OPI 4A - Allwinner T527

[AurealNix]

@L. Jorge Soares  Thanks a lot for testing both — genuinely, this is the most useful thing anyone can do for the project. 🙏

CLI: great to hear it boots and HDMI works on your setup — that's the first confirmation from hardware other than mine, so it means a lot. If you get time, I'd love to hear how it holds up (networking, USB, and the 4 GB variant if that's what you have).

Root password: that's by design, not a bug. Root login is locked on purpose — the image ships with a default user / user account and SSH enabled, so an open root account would be a security hole. Use the user account with sudo:

• root shell: sudo -i (or sudo su)
• to set a root password if you really want one: sudo passwd root

KDE image + Etcher error: let's pin it down. Full disclosure — I flash with dd myself, so I haven't actually run these images through BalenaEtcher; I'll test the Etcher path on my end to try to reproduce it. In the meantime, two quick checks:

• Verify the download — a truncated/corrupt download is the #1 cause of Etcher errors. The desktop image sha256 is: 63b0019423d2a320aaa5fe58df97db68823b353a30510ffa863fec475904e0ba Check yours: sha256sum on Linux/Mac, or certutil -hashfile <file> SHA256 on Windows. If it doesn't match, re-download. And thanks for the heads up — I'll also double-check on my end that the file on the release didn't get corrupted during upload.
• Card size — the desktop image is ~5.3 GB when written (bigger than the CLI one), so it needs an 8 GB or larger card. A smaller/oddly-sized card makes Etcher fail.

If the checksum matches and the card is 8 GB+ but it still errors, it's most likely Etcher choking on the .xz — try Raspberry Pi Imager (Use custom → pick the .img.xz), Rufus (it writes in DD Image mode and takes the .xz directly), or on Linux just dd: xz -dc aurealnix-opi4a-debian13-v0.2.img.xz | sudo dd of=/dev/sdX bs=4M status=progress

And if you can, paste the exact Etcher error text — that tells me straight away whether it's a size, decompression, or validation issue. Thanks again for digging in! 🙌

[JamesCL]

Hi, I'm testing your Linux image on an Orange Pi 4B/4A with an eMMC installed and wanted to share the results.

The image correctly detects the eMMC. The kernel recognizes the device as:

mmcblk2: mmc2:0001 ISOCOM 58.3 GiB
Operating mode: HS200

 

image : aurealnix-opi4a-debian13-cli-v0.2.img.xz 

@AurealNix Thank you for your work.

 

Update:

During boot, the kernel reports two reserved-memory warnings:

OF: reserved mem: Reserved memory: failed to reserve memory for node 'sec-sram1@42350000'
OF: reserved mem: Reserved memory: failed to reserve memory for node 'sec-sram2@43000000'

The system remains fully functional. OP-TEE and BL31 reserved-memory nodes are present in the device tree, and eMMC HS200 operation has been tested successfully.

 

root@orangepi-4a:~# uname -a
Linux orangepi-4a 6.18.38-g59eb61929e89 #49 SMP PREEMPT Thu Jul 16 00:46:12 CEST 2026 aarch64 GNU/Linux
root@orangepi-4a:~# free -m
               total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:            3830         330          95           9        3592        3500
Swap:              0           0           0
root@orangepi-4a:~# cat /etc/os-release
PRETTY_NAME="Debian GNU/Linux 13 (trixie)"
NAME="Debian GNU/Linux"
VERSION_ID="13"
VERSION="13 (trixie)"
VERSION_CODENAME=trixie
DEBIAN_VERSION_FULL=13.6
ID=debian
HOME_URL="https://www.debian.org/"
SUPPORT_URL="https://www.debian.org/support"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugs.debian.org/"
root@orangepi-4a:~# lsblk
NAME         MAJ:MIN RM  SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
mmcblk0      179:0    0  7.4G  0 disk
└─mmcblk0p1  179:1    0  7.4G  0 part /
mmcblk2      179:32   0 58.3G  0 disk
├─mmcblk2p1  179:33   0  1.2G  0 part
└─mmcblk2p2  179:34   0 57.1G  0 part /mnt/emmc-test
mmcblk2boot0 179:64   0    4M  1 disk
mmcblk2boot1 179:96   0    4M  1 disk
root@orangepi-4a:~# fastfetch
        _,met$$$$$gg.          root@orangepi-4a
     ,g$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$P.       ----------------
   ,g$$P""       """Y$$.".     OS: Debian GNU/Linux 13 (trixie) aarch64
  ,$$P'              `$$$.     Host: OrangePi 4A
',$$P       ,ggs.     `$$b:    Kernel: Linux 6.18.38-g59eb61929e89
`d$$'     ,$P"'   .    $$$     Uptime: 38 mins
 $$P      d$'     ,    $$P     Packages: 299 (dpkg)
 $$:      $$.   -    ,d$$'     Shell: bash 5.2.37
 $$;      Y$b._   _,d$P'       Terminal: /dev/pts/2
 Y$$.    `.`"Y$$$$P"'          CPU: sun55i-t527 (8) @ 1.80 GHz
 `$$b      "-.__               GPU: Allwinner sun55i-a523-mali [Integrated]
  `Y$$b                        Memory: 331.41 MiB / 3.74 GiB (9%)
   `Y$$.                       Swap: Disabled
     `$$b.                     Disk (/): 744.36 MiB / 7.19 GiB (10%) - ext4
       `Y$$b.                  Disk (/mnt/emmc-test): 24.49 GiB / 55.91 GiB (44%) - ext4
         `"Y$b._               Local IP (eth0): 192.168.7.12/27
             `""""             Locale: en_US.UTF-8



root@orangepi-4a:~#

 

Edited 11 hours ago by JamesCL
update

[AurealNix]

@JamesCL This is a fantastic report — thank you, James. 🙏 You've actually confirmed two things I couldn't test on my own hardware…

 

1) eMMC works (detection + HS200 + read/write)… booting from eMMC is a separate step I haven't wired up yet.

2) 4GB variant confirmed (free -m shows 3830 MB)…

 

The two warnings — you read it right, secure SRAM for OP-TEE/BL31, harmless, cosmetic DTS cleanup I'll tidy up. …that's the most useful kind of report there is. Thanks again! 🙌

Edited 7 hours ago by AurealNix

[bickns]

15 hours ago, AurealNix said:

One thing that's right up your alley given your outdoor-audio project: the A523 analog codec now has a working driver (ported from the BSP). Headphone output and jack-detect are validated on hardware; mic capture is wired in the driver but I couldn't bench-test it (no onboard mic here). You'd be the ideal person to confirm whether capture works

That sounds good.  I'm not using the jack for mic or output but should be able to check the DSP when things are more tied down with this outdoor-audio project.  Will let you know and thanks again on a great job with this board!!

 

[AurealNix]

@Nick_Sl @bickns — the headless build is up (146 MB, pure Debian 13, mainline 6.18.38, SSH from first boot): https://github.com/ut-slayer/orangepi-4a-mainline/releases/tag/v0.2

If either of you gives it a spin, I'd love a short report — what works, what doesn't. No rush and no obligation; even "booted, nothing broke" is useful.

@Nick_Sl — you offered to test, so I'm taking you up on it 🙂. Most useful gaps right now: NVMe / M.2 SSD, suspend, and the GPIO header (eMMC and the 4 GB variant were just confirmed by another tester).

@bickns — if the board ever leaves the drawer: the analog codec driver works, but mic capture is the one bit I couldn't bench-test (no onboard mic here). With your outdoor-audio project, you'd be the only one who could close that gap. Zero pressure either way.

And if you don't mind, I'll add you to the thanks in the repo — testers get named there (JamesCL is already in for confirming the eMMC and the 4 GB variant).

Also, early days and no promises: the VPU (hardware video decode) is something I've now started digging into.

Thanks both.