was some Debian packages in build/output/debs, how do I create an image for the SD card without directly writing to the card from the virtual machine ?  I want to copy the image to a different machine before writing it.

 

thanks

-ali

 

[Werner]

Just do "./compile.sh PREFER_DOCKER=no" and leave everything else to the interactive menu.

[asayed]

Hi,

 

That's what I did.  Just trying to write a orangepi5-plus server image with "current" ubuntu "noble" and "console interface"

 

 

[eselarm]

On 1/14/2025 at 8:47 PM, going said:

I have been using QEMU KVM + Virtual Machine Manager for over 10 years.
Just install the official ubuntu 22.04 server image in the VM and clone the armbian repository inside the VM.

Same here for x86-64, but since half a year or so same for aarch64. So I have 2 Ubuntu22 VMs: 1 x86-64 and 1 aarch64. But it turned out that building directly on both RPiOS Bookworm and Armbian Bookworm also works fine. It is mostly compiling Arm kernel and U-Boot, both 32-bit and 64-bit. 32-bit I did via systemd-nspawn of some rootfs-tree clone of a NanoPi-NEO.

[eselarm]

@asayed Check the usual things like free space etc. And there is a full trace log, I think you have to look into those files. Or just clean/wipe everything and start again, maybe you got some hints/tips/better understanding in the meantime.

[MaxT]

Hi,
 
That's what I did.  Just trying to write a orangepi5-plus server image with "current" ubuntu "noble" and "console interface"
 
 

Pls have a look, isn't it is the same issue?

https://github.com/armbian/build/issues/7708

[asayed]

If it does not work in Ubuntu 22.04 I am willing to build a different VM.  As long as someone has info on one they recently used and worked.  Its just a VM after all, here today gone tomorrow.  I would just like put a working image on the orangepi5-plus with the following:

 

1 - support for Mail GPU

2- support for emmc storage

3- support display resolutions other than 4K (2560x1440 would be ideal)

 

None of the pre-built images I have tried from Armbian or OrangePi seem to support all 3, its always 2 out of 3 that work.

 

thanks for all the help.

-ali

[MaxT]

If it does not work in Ubuntu 22.04

It does work. The issue I referred to relates to the rsync bug. Seems solution is to update rsync and update for 22.04 was just released: https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/2095004

[asayed]

Hi,

 

I built the VM last night and ran an update, its still on rsync 3.2.7-0ubuntu0.22.04.3. not sure what to make off it.  I'll try clean git repo download or a bookworm vm to see if that helps.  I'll have more time on the weekend to work on this.

[Robert Pace]

I use virtua lbox with the Ubuntu 22.04 image to a vm and have been able to compile images for Debian 12 and kernel 6.1.84 without issue for the Orange Pi 5 Plus and Orange Pi 5. As someone previously stated, this sounds like an out of disk space error, or issue expanding the vm file.

Quote

 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Generated with Armbian(tm) build framework https://github.com/armbian/build
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Vendor:         Armbian-unofficial
Revision:       25.02.0-trunk
Board:          Orangepi5-plus
Kernel:         Linux 6.1.84 (vendor)
Build date:     15.01.2025
Sources:       http://github.com/armbian/build.git
Sources rev:    eaf8e5ac3
Authors:       https://www.armbian.com/authors
Maintainer:     John Doe <john.doe@somewhere.on.planet>
Support:       https://community.armbian.com/
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Partitioning configuration: gpt offset: 16
Boot partition type: (none) (0 MB)
Root partition type: ext4 

CPU configuration: 408000 -  with ondemand
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

[asayed]

Hello -

 

So I was able to build a few custom images, unfortunately they did not solve the original problem:

 

1 - support for Mail GPU

2- support for emmc storage

3- support display resolutions other than 4K (2560x1440 would be ideal)

 

I was hoping the Ubuntu Noble image with KDE-Plasma and kernel 6.13 image would do the trick but it did not build with the ENABLE_EXTENSIONS=mesa-vpu, so I must be missing some instructions. the glmark2 scores were not great.

 

I have decided to use the 24.11.2 pre-built image with kernel 6.12.0 and kde-neon, however I have one question:

 

Is there anyway to change the default resolution, it only syncs to a 4K (3840x2160) monitor and nothing else I have sitting around. 1920x1200 or 2560x1440 would work if there was a fix available.

 

thanks

-ali

[Werner]

8 minutes ago, asayed said:

Is there anyway to change the default resolution, it only syncs to a 4K (3840x2160) monitor and nothing else I have sitting around. 1920x1200 or 2560x1440 would work if there was a fix available.

Not for mainline. HDMI implementation is incomplete and still WIP. If you need other resolutions vendor kernel is the way to go for now.

 

[going]

3 часа назад, asayed сказал:

Is there anyway to change the default resolution, it only syncs to a 4K (3840x2160) monitor and nothing else I have sitting around. 1920x1200 or 2560x1440 would work if there was a fix available.

The same problem. And I still can't find a place in the source code where it can be fixed.

[eselarm]

6 hours ago, asayed said:

Is there anyway to change the default resolution, it only syncs to a 4K (3840x2160) monitor and nothing else I have sitting around. 1920x1200 or 2560x1440 would work if there was a fix available.

Usually, the way to achieve this is a

video=...

kernel cmdline statement. You can add it in armbianEnv.txt. Look in general kernel commandline docs for video= what exactly you need to specify for your particular board.

[asayed]

tried adding this to armbianEnv.txt:

 

extraargs=drm_kms_helper.edid_firmware=HDMI-A-1:edid/1920x1080.bin video=HDMI-A-1:1920x1080@60

 

and it didn't work...

 

Note that this is not exactly a solution because you need to have a 4K monitor available to be able to edit the file or somehow know the IP and have sshd enabled on the Orange Pi, neither are conveniently achieved.

 

-ali

 

[eselarm]

4 hours ago, asayed said:

Note that this is not exactly a solution because you need to have a 4K monitor available to be able to edit the file or somehow know the IP and have sshd enabled on the Orange Pi, neither are conveniently achieved.

You should have and use a USB serial console cable first. I hope you have heard of that before, it costs about 2 Euros. Shipping costs might be 10 Euros or so.

 

Maybe also try to get some non-4K HDMI monitor. I don't know specifics about OP5+, but I have no issues with RK3588S and RK3568 to do 1080p60 on a non-4K monitor. Worked since kernel 6.8 or so.

 

The 3 points you want don't require build because it is available. I have it running on my NanoPi-R6C and kernel 6.13 you can get by switching to beta repo.

Edited January 23 by eselarm

[asayed]

Hi -

 

 

Can you please specify exactly which image you are running. I have tried the ones listed below and they had issues. Was definitely expecting the server image to work on a low res monitor and so I thought I could build on it by installing whatever desktop I wanted but that didn't happen.

 

Armbian_24.11.2_Orangepi5-plus_noble_current_6.12.0_kde-neon-kisak_desktop.img.xz
Armbian_24.11.2_Orangepi5-plus_noble_current_6.12.0-kisak.img.xz
Armbian_24.11.2_Orangepi5-plus_noble_vendor_6.1.75_kde-neon-kisak_desktop.img.xz

 

I have a 4k, some 1920x1200s and a few portable monitors (2560x1440) and none worked, maybe I'll give it one last try with a 1280x1024 if it has HDMI, its headed for the recycling pile.

 

The OP5+ uses Mali G610 GPU so maybe that is what makes it a bit different from the lower cost OP products.  I too don't think its RK3588 specific.  I'd like to try whatever image you say is working for you just in case.

 

thanks

-ali
 

[MaxT]

You might want to try image with 6.13 (even some rc), AFAIR there are hdmi related patches for rockchip

[eselarm]

3 hours ago, asayed said:

Can you please specify exactly which image you are running.

That is not possible as I modify originally downloaded images heavily already at the point when a newly ordered computer/board arrives by mail. So about 2024-12-10 I see I downloaded Armbian_24.11.1_Rock-3a_noble_current_6.6.62_kde-neon-kisak_desktop.img.xz and got that working on my new Rock3A on a 12G extra partition on a 32G SD-card. I converted the rootfs from Ext4 to Btrfs in that step and might have used a 6.12.x edge/beta kernel. At least it worked very nice although I use Rock3A now as headless server. Btrfs allows streams to send from one to the other computer/filesystem, that I did, so now the same rootfs tree is running on my NanoPi-R6C (RK3588S, 8GB RAM). AND I copied/merged the edge/beta 6.13.0 kernel into the root tree. I use a dedicated extra FAT partition to boot (not Armbian compliant). I just upgraded, now it runs KDE6.3beta I see, still great GUI acceleration as before upgrade ( was KDE6.2.x). But I won't use it much as I am more fan of openSUSE Tumbleweed for desktop usage, that also works great (on 6.13.0 rockchip64 Armbian kernel).

 

So what image doesn't really matter, you need to run normal apt upgrades and make sure you have the right OS components. An image is mostly some older pre-installation.

 

As I indicated, this all is quite impossible if you do not have/use a proper serial console. I did the OS cloning all remote via serial console. I just saw later that the KDE login screen was as expected when I went to the room where the NanoPi-R6C is. Monitor is an old 24 inch LG 1080p60, a bit flaky HDMI connector but it works if I don't pull on cables.

[going]

29 минут назад, eselarm сказал:

openSUSE Tumbleweed for desktop usage, that also works great (on 6.13.0 rockchip64 Armbian kernel)

😁👍

[asayed]

Thank you eselarm for that very detailed explanation of your use case with the Rockchip SBC.

 

We seem to have very different needs, I am looking to replace my laptops with this OP5+ and at the same time see if ARM/RISC is the direction I want to go in.  Before there was Linux/x86 there was UNIX and it almost always ran on RISC CPUs, I have been around long enough to have experienced those days.

 

I am looking for a stable desktop environment that can run LaTeX, Blender, LibreOffice, a handful of CAE applications and  some Arduino development day in and day out, I am not looking to tinker on a new SBC every week.  Once I install an OS I will keep it for a while, until I upgrade to the next release.

 

I have decided to settle on Joshua Riek's Ubuntu 24.04 with the 6.1.0 kernel as it meets all 3 of my requirements stated above.  Unfortunately Armbian is not ready for the OP5+ quite yet and I'll check back to see if a new release with 6.13 or 6.14 will work for me,  until then I will use Joshua's Ubuntu release: ubuntu-24.04-preinstalled-desktop-arm64-orangepi-5-plus.img.xz

 

thank you

-ali