7 ms·

Orange Pi 5: 8-core CPU 2.4GHz, up to 32GB DDR4

71 points by nateb2022 4y ago

nateb2022 4y ago
At the specs and price, I found it to be very competitive with the Raspberry Pi 4, and it may even be more accessible for most people considering RPi's are still in high demand.
- ARandomerDude 4y ago
  This comment seems reasonable to me but is getting downvoted without reply. What am I missing in the parent’s remarks?
  - tomcam 4y ago
  - jhugo 4y ago
    Didn't downvote but I've owned most of the OrangePi models over the years. Many of them require you to run their non-mainline kernels because of drivers that aren't upstreamed (and likely cannot be due to quality issues), and they never really update those kernels. It's quite annoying. Nowadays for routers and other utility boxen I often use Intel NUCs which are a bit more expensive but much more pleasant to work with (decent UEFI firmware, perfect mainline kernel support, etc).
    - simfree 4y ago
      Armbian and similar communities have worked hard to mainline Allwinner and Rockchip SOCs kernel drivers. Note that this boards SOC is about 3x faster than a Raspberry Pi 4 https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxhardware/comments/r60lcp/rk3588_is_3_times_faster_than_the_raspberry_pi_4/ https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxhardware/comments/r60lcp/rk358...
      - jhugo 4y ago
        The RK3399 is indeed a great chip. I have an OrangePi RK3399 sitting on my desk right now in fact. But (at least when I last tried, last year) the mainline kernel support for the OrangePi RK3399 isn't really there beyond booting, and the board documentation is poor-to-non-existent so it's unlikely to improve.
noipv4 4y ago
is there a debian based OS that can be used with these SBCs? does apt work on that OS?
- jauer 4y ago
  Armbian supports most of these rando arm boards.
  - nateb2022 4y ago
    yep, and personally I've found Raspbian to run without much issues too
woodruffw 4y ago
Can someone speak to their experience with these Raspberry Pi-style SBCs? I'm curious, in particular, if their performance actually aligns with their on-paper specs and how reliable they are.
- RL_Quine 4y ago
  They usually perform well, but get put in a drawer and forgotten about because the software compatibility is generally atrocious. Peripherals advertised generally never work, but you know, might in a future kernel. I've been burned enough that I've sworn to never buy a SBC no matter the specifications.
  - iforgotpassword 4y ago
    Thinking about how much ewaste all those clone sbcs must amount to makes me sad. I fell for some pi zero clone too about three years ago and it ended up the same. Meanwhile my original pi (the 512mb variant) is still running Kodi on my main TV.
  - woodruffw 4y ago
    That's good to know, thanks. I've had pretty good luck over the years with ordinary RPis (I keep a couple around for random projects); the most serious problem I ever have with them is the long-standing one around slow SD card corruption.
    - RL_Quine 4y ago
      The RPI is sort of the exception; I have a couple of them doing odd tasks around the house like displaying security cameras, but that's an outlier due to the massive amount of support it gets. In boxes in the basement are all sorts of SBCs, from the original A10 Cubieboard from 2012, to many Hardkenel boards, to all sorts of bizarre barely operational SBCs from various sources. They all had the same issue of being basically unsupported unless you made it your life goal to dig through obscure datasheets and compile kernel patches from some forum post you found. A good holistic replacement for the RPI is the APU2, a x86 board of similar cost that has a bunch more peripherals, real support for booting from SATA, ECC memory, and that sort of thing. Absolutely no video support, but I have years of uptime on the things with no issue.
user3939382 4y ago
I own a RBP and several mini computers. I once had to set an office up with network scanners which didn’t have integrated networking. Otherwise, over the many years, I never actually found a use for these. When I need an experimental box I usually setup a droplet on Digital Ocean or a local VM.
- eshack94 4y ago
  RBPs are good for unbound DNS server or a PiHole setup.
- woodruffw 4y ago
  Someone already mentioned PiHole, so I'll just second that use. I've been using one of my Pis as a PiHole for years, and it's been great. I also use another Pi to control my sound system[1]. [1]: https://blog.yossarian.net/2022/11/07/Modernizing-my-1980s-sound-system https://blog.yossarian.net/2022/11/07/Modernizing-my-1980s-s...
rasz 4y ago
>up to 32GB DDR4 Its up to 8GB at the moment
- pella 4y ago
  16 GB version: https://www.aliexpress.com/store/group/OPI-5/1553371_40000002877445.html https://www.aliexpress.com/store/group/OPI-5/1553371_4000000...
  - mrlonglong 4y ago
    Holding out for 32GB
chx 4y ago
http://www.orangepi.org/img/pi-5-top-view.png http://www.orangepi.org/img/pi-5-top-view.png 5V 4A is not really part of the USB PD specification. I mean, sure, you can do it with PPS but you bet it's not that but something nonstandard where it just pulls 4A instead of the standard 3A yolo style.
- bpye 4y ago
  Presumably some of that 4A would be for USB peripherals anyway? It seems likely that 3A is sufficient if you're not drawing much from those.
bastard_op 4y ago
It would be nice if the software weren't terrible and they properly make linux kernel contributions to make their product usable. Every chinese soc that comes out is a broken experience out of box, rpi is about the only vendor that supports their product adequately. Until this changes, these chips will always be nothing more than a novelty and simple money grab left dumbfounded at why they failed so painfully.
- bitL 4y ago
  Alternative take: Linux could finally create a stable driver ABI so that drivers compiled in 1999 still work with the latest kernel without recompiling, as is with Windows. Until then only the most main-stream devices will be supported.
  - ronsor 4y ago
    Alternativer take: vendors should get their drivers upstreamed so they don't have to maintain them much. Of course, this also means publishing decent hardware documentation which they should be doing regardless. Windows did have and to some extent still has many crappy, old drivers that reduce system stability. We don't need to encourage that on Linux.
    - themoonisachees 4y ago
      What is in it for the maintainers who would then have to support hardware they do not neccessarly have access to, adding development time to the linux kernel maintainers who honestly would be better off spending their time improving linux further instead of supporting potentially thousands of users at best? Imo the responisibility lies with the hardware vendors. Sell your hardware with working software, and support it for x years guaranteed. When the support period ends they can decide to extend it (they wont, but they could) instead of relying on developers who have nothing to do with the product and are working for free for the hardware vendor. Either that or contract kernel maintainers to upstream it for x years and they do the heavy lifting, but that's always going to be more expensive than doing it in-house.
jacknews 4y ago
No AV1 codec seems like a glaring omission given these are often used as media players.
jazzyjackson 4y ago
FWIW I've been building a product on top of Orange Pi Ones (a $20 SBC roughly comparable to Raspberry Pi 2) with Armbian and while I have to dig into the forums for certain configurations (enabling hardware serial is an edit to /boot/armbianEnv.txt, while switching the micro USB port from OTG to HOST mode is an edit to a file within armbian-config) it's been a smooth development experience with about 10 days lead time from Shenzhen via AliExpress
hulitu 4y ago
> Orange Pi 5: 8-core CPU 2.4GHz, up to 32GB DDR4 ... and no SATA. Only an M2 interface
- eb0la 4y ago
  Still... better than my work PC. Sadly.
psychphysic 4y ago
I suspect this will emulate GameCube/Wii and even WiiU.
mrlonglong 4y ago
I have looked but I can't find a 32GB variant for sale. Any ideas when they might be available?
bricss 4y ago
Quite some alternative: - Khadas Edge 2 -> https://www.khadas.com/edge2 https://www.khadas.com/edge2
mrlonglong 4y ago
What on earth is a mask rom key?
- ac29 4y ago
  Looks like a special rockchip boot mode for when there is no suitable boot environment installed on one of the storage devices. https://wiki.kobol.io/helios64/maskrom/ https://wiki.kobol.io/helios64/maskrom/
  - mrlonglong 4y ago
    Fascinating, thanks

71 points by nateb2022 4y ago

nateb2022 4y ago

At the specs and price, I found it to be very competitive with the Raspberry Pi 4, and it may even be more accessible for most people considering RPi's are still in high demand.

ARandomerDude 4y ago
This comment seems reasonable to me but is getting downvoted without reply. What am I missing in the parent’s remarks?
- tomcam 4y ago
- jhugo 4y ago
  Didn't downvote but I've owned most of the OrangePi models over the years. Many of them require you to run their non-mainline kernels because of drivers that aren't upstreamed (and likely cannot be due to quality issues), and they never really update those kernels. It's quite annoying. Nowadays for routers and other utility boxen I often use Intel NUCs which are a bit more expensive but much more pleasant to work with (decent UEFI firmware, perfect mainline kernel support, etc).
  - simfree 4y ago
    Armbian and similar communities have worked hard to mainline Allwinner and Rockchip SOCs kernel drivers. Note that this boards SOC is about 3x faster than a Raspberry Pi 4 https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxhardware/comments/r60lcp/rk3588_is_3_times_faster_than_the_raspberry_pi_4/ https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxhardware/comments/r60lcp/rk358...
    - jhugo 4y ago
      The RK3399 is indeed a great chip. I have an OrangePi RK3399 sitting on my desk right now in fact. But (at least when I last tried, last year) the mainline kernel support for the OrangePi RK3399 isn't really there beyond booting, and the board documentation is poor-to-non-existent so it's unlikely to improve.

noipv4 4y ago

is there a debian based OS that can be used with these SBCs? does apt work on that OS?

jauer 4y ago
Armbian supports most of these rando arm boards.
- nateb2022 4y ago
  yep, and personally I've found Raspbian to run without much issues too

woodruffw 4y ago

Can someone speak to their experience with these Raspberry Pi-style SBCs? I'm curious, in particular, if their performance actually aligns with their on-paper specs and how reliable they are.

RL_Quine 4y ago
They usually perform well, but get put in a drawer and forgotten about because the software compatibility is generally atrocious. Peripherals advertised generally never work, but you know, might in a future kernel. I've been burned enough that I've sworn to never buy a SBC no matter the specifications.
- iforgotpassword 4y ago
  Thinking about how much ewaste all those clone sbcs must amount to makes me sad. I fell for some pi zero clone too about three years ago and it ended up the same. Meanwhile my original pi (the 512mb variant) is still running Kodi on my main TV.
- woodruffw 4y ago
  That's good to know, thanks. I've had pretty good luck over the years with ordinary RPis (I keep a couple around for random projects); the most serious problem I ever have with them is the long-standing one around slow SD card corruption.
  - RL_Quine 4y ago
    The RPI is sort of the exception; I have a couple of them doing odd tasks around the house like displaying security cameras, but that's an outlier due to the massive amount of support it gets. In boxes in the basement are all sorts of SBCs, from the original A10 Cubieboard from 2012, to many Hardkenel boards, to all sorts of bizarre barely operational SBCs from various sources. They all had the same issue of being basically unsupported unless you made it your life goal to dig through obscure datasheets and compile kernel patches from some forum post you found. A good holistic replacement for the RPI is the APU2, a x86 board of similar cost that has a bunch more peripherals, real support for booting from SATA, ECC memory, and that sort of thing. Absolutely no video support, but I have years of uptime on the things with no issue.

user3939382 4y ago

I own a RBP and several mini computers. I once had to set an office up with network scanners which didn’t have integrated networking. Otherwise, over the many years, I never actually found a use for these. When I need an experimental box I usually setup a droplet on Digital Ocean or a local VM.

eshack94 4y ago
RBPs are good for unbound DNS server or a PiHole setup.
woodruffw 4y ago
Someone already mentioned PiHole, so I'll just second that use. I've been using one of my Pis as a PiHole for years, and it's been great. I also use another Pi to control my sound system[1]. [1]: https://blog.yossarian.net/2022/11/07/Modernizing-my-1980s-sound-system https://blog.yossarian.net/2022/11/07/Modernizing-my-1980s-s...

rasz 4y ago

>up to 32GB DDR4 Its up to 8GB at the moment

pella 4y ago
16 GB version: https://www.aliexpress.com/store/group/OPI-5/1553371_40000002877445.html https://www.aliexpress.com/store/group/OPI-5/1553371_4000000...
- mrlonglong 4y ago
  Holding out for 32GB

chx 4y ago

http://www.orangepi.org/img/pi-5-top-view.png http://www.orangepi.org/img/pi-5-top-view.png 5V 4A is not really part of the USB PD specification. I mean, sure, you can do it with PPS but you bet it's not that but something nonstandard where it just pulls 4A instead of the standard 3A yolo style.

bpye 4y ago
Presumably some of that 4A would be for USB peripherals anyway? It seems likely that 3A is sufficient if you're not drawing much from those.

bastard_op 4y ago

It would be nice if the software weren't terrible and they properly make linux kernel contributions to make their product usable. Every chinese soc that comes out is a broken experience out of box, rpi is about the only vendor that supports their product adequately. Until this changes, these chips will always be nothing more than a novelty and simple money grab left dumbfounded at why they failed so painfully.

bitL 4y ago
Alternative take: Linux could finally create a stable driver ABI so that drivers compiled in 1999 still work with the latest kernel without recompiling, as is with Windows. Until then only the most main-stream devices will be supported.
- ronsor 4y ago
  Alternativer take: vendors should get their drivers upstreamed so they don't have to maintain them much. Of course, this also means publishing decent hardware documentation which they should be doing regardless. Windows did have and to some extent still has many crappy, old drivers that reduce system stability. We don't need to encourage that on Linux.
  - themoonisachees 4y ago
    What is in it for the maintainers who would then have to support hardware they do not neccessarly have access to, adding development time to the linux kernel maintainers who honestly would be better off spending their time improving linux further instead of supporting potentially thousands of users at best? Imo the responisibility lies with the hardware vendors. Sell your hardware with working software, and support it for x years guaranteed. When the support period ends they can decide to extend it (they wont, but they could) instead of relying on developers who have nothing to do with the product and are working for free for the hardware vendor. Either that or contract kernel maintainers to upstream it for x years and they do the heavy lifting, but that's always going to be more expensive than doing it in-house.

jacknews 4y ago

No AV1 codec seems like a glaring omission given these are often used as media players.

jazzyjackson 4y ago

FWIW I've been building a product on top of Orange Pi Ones (a $20 SBC roughly comparable to Raspberry Pi 2) with Armbian and while I have to dig into the forums for certain configurations (enabling hardware serial is an edit to /boot/armbianEnv.txt, while switching the micro USB port from OTG to HOST mode is an edit to a file within armbian-config) it's been a smooth development experience with about 10 days lead time from Shenzhen via AliExpress

hulitu 4y ago

> Orange Pi 5: 8-core CPU 2.4GHz, up to 32GB DDR4 ... and no SATA. Only an M2 interface

eb0la 4y ago
Still... better than my work PC. Sadly.

psychphysic 4y ago

I suspect this will emulate GameCube/Wii and even WiiU.

mrlonglong 4y ago

I have looked but I can't find a 32GB variant for sale. Any ideas when they might be available?

bricss 4y ago

Quite some alternative: - Khadas Edge 2 -> https://www.khadas.com/edge2 https://www.khadas.com/edge2

mrlonglong 4y ago

What on earth is a mask rom key?

ac29 4y ago
Looks like a special rockchip boot mode for when there is no suitable boot environment installed on one of the storage devices. https://wiki.kobol.io/helios64/maskrom/ https://wiki.kobol.io/helios64/maskrom/
- mrlonglong 4y ago
  Fascinating, thanks