Hi Linux- how important is it to install, say Debian, the version that is specifically made for your hardware? For example, if I have a Rock64 SBC, do I have to install Debian-rock64.img or can I just go with Debian-arm64.img? Will I lose performance/features if using generic arm64 image, or conversely, will I gain performance/features if using the image made for my specific SBC? Is the generic image even compatible with all hardwares?
Thank you.
The rock64 version likely is the same, except for boot loader stuff. Often times these SBC’s require custom boot software, firmware, or configuration. The rest of the distro should be straight up debian.
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.
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.
then using a generic image might lead to critical components not working, or the entire system not working, right?
Yes, that’s why you should either use manufacturer images or Armbian (https://lemmy.world/comment/4609514). Generic images might also underperform in your board, the GPIO and other low level components will, most likely, not work and you might burn your storage as logging and other I/O intensive operations aren’t tweaked for SD/eMMC.
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
Checkout https://www.armbian.com/rock64/
Run Armbian, it is Debian optimized for SBCs, that one specifically for your board. Armbian has a very good track record and sometimes is the only option after manufacturers stop creating images for their old boards.
Generic images might underperform in your board, the GPIO and other low level components will, most likely, not work and you might burn your storage as logging and other I/O intensive operations aren’t tweaked for SD/eMMC. Armbian aims to fix all those issues and provides continuous system and kernel updates long after the manufacturer stops doing so.
To be fair I don’t trust whatever a Chinese SBC manufacturer ships for their own boards, how much spyware / calling home that will include? How messed up and mangled the kernel and the OS is? You can eventually run into issues when you least expect it.
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)
- 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)
It seems that Debian-rock64.img is an armhf image (i.e 32 bits) and Debian-arm64.img is (obviously) an 64 bit image… so go for the latter if your board has 8 GiB ram and up and the former if 4 GiB ram and under.
Rock64 had 4GB max
