3 ms·

I basically stopped buying SBCs several years ago, are there any SoC platforms that have mainline Linux support these days? Or is x86 still the way to go?

aarroyoc 8mo ago
RK3588 is well supported right now and is present in many SBCs
- doubled112 8mo ago
  I am generally happy with my Orange Pi 5, but I have flip flopped between the vendor kernel and a mainline kernel depending on what purpose the OPi5 is serving at that moment. There’s also a fairly usable UEFI implementation.
  - heavyset_go 8mo ago
    Does the vendor kernel support more of the board's peripherals than the mainline kernel? Had that issue with some Odroid boards, where the vendor kernel supported MFC hardware acceleration but the vanilla kernel didn't/doesn't. I'd like to avoid that
    - doubled112 8mo ago
      Yes, that’s the main reason to run the vendor kernel. Mainline support is improving all the time though. I believe I needed the vendor kernel to use video through the USB-C port, and to use the HW acceleration for transcoding in Jellyfin. This situation may have changed since my last attempts.
      - MrDOS 8mo ago
        I think https://gitlab.collabora.com/hardware-enablement/rockchip-3588/notes-for-rockchip-3588/-/blob/main/mainline-status.md https://gitlab.collabora.com/hardware-enablement/rockchip-35... is still the best reference for mainline support of the RK3588. As you say, DP alt mode and video encoding are totally unsupported right now. Hopefully things will keep progressing; it's a very feature-rich platform, and I think it will have some legs even after it is no longer the compute king (e.g., the RK3688 is on the horizon).
fractallyte 8mo ago
Libre Computer makes a range of SBCs and supports mainline Linux. I use their products, and I'm very happy with them. "Most ARM single board computers depend on proprietary binary blobs to boot or ship with outdated vendor kernels that are never upstreamed and quickly abandoned. Libre Computer takes a different approach: we fund and contribute to the mainline Linux kernel and U-Boot directly, ensuring our platforms run on upstream open-source software with minimal proprietary firmware." https://libre.computer/ https://libre.computer/
- sthlmb 8mo ago
  Yup, seconded! Libre Computer do a great job on this front
ckastner 8mo ago
The Radxa Orion O6 is a really nice ARMv9.2 ITX board, and supports UEFI boot. Installation of Debian trixie using Debian's vanilla installation media went flawlessly, and it's been running fine for 6 months now.
- moffkalast 8mo ago
  Do the peripherals work reliably? Wifi and GPIO especially. It does seem like a very capable board but this is always so hit and miss.
  - ckastner 8mo ago
    I can't really say as I don't use them. This is a host mostly working as a CI worker connected via ethernet. I just scanned for WiFi networks and that worked fine. I also see that GPIO is not enabled for CIXP1 devices in Debian's kernel; I'll ask the kernel team to enable it.

aarroyoc 8mo ago

RK3588 is well supported right now and is present in many SBCs

doubled112 8mo ago
I am generally happy with my Orange Pi 5, but I have flip flopped between the vendor kernel and a mainline kernel depending on what purpose the OPi5 is serving at that moment. There’s also a fairly usable UEFI implementation.
- heavyset_go 8mo ago
  Does the vendor kernel support more of the board's peripherals than the mainline kernel? Had that issue with some Odroid boards, where the vendor kernel supported MFC hardware acceleration but the vanilla kernel didn't/doesn't. I'd like to avoid that
  - doubled112 8mo ago
    Yes, that’s the main reason to run the vendor kernel. Mainline support is improving all the time though. I believe I needed the vendor kernel to use video through the USB-C port, and to use the HW acceleration for transcoding in Jellyfin. This situation may have changed since my last attempts.
    - MrDOS 8mo ago
      I think https://gitlab.collabora.com/hardware-enablement/rockchip-3588/notes-for-rockchip-3588/-/blob/main/mainline-status.md https://gitlab.collabora.com/hardware-enablement/rockchip-35... is still the best reference for mainline support of the RK3588. As you say, DP alt mode and video encoding are totally unsupported right now. Hopefully things will keep progressing; it's a very feature-rich platform, and I think it will have some legs even after it is no longer the compute king (e.g., the RK3688 is on the horizon).

fractallyte 8mo ago

Libre Computer makes a range of SBCs and supports mainline Linux. I use their products, and I'm very happy with them. "Most ARM single board computers depend on proprietary binary blobs to boot or ship with outdated vendor kernels that are never upstreamed and quickly abandoned. Libre Computer takes a different approach: we fund and contribute to the mainline Linux kernel and U-Boot directly, ensuring our platforms run on upstream open-source software with minimal proprietary firmware." https://libre.computer/ https://libre.computer/

sthlmb 8mo ago
Yup, seconded! Libre Computer do a great job on this front

ckastner 8mo ago

The Radxa Orion O6 is a really nice ARMv9.2 ITX board, and supports UEFI boot. Installation of Debian trixie using Debian's vanilla installation media went flawlessly, and it's been running fine for 6 months now.

moffkalast 8mo ago
Do the peripherals work reliably? Wifi and GPIO especially. It does seem like a very capable board but this is always so hit and miss.
- ckastner 8mo ago
  I can't really say as I don't use them. This is a host mostly working as a CI worker connected via ethernet. I just scanned for WiFi networks and that worked fine. I also see that GPIO is not enabled for CIXP1 devices in Debian's kernel; I'll ask the kernel team to enable it.