The rock64 version likely is the same, except for boot loader stuff. Often times these SBC's require custom boot software, firmware, or configuration. The rest of the distro should be straight up debian.
this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2023
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This link here was on the Pine64's Rock64 software wiki page
It seems like it comes down to better firmware support out of the box.
Thank you! So if it's about firmware, then using a generic image might lead to critical components not working, or the entire system not working, right? I'm wondering about the general concept.
then using a generic image might lead to critical components not working, or the entire system not working, right?
Yes, that's why you should either use manufacturer images or Armbian (https://lemmy.world/comment/4609514). Generic images might also underperform in your board, the GPIO and other low level components will, most likely, not work and you might burn your storage as logging and other I/O intensive operations aren't tweaked for SD/eMMC.
I don't know enough to say. I've used the wrong images in the past and I want to say I had some issues with things like display brightness controls and minor things. I think it still ran fine
Checkout https://www.armbian.com/rock64/
Run Armbian, it is Debian optimized for SBCs, that one specifically for your board. Armbian has a very good track record and sometimes is the only option after manufacturers stop creating images for their old boards.
Generic images might underperform in your board, the GPIO and other low level components will, most likely, not work and you might burn your storage as logging and other I/O intensive operations aren’t tweaked for SD/eMMC. Armbian aims to fix all those issues and provides continuous system and kernel updates long after the manufacturer stops doing so.
To be fair I don't trust whatever a Chinese SBC manufacturer ships for their own boards, how much spyware / calling home that will include? How messed up and mangled the kernel and the OS is? You can eventually run into issues when you least expect it.
I’m no expert so take what I say with a grain of salt. You might be able to get it to work on your hardware even if it’s not the recommended version. Having said that you’ll most likely run into issues in some way or another (e.g performance/weird bugs)
@bartolomeo if you want it to just work, you should consider installing Armbian. I ran Armbian for a couple of years on my Rock64 and it was very stable
Thanks yea I am running armbian but i wanted to know a little more about how architecture affects OS. Isn't armbian just run by 1 guy though?
It seems that Debian-rock64.img is an armhf image (i.e 32 bits) and Debian-arm64.img is (obviously) an 64 bit image... so go for the latter if your board has 8 GiB ram and up and the former if 4 GiB ram and under.
Rock64 had 4GB max
Thank me later...
https://docs.slackware.com/slackwarearm:inst_sa64_rk3399_rockpro64
Lol i will thank you NOW! Thank you.