Analog Audio out not working (25.2.1 / 6.1 kernel / KDE Neon)

[deskwizard]

Hi,

I recently got my hands on a used unit of those, quite faster than my old SBC!

 

Only issue I currently have is that I can't seem to get audio output on the 3.5mm jack.

(Well the other issue is unrelated .. )

 

Anyone have an idea on what I should be hunting?

I did the obvious cable, etc.. checks. There's always the possibility that it's damaged, hell if I know.

 

Armbian 25.2.1

6.1 kernel

KDE Neon  (Why use a beta version btw? just wondering)

 

Thanks!

DW.

[Werner]

7 hours ago, deskwizard said:

Anyone have an idea on what I should be hunting?

I'd say start with the device tree. Maybe it is just not enabled?

 

7 hours ago, deskwizard said:

Why use a beta version btw?

KDE 6 DE was introduce when it still was beta and I assume this never changed. Feel free to send a PR to make it stable.

[eselarm]

15 hours ago, deskwizard said:

Anyone have an idea on what I should be hunting?

From Bullseye to Bookworm Debian went from pulseaudio to pipewire. I spent a lot of time to remove/disable pipewire as the pipewire-pulse emulation was/is? not doing networked pulseaudio properly and I use that extensively. Opensuse Tumbleweed as rolling release does not have this issue, it keeps working. It also keeps working if you do in-place upgrade from Bullseye to Bookworm (what I normally do), but I started with fresh Armbian Bookworm downloaded image and can't get networked audio working (a must on a NanoPi-R6C with no audio HW).

 

Now I would not be surprised at all if the combination of Armbian (Debian) Bookworm with added new KDE (beta) repo external to Debian introduces another complex issue w.r.t. audio, even locally. If Armbian (Ubuntu) Noble, then challenge is even bigger. I had too many Ubuntu issues, so went back to Debian. I have not tested 3.5mm audio when I tested KDE Neon image on my ROCK3A (ran it only for 15 minutes as planned use-case was/is headless server), but in a week I will get a ROCK5B and I will use that as Desktop for some time I guess. Plan is to just take the Samsung NVMe (10 partitions, multiple OSses) out of my NanoPi-R6C and basically only change .DTB loaded (i use extlinux.conf own scripted) and some U-Boot binary on otherwise blank SD-card and then bump that in-place to Testing/Trixie (using Btrfs snapshots as safety fallback). That has KDE Plasma 6.3 AFAIR from my tablet/laptop and it won't change much I guess (Tumbleweed is 6.3.4 currently).

 

Then it is matter of using/checking alsa and/or pulseaudio and/or pipewire tooling what is going on. As indicated, existing pulse-servers (e.g. NanoPi-NEO with SPDIF to my amplifier) work and are found and can be selected via pulseaudio tray icon, including also local USB-audio on my N100 for example.

 

So I personally would likely remove all external package repos and make it clean Armbian Trixie. If you want to contribute to KDE development, then keep KDE Neon I guess.

[deskwizard]

Thanks for all the info!

 

As I can see the device fine, I'm assuming my DT is alright.

 

I think I'm going to try some other images (ie. debian, main kernel, etc...) and see where it leads me, maybe I can get a hint of what's happening.

 

I can change devices fine in KDE, the jack detect works as I see it toggle, but I don't get anything out. HDMI audio works fine though.

I've seen some weird audio stuff a long time ago, I'll see what little I can remember since it doesn't seem to be something blatantly obvious.

I have a hunch or two but unlikely to make any difference

 

Ubuntu making it worse doesn't sound good to me... hehehe (pun intended)

 

I'm planning to use it as a 2nd desktop/media player, most of the time I don't need the "power" of the "workstation" so running the opi works great (well, will hopefully)

I went with KDE since that's what I'm using on the "workstation".

 

To be honest, there's very high probabilities I'm going to buy a USB sound card and be done with it, but it feels like a waste.

[deskwizard]

Quick update

 

Since I need the hardware video decoder, I focused on vendor kernel (6.1) and KDE

 

Observed on the following images that kernel versions higher than 6.1.75 (6.1.84 and 6.1.99) have issues with analog audio out (no output).

The jack detection is functional, HDMI audio works, and it's not specific to the OS or KDE versions.

 

Armbian_25.2.1_Orangepi5_noble_vendor_6.1.99_kde-neon_desktop.img

Armbian_24.11.2_Orangepi5_noble_vendor_6.1.75_kde-neon-kisak_desktop.img

Armbian_24.8.1_Orangepi5_jammy_vendor_6.1.75_kde-neon-kisak_desktop.img

 

I compared the device tree from 2 installs, 25.2.1 (6.1.99) and 24.11.2 (before update, 6.1.75) and nothing jumps out.

 

For the time being I rolled back the kernel to 6.1.75 on the 25.2.1 (updated to the latest, 25.2.3) image and put the

DTS, headers and image packages on hold so I don't update them by mistake.

 

I'll update this thread when I figure out more.

[deskwizard]

Nope, not gonna happen.

 

If anyone spot something, let me know, I'll wait for 25.5 and kernel 6.1.115 and hope for the best.

[eselarm]

My ROCK5B is still at customs or package handling company, but I just did a quick test on my ROCK3A w.r.t. 3.5mm audio. It is headless running multi-user.target (NAS/server), Armbian Bookworm with beta repo. But it has KDE installed, so if I would do 'sudo systemctl isolate graphical.target', it flips to KDE Plasma5 GUI (that is what I do on NanoPi-R6C currently, it is cloned from there). I did manually put Radxa 2017 dated U-Boot blob in SPI-flash, so bootfs+rootfs from NVMe and also has native SATA on M.2 E-key slot. I full-upgrade every now and then (via ssh).

 

Via ssh as normal user, I started playing some opus file with mpv, then plugged in my good old Sennheiser headset and simply good audio.

See commands below. alsamixer shows a lot of I/O hardware, like I2S etc, but also some port that is or must be the 3.5mm (HP is that I think). I did not change settings.

In pulsemixer I saw 2 stereo output devices, it should be HDMI and the audio chip RK809. I did disable one to 'off', (random guess, maybe not needed, hdmi off is what I aimed for)

 

Also good to know that I removed/disabled pipewire, I still get a warning from mpv, something with 'pw.conf', but pulseaudio is used (forced that once in the past actually).

 

user@rock3a:~$ uptime
09:45:33 up 18 days, 17:23,  2 users,  load average: 0.66, 0.49, 0.46
user@rock3a:~$ uname -a
Linux rock3a 6.1.115-vendor-rk35xx #1 SMP Thu Apr 24 23:11:15 UTC 2025 aarch64 GNU/Linux

user@rock3a:~$ alsamixer  
user@rock3a:~$ pulsemixer  
 

The OPi5Max might have completely different audio chip and/or bindings, then of course the test with ROCK3A is maybe irrelevant. But anyway, I want to know if I can use 3.5mm audio or not. I use(d) it on RPI4B with does not even have a proper audio chip. I have some background pulseaudio user .service started, that works great as audio sink on other computers.

Edited May 18 by eselarm

[deskwizard]

The OPi5 uses an es8388 for the analog audio out.

I don't know about the OPi5Max or other boards for that matter, as I don't own any other relevant SBC.

 

Good luck!

[eselarm]

@deskwizard I don't know why I refer to OPi5Max, maybe I had other tab/topic open or so, but it is clear that it is about the OPi5.

 

 

Now I have the ROCK5B, just cloned the Armbian Bookworm from ROCK3A but did not write SPI yet. Power up with fixed 12V in USB-C and from SD-card with Armbian rock5b vendor U-Boot. rootfs from NVMe, SATA overlay enabled for 3.5inch HDD. 5 audio cards:

root@rock5b:~# aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: rockchiphdmi0 [rockchip-hdmi0], device 0: rockchip-hdmi0 i2s-hifi-0 [rockchip-hdmi0 i2s-hifi-0]
 Subdevices: 1/1
 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: rockchiphdmi1 [rockchip-hdmi1], device 0: rockchip-hdmi1 i2s-hifi-0 [rockchip-hdmi1 i2s-hifi-0]
 Subdevices: 1/1
 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 2: rockchipdp0 [rockchip-dp0], device 0: rockchip-dp0 spdif-hifi-0 [rockchip-dp0 spdif-hifi-0]
 Subdevices: 1/1
 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 4: rockchipes8316 [rockchip-es8316], device 0: dailink-multicodecs ES8316 HiFi-0 [dailink-multicodecs ES8316 HiFi-0]
 Subdevices: 0/1
 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

card3 (unlisted) is HDMI-input I think, but disabled all in KDE settings tray except the 3.5mm plug ('headphones'). No further settings or volume change, mpv playing an mp3 instantly.

 

I will likely do/test with 6.15 edge, also maybe 6.12 current (and other U-Boots as well). But first several mechanical/cooling things to tweak, need to drill/cut a hole for the SATA connector in the cooling metal I think.

Edited May 21 by eselarm