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.
this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2023
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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.
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
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)
Thank me later...
https://docs.slackware.com/slackwarearm:inst_sa64_rk3399_rockpro64
Lol i will thank you NOW! Thank you.
- Does your board support UEFI? Have you flashed it, if necessary? If not, your only option is board-specific image with board-specific U-Boot. Still, you may have some luck with mainline kernel after you flash that image.
- Assuming you've flashed UEFI and know how to work with it, you should IMO install mainline images whenever possible, as those will always have the Linux kernel with latest security patches (you shouldn't use LTS kernel before you've verified the very latest kernel version, unless your board is like 10 years old)
- However, mainline Linux is often missing certain features on certain boards. In that case, you may have to either load some dtb/.dtbo files (it's a way to specify hardware information at boot time), or, worst case, compile your own kernel with certain patches pulled from developers working on mainlining your board
- If you don't want to deal with all that, you can use premade images for your board. They will typically have an old kernel, but nonetheless it should Just Work™. You may still have to pick some .dtbs manually if your hardware is configurable enough (e.g. BPI-R3 has SD/EMMC switch, you can't use both at the same time, and you have to pick the specific .dtb file depending on what you use)
Thanks that was very informative.
@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?