Volumio3 on Radxa ROCK Pi 4B
Volumio, the renowned music player software, has exciting news to share with the Volumiophiles community. After months of diligent effort, Volumio has successfully ported its software to some Radxa devices, including the RockPi-E, RockPi-4B, and Rock-3A.
With the aim of providing users with more options as alternatives to the hard-to-find Raspberry Pi and ThinkerBoard, the new images for all these models are now available as beta versions. The Volumio team is eager to hear feedback from the community, not only on any bugs or issues encountered but also to understand which device stands out as a favorite and why.
During the beta testing phase, the team will closely monitor demand and user preferences. Depending on the outcome, one device will be chosen as the "Officially Supported Platform," receiving regular updates and dedicated support for Premium subscribers. The other two options will still receive updates, albeit without official support.
For each device, dedicated pages have been created, featuring hardware specifications, suggested variants for the optimal Volumio experience, a list of features, and download links for flashing the image on an SD-card.
Volumio enthusiasts are encouraged to join the beta testing and share their insights. Together, we'll take Volumio's music player experience to new heights with expanded device support.
Radxa ROCK 5B Achieves Successful Network Boot with RealTek 8125B Controller in U-Boot
In a significant development for the Radxa ROCK 5B, U-Boot now supports networking through the use of an external RealTek 8125B 2.5Gbps controller connected to the RK3588 SoC via PCI Express.
The project's primary objective was to enable network functionality in U-Boot, allowing the loading of the Linux kernel via various network protocols, such as TFTP.
To accomplish this, support for PCIe 2.0 was added (source: link), resulting in the initialization of the PCIe bus and successful enumeration of devices on the bus.
Adapting the RTL8169 driver to support the 8125B variant (source: link) further paved the way for networking success. The board's networking capabilities now function at 100 Mbps, representing a significant achievement.
The use of Open Source principles played a crucial role in this progress. Implementing changes into RTL8169 was facilitated by leveraging code from the Linux driver, which already offered support for the RealTek 8125B controller, leading to substantial time and effort savings.
Sharing this code as Open Source is not only beneficial for this project but also extends its advantages to other endeavors. Developers working with different boards and devices can now benefit from this work, accelerating their own projects and fostering a collaborative environment.
With network boot functionality achieved, the Radxa ROCK 5B board becomes even more attractive for real-world applications, offering a head start for future projects based on this board or the RK3588 SoC.
Note: For more technical details, please refer to the provided links.
Windows boots up on ROCK 5A
Exciting progress has been made in the development of the ROCK 5A board, with the addition of initial UEFI support. Upon receiving the ROCK 5A, a developer promptly dived into the task and successfully enabled UEFI, making it possible to boot Windows effortlessly, much like other 3588 boards.
The UEFI implementation was accomplished with relative ease, allowing for seamless integration with the ROCK 5A. The developer plans to further enhance the PCIe code in the UEFI repository, undertaking refactoring work in the near future.
This UEFI advancement brings increased versatility to the ROCK 5A, opening up possibilities for various operating systems and expanding its potential in diverse applications.