Re: Installing on Radxa Rock Pi 4B using SD-card-images
On 6/11/23 15:22, Andrew M.A. Cater wrote: For future readers of the list: I had to search for the meaning of an NPU and found this reference helpful - https://www.backblaze.com/blog/ai-101-gpu-vs-tpu-vs-npu/ - no further opinions as to the company behind it. NPU - Neural Processing Unit - chip designed for AI use. NPU in this context is not actually the Big G. The leader on small system NPU is actually Nvidia and their Jetson product et al. In my case Rockchip has added a processor they style an NPU to their newer SOC products. What that boils down to is one or more units that can perform very fast vector arithmetic operations at various precisions. These can be used to process data in neural networks as well as conventional signal/image processing. In my case I have a Rockchip RK3588 that can do 6 TOPS (Tera operations per second) using three independent NPU cores. You can use these to do neural network work or anything else that vector arithmetic is helpful with such as image processing or signal processing. These NPU units will become more and more common and their use will be adapted by many current applications to speed operations for signal and image processing. However, at this stage, though they are also be able to do Neural Network processing, the really intense NN applications such as Large Language Models (e.g. GPT) are probably out of useful reach. That stuff is done in the cloud with dedicated NN processors (which may be Nvidia based?)
Re: Installing on Radxa Rock Pi 4B using SD-card-images
On Mon, Nov 06, 2023 at 09:32:05AM +0800, jeremy ardley wrote: > > On 6/11/23 06:26, Andrew M.A. Cater wrote: > > I think you've hit the curse of almost all ARM single board computers. > > Almost all are small production runs / out of East Asia somewhere as > > "prototypes"** with a board support package (BSP) that's probably just > > the manufacturer's kernel, u-boot and dtbs. > > > If that was all it was at, it would be livable. > > But the new series of boards are coming with NPU processors and this > necessitates using closed source driver component (some parts are open but > not all) > For future readers of the list: I had to search for the meaning of an NPU and found this reference helpful - https://www.backblaze.com/blog/ai-101-gpu-vs-tpu-vs-npu/ - no further opinions as to the company behind it. NPU - Neural Processing Unit - chip designed for AI use. > As a corollary many packages have been tweaked to use the proprietary GPU > and NPU stuff. As a consequence, in my case with a NanoPC-T6, I get on apt > upgrade > > The following packages have been kept back: > ffmpeg ffmpeg-doc ir-keytable libavcodec-dev libavcodec58 libavdevice-dev > libavdevice58 libavfilter-dev > libavfilter7 libavformat-dev libavformat58 libavresample-dev > libavresample4 libavutil-dev libavutil56 > libdrm-dev libdvbv5-doc libpostproc-dev libpostproc55 libswresample-dev > libswresample3 libswscale-dev > libswscale5 libv4l-0 libv4l-dev qv4l2 v4l-utils xserver-common > xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-dev > xserver-xorg-legacy > I'm unsure what can be done - most of those are audio/video coding programs and camera support. It might be that the move to Wayland compositing *might* help with the xorg - or maybe that you don't run X The problems continue ... All the very best, as ever, Andy >
Re: Debian support for ARM SBCs (was: Installing on Radxa Rock Pi 4B using SD-card-images)
On Sun, Nov 05, 2023 at 06:39:46PM -0500, Stefan Monnier wrote: > > The way round this is to build u-boot or reverse-enginer the settings then > > do the same for a kernel, dtb and then debootstrap Debian yourself > > - that's exactly the sort of thing that folk do to get their boards > > "supported in Debian" - folk like vagrantc and gwolf. > > Painful isn't in it - there's a reason why there are relatively few > > boards supported in the SD card images list. > > BTW, do you happen to know of a good resource/URL/mailinglist for that > specific task, both to find info about supported boards (and *how* they > are supported) but also in case I want to help add support for the > boards I happen to have around? > > Hi Stefan, On IRC, there's #debian-arm on OFTC There's the debian-arm mailing list Probably some of the regular "State of the ARM" videos at pretty much every Debconf (now also available on Peertube and YouTube). It probably doesn't help that the community is small - a chat around Steve's BBQ in Cambridge every year probably yields world expertise :( (Sledge, unixsmurf on IRC both worked for ARM for many years, Wookey still does). I don't know who vagrantc (Vagrant Cascadian) works/worked for but always a useful person. Asking on the Debian resources above is probably as good as any. All the very best, Andy > Stefan >
Re: Installing on Radxa Rock Pi 4B using SD-card-images
On 6/11/23 06:26, Andrew M.A. Cater wrote: I think you've hit the curse of almost all ARM single board computers. Almost all are small production runs / out of East Asia somewhere as "prototypes"** with a board support package (BSP) that's probably just the manufacturer's kernel, u-boot and dtbs. If that was all it was at, it would be livable. But the new series of boards are coming with NPU processors and this necessitates using closed source driver component (some parts are open but not all) As a corollary many packages have been tweaked to use the proprietary GPU and NPU stuff. As a consequence, in my case with a NanoPC-T6, I get on apt upgrade The following packages have been kept back: ffmpeg ffmpeg-doc ir-keytable libavcodec-dev libavcodec58 libavdevice-dev libavdevice58 libavfilter-dev libavfilter7 libavformat-dev libavformat58 libavresample-dev libavresample4 libavutil-dev libavutil56 libdrm-dev libdvbv5-doc libpostproc-dev libpostproc55 libswresample-dev libswresample3 libswscale-dev libswscale5 libv4l-0 libv4l-dev qv4l2 v4l-utils xserver-common xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-dev xserver-xorg-legacy
Re: Installing on Radxa Rock Pi 4B using SD-card-images
On 11/5/23 17:26, Andrew M.A. Cater wrote: On Fri, Nov 03, 2023 at 12:22:36PM -0400, Daniel Gnoutcheff wrote: The best answer is if the board has been supported for a while by Armbian then that is probably a better choice than a less well supported/documented manufacturer specific build of Debian. Oh, I should clarify. By "official Debian binaries and images" I meant to say "pure" or "mainline" Debian as distributed from *.debian.org. Yes, a bespoke "Debian" image from the hardware vendor is, indeed, out of the question. ARMbian is better, but I know and deeply trust the Debian project and would prefer to use their releases over those from a derivative like ARMbian. I think you've hit the curse of almost all ARM single board computers. Almost all are small production runs / out of East Asia somewhere as "prototypes"** with a board support package (BSP) that's probably just the manufacturer's kernel, u-boot and dtbs. ** Pine64, I'm looking at you: I have to buy from an EU distributor to get longer than 30 days support. With the caveat of almost no upstream support, Armbian will package the BSP and do their best. The manufacturer may have their "own" Debian remix but you're on your own when it comes to adding "official" Debian packages. The way round this is to build u-boot or reverse-enginer the settings then do the same for a kernel, dtb and then debootstrap Debian yourself - that's exactly the sort of thing that folk do to get their boards "supported in Debian" - folk like vagrantc and gwolf. Painful isn't in it - there's a reason why there are relatively few boards supported in the SD card images list. This is one of the reasons why only some of the BananaPi variants are supported - there's a new variant very regularly and the amount of work needed to get a board supported can be significant. If nobody has that board, it's going to be hard to get support, for example. [That's also why I keep asking Gene whether he's running vanilla Debian or not]. Thanks, Daniel G. Good luck with it all Andy Actually Armbian is not debian but arm64 ubuntu jammy ATM, however bookworm images are also available from the aug-31 spin. However, video goes away at startx time in the last mint desktop full image for 23.8 but still works well for a slightly earlier xfce image brought fully up to date. Igor says probably fixed in next spin. Other than that note, it just works with the usual iffy net setup for host file users like me.. cli versions for server stuff should just work but will get tested in the next week or two. Debians bookworm for arm64 rpi's is working to run LinuxCNC on my rpi4b. The kernel is not quite as low latency as my old 4.19 version, but still quick enough to do LinuxCNC perfectly. . Cheers, Gene Heskett. -- "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940) If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable. - Louis D. Brandeis
Debian support for ARM SBCs (was: Installing on Radxa Rock Pi 4B using SD-card-images)
> The way round this is to build u-boot or reverse-enginer the settings then > do the same for a kernel, dtb and then debootstrap Debian yourself > - that's exactly the sort of thing that folk do to get their boards > "supported in Debian" - folk like vagrantc and gwolf. > Painful isn't in it - there's a reason why there are relatively few > boards supported in the SD card images list. BTW, do you happen to know of a good resource/URL/mailinglist for that specific task, both to find info about supported boards (and *how* they are supported) but also in case I want to help add support for the boards I happen to have around? Stefan
Re: Installing on Radxa Rock Pi 4B using SD-card-images
On Fri, Nov 03, 2023 at 12:22:36PM -0400, Daniel Gnoutcheff wrote: > > The best answer is if the board has been supported for a while by > > Armbian then that is probably a better choice than a less well > > supported/documented manufacturer specific build of Debian. > > Oh, I should clarify. By "official Debian binaries and images" I meant > to say "pure" or "mainline" Debian as distributed from *.debian.org. Yes, a > bespoke "Debian" image from the hardware vendor is, indeed, out of the > question. ARMbian is better, but I know and deeply trust the Debian project > and would prefer to use their releases over those from a derivative like > ARMbian. > I think you've hit the curse of almost all ARM single board computers. Almost all are small production runs / out of East Asia somewhere as "prototypes"** with a board support package (BSP) that's probably just the manufacturer's kernel, u-boot and dtbs. ** Pine64, I'm looking at you: I have to buy from an EU distributor to get longer than 30 days support. With the caveat of almost no upstream support, Armbian will package the BSP and do their best. The manufacturer may have their "own" Debian remix but you're on your own when it comes to adding "official" Debian packages. The way round this is to build u-boot or reverse-enginer the settings then do the same for a kernel, dtb and then debootstrap Debian yourself - that's exactly the sort of thing that folk do to get their boards "supported in Debian" - folk like vagrantc and gwolf. Painful isn't in it - there's a reason why there are relatively few boards supported in the SD card images list. This is one of the reasons why only some of the BananaPi variants are supported - there's a new variant very regularly and the amount of work needed to get a board supported can be significant. If nobody has that board, it's going to be hard to get support, for example. [That's also why I keep asking Gene whether he's running vanilla Debian or not]. > Thanks, > Daniel G. > Good luck with it all Andy
Re: Installing on Radxa Rock Pi 4B using SD-card-images
jeremy ardley (12023-11-04): > The problem with pure Debian is it will likely not ever support the extra > goodies on some SBC. Indeed, running Debian on this kind of device is not perfect. But there are problems with running a niche distro too. It would be idiotic to suggest there is a perfect solution. So all we have to do is trust that the original poster has made the cost-benefit analysis according to one's own priorities and not try to convince otherwise. Regards, -- Nicolas George signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: Installing on Radxa Rock Pi 4B using SD-card-images
> The problem with pure Debian is it will likely not ever support the extra > goodies on some SBC. In my case the NPU and GPU which are > manufacturer specific. AFAIK for the GPU the situation is usually not that bad (many/most ARM SoCs use Mali GPUs nowadays and these are fairly well supported under GNU/Linux). I'm not familiar with the situation with NPUs but indeed, I wouldn't be surprised if those aren't usable without SoC-specific proprietary drivers and blobs :-( This said, never say never: back when I got my BananaPi, a Free Software GPU driver for its Mali GPU seemed "impossible", yet that's exactly what we have now. Stefan
Re: Installing on Radxa Rock Pi 4B using SD-card-images
On 4/11/23 00:22, Daniel Gnoutcheff wrote: The best answer is if the board has been supported for a while by Armbian then that is probably a better choice than a less well supported/documented manufacturer specific build of Debian. Oh, I should clarify. By "official Debian binaries and images" I meant to say "pure" or "mainline" Debian as distributed from *.debian.org. Yes, a bespoke "Debian" image from the hardware vendor is, indeed, out of the question. ARMbian is better, but I know and deeply trust the Debian project and would prefer to use their releases over those from a derivative like ARMbian. The problem with pure Debian is it will likely not ever support the extra goodies on some SBC. In my case the NPU and GPU which are manufacturer specific. I have exactly this problem with a NanoPC-T6 which has a RK3588 SOC with a 6 TOPS NPU. I run the manufacturer version of Debian and they have locked down 20 or 30 packages to use the NPU so I can't upgrade any of them. The alternative of Armbian is a WIP (work in progress) and pure Debian will likely never get in the game.
Re: Installing on Radxa Rock Pi 4B using SD-card-images
> Oh, I should clarify. By "official Debian binaries and images" I meant > to say "pure" or "mainline" Debian as distributed from *.debian.org. Yes, > a bespoke "Debian" image from the hardware vendor is, indeed, out of the > question. ARMbian is better, but I know and deeply trust the Debian project > and would prefer to use their releases over those from a derivative > like ARMbian. Sadly, the way to install a bootloader is not well standardized on those ARM SBCs, indeed. What I've done is either: - learn enough of how the boot works on my machine to manually install and configure the bootloader (and keep it configured properly when updating the kernel). - use an existing device-specific image as a basis and then convert it to a "real" Debian system (which still requires figuring out to update the configuration when the kernel is updating since those images are typically completely oblivious to such needs, they seem designed under the assumption that those SBCs will be setup once and either thrown away a few months later or just left there to bitrot). The first is the only option in the long run but the second can get you started more quickly. Stefan
Re: Installing on Radxa Rock Pi 4B using SD-card-images
The best answer is if the board has been supported for a while by Armbian then that is probably a better choice than a less well supported/documented manufacturer specific build of Debian. Oh, I should clarify. By "official Debian binaries and images" I meant to say "pure" or "mainline" Debian as distributed from *.debian.org. Yes, a bespoke "Debian" image from the hardware vendor is, indeed, out of the question. ARMbian is better, but I know and deeply trust the Debian project and would prefer to use their releases over those from a derivative like ARMbian. Thanks, Daniel G.
Re: Installing on Radxa Rock Pi 4B using SD-card-images
y...@vienna.at (12023-11-02): > > I ear with ARMbian you have to use Docker to build a kernel. That makes > > a pretty strong “why not ARMbian”. > No No what? No Docker is not necessary or no it is not a reason to ditch armbian? -- Nicolas George
Re: Installing on Radxa Rock Pi 4B using SD-card-images
On Thu, 2 Nov 2023 08:44:31 +0100 Nicolas George wrote: y...@vienna.at (12023-11-02): Why not try ARMbian? I ear with ARMbian you have to use Docker to build a kernel. That makes a pretty strong “why not ARMbian”. Regards, -- Nicolas George No
Re: Installing on Radxa Rock Pi 4B using SD-card-images
y...@vienna.at (12023-11-02): > Why not try ARMbian? I ear with ARMbian you have to use Docker to build a kernel. That makes a pretty strong “why not ARMbian”. Regards, -- Nicolas George
Re: Installing on Radxa Rock Pi 4B using SD-card-images
On 2/11/23 08:01, y...@vienna.at wrote: On Wed, 1 Nov 2023 18:17:24 -0400 Daniel Gnoutcheff wrote: I have a Radxa Rock Pi 4B (an arm64 single-board computer) with a (removable) eMMC module. I'd like to install Debian stable on it, and would strongly prefer to use official Debian binaries and images. I successfully booted debian-installer from eMMC after flashing the rock-pi-4-rk3999 SD card image from [1] (using an eMMC-to-microSD adapter and following the instructions in README.concatenateable_images). However, I can't find much information on how to use the installer on this board once it's started. The Installation Manual [2] doesn't discuss the concatenateable images at all and says only that non-UEFI boards might need certain unspecified shell commands after install to make them bootable. I tried installing to the eMMC module that the installer itself booted from (using guided full-disk partitioning with LVM) with the hope that this would at least preserve/re-use the copy of u-boot already there. (IIRC this worked for me on other SBCs, but I may have been using a different partitioning mode.) The install finished and I rebooted when prompted, but I got nothing -- no response to pings and no HDMI output, not even from u-boot. Same story after a hard power-cycle. I guess u-boot got clobbered after all? Anybody here know how these installers were meant to be used? Has this been documented anywhere? Thanks, Daniel G. [1] https://deb.debian.org/debian/dists/bookworm/main/installer-arm64/current/images/netboot/SD-card-images/ [2] https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/arm64/ Why not try ARMbian? The processor on the OP board is an RK3399 which is well supported in Armbian. Though there may be nuances of addons to the board that cause minor issues. The issue with using Debian on the OP board is that the manufacturer has issued a modified version of Debian specific to that board and that uses sometimes quite complex file overlays as well as modified libraries that can't participate in regular Debian package upgrades. The best answer is if the board has been supported for a while by Armbian then that is probably a better choice than a less well supported/documented manufacturer specific build of Debian.
Re: Installing on Radxa Rock Pi 4B using SD-card-images
On Wed, 1 Nov 2023 18:17:24 -0400 Daniel Gnoutcheff wrote: I have a Radxa Rock Pi 4B (an arm64 single-board computer) with a (removable) eMMC module. I'd like to install Debian stable on it, and would strongly prefer to use official Debian binaries and images. I successfully booted debian-installer from eMMC after flashing the rock-pi-4-rk3999 SD card image from [1] (using an eMMC-to-microSD adapter and following the instructions in README.concatenateable_images). However, I can't find much information on how to use the installer on this board once it's started. The Installation Manual [2] doesn't discuss the concatenateable images at all and says only that non-UEFI boards might need certain unspecified shell commands after install to make them bootable. I tried installing to the eMMC module that the installer itself booted from (using guided full-disk partitioning with LVM) with the hope that this would at least preserve/re-use the copy of u-boot already there. (IIRC this worked for me on other SBCs, but I may have been using a different partitioning mode.) The install finished and I rebooted when prompted, but I got nothing -- no response to pings and no HDMI output, not even from u-boot. Same story after a hard power-cycle. I guess u-boot got clobbered after all? Anybody here know how these installers were meant to be used? Has this been documented anywhere? Thanks, Daniel G. [1] https://deb.debian.org/debian/dists/bookworm/main/installer-arm64/current/images/netboot/SD-card-images/ [2] https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/arm64/ Why not try ARMbian?
Installing on Radxa Rock Pi 4B using SD-card-images
I have a Radxa Rock Pi 4B (an arm64 single-board computer) with a (removable) eMMC module. I'd like to install Debian stable on it, and would strongly prefer to use official Debian binaries and images. I successfully booted debian-installer from eMMC after flashing the rock-pi-4-rk3999 SD card image from [1] (using an eMMC-to-microSD adapter and following the instructions in README.concatenateable_images). However, I can't find much information on how to use the installer on this board once it's started. The Installation Manual [2] doesn't discuss the concatenateable images at all and says only that non-UEFI boards might need certain unspecified shell commands after install to make them bootable. I tried installing to the eMMC module that the installer itself booted from (using guided full-disk partitioning with LVM) with the hope that this would at least preserve/re-use the copy of u-boot already there. (IIRC this worked for me on other SBCs, but I may have been using a different partitioning mode.) The install finished and I rebooted when prompted, but I got nothing -- no response to pings and no HDMI output, not even from u-boot. Same story after a hard power-cycle. I guess u-boot got clobbered after all? Anybody here know how these installers were meant to be used? Has this been documented anywhere? Thanks, Daniel G. [1] https://deb.debian.org/debian/dists/bookworm/main/installer-arm64/current/images/netboot/SD-card-images/ [2] https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/arm64/
