RockpiE/Ubuntu

English

    ROCK Pi E >  Ubuntu

Work with ROCK Pi E Ubuntu

Introduction to ROCK Pi E Ubuntu

ROCK Pi E Ubuntu is an easy to use system. While working with ROCK Pi E Ubuntu, you will find it do well on playing music, playing video, Internet, Bluetooth and so on.

ROCK Pi E Debian uses systemd to manage system.

Here Need one USB to TTL serial cable. Or use SSH.

UBuntu Default User Account

Non-root User:

   User Name : rock
   Password  : rock

Install and update necessary packages

Add Radxa APT, see Radxa APT.

Install packages;

 $ sudo apt-get update
 $ sudo apt-get install -y rockchip-overlay
 $ sudo apt-get install -y linux-4.4-rockpie-latest

Network Connection

There are two methods for network connection. One is Ethernet and the other is WIFI.

Ethernet Connection

ROCK Pi E provides dual ethernets. You can use two network cables at the same time to connect your ROCK Pi E to the network. The ROCK Pi E will automatically configure the network for your surfing on the Internet.

To test the Ethernet, we need to follow the steps:

Switch to super user mode by command

 $ sudo su

Check whether the Ethernet is normal by command, ifconfig, which would show us two network cards, eth0 and eth1, and the Ethernet IP address. Also, use tool, ping, to connect to a normal domain.

 $ ifconfig
 $ ping -I eth0 www.baidu.com
 $ ping -I eth1 www.baidu.com

WiFi Connection

When there is not a network cable for your ROCK Pi E the WIFI connection is another good choice. ROCK Pi E supports 2.4G/5G WiFi wireless network.

To test the WiFi performance, we need to follow the steps:

Switch to super user mode

 $ sudo su

Open the WiFi

 $ nmcli r wifi on

Scan WiFi

 $ nmcli dev wifi

Connect to WiFi network

 $ nmcli dev wifi connect "wifi_name" password "wifi_password"

Test WiFi perpormance by tool iperf.

Bluetooth

To gain a stronger signal, you need an antenna attached to the antenna socket on board.

Update necessary packages

 $ sudo apt-get update
 $ sudp apt-get install -y rockchip-overlay
 $ sudo apt-get install -y linux-4.4-rockpie-latest # kernel version(>=4.4.194-7-rockchip)
 $ sudo apt-get install -y realtek-bt-firmware bluez

Check Bluetooth service

 $ systemctl status bluetooth

Run Bluetooth service if the Bluetooth service is inactive.

 $ systemctl start bluetooth

Start realtek-btfw-load service

 $ systemctl start realtek-btfw-load

Check Bluetooth device

 $ hciconfig
 root@rockpie:~# hciconfig
 hci0:   Type: Primary  Bus: USB
       BD Address: 7C:A7:B0:22:82:C5  ACL MTU: 1021:8  SCO MTU: 255:12
       UP RUNNING PSCAN 
       RX bytes:5120 acl:0 sco:0 events:100 errors:0
       TX bytes:2904 acl:0 sco:0 commands:74 errors:0

Example: Connect to Bluetooth Speaker.

Change to root mode.

 $ sudo su

Install pulseaudio packages

 # apt-get install -y pulseaudio-module-bluetooth pulseaudio

Run pulseaudio

 # pulseaudio --start

Connect using bluetoothctl

 # bluetoothctl
 [bluetooth]# default-agent 
 [bluetooth]# power on
 [bluetooth]# scan on
 [bluetooth]# trust 77:EC:79:4F:6B:AC
 [bluetooth]# pair 77:EC:79:4F:6B:AC
 [bluetooth]# connect 77:EC:79:4F:6B:AC

Play songs and enjoy it.

Common Hardware Interfaces, I2C, SPI, UART, etc

The ROCK Pi E system images use /boot/uEnv.txt to configure hardware interfaces.

Remember there is only one line including item "overlays=" in file /boot/uEnv.txt.

For more details about device tree overlays, see Device Tree Overlays.

I2C

To enable I2C-1 (/dev/i2c-1), add item "rk3328-i2c1" to the "overlays=" line.

 overlays=rk3328-i2c1

SPI

To enable SPI0, add item "rk3328-spi-spidev" to the "overlays=" line.

 overlays=rk3328-spi-spidev
 param_spidev_spi_bus=0
 param_spidev_spi_cs=0
 param_spidev_max_freq=10000000

UART

The debugger console baud rate options: 1500000n8 and 115200n8.

To set ttyS1 as debugger console, add item "rk3328-uart1" to the "overlays=" line. Also need to set console value.

 console=ttyS1,1500000n8
 overlays=rk3328-uart1

To set ttyS2 as debugger console, add item "rk3328-uart2" to the "overlays=" line. Also need to set console value.

 console=ttyS2,1500000n8
 overlays=rk3328-uart2

To set ttyS1 as common serial communication, add item "rk3328-uart1" to the "overlays=" line. The device /dev/ttyS1 is available.

 overlays=rk3328-uart1

To set ttyS2 as common serial communication, add item "rk3328-uart2" to the "overlays=" line. The device /dev/ttyS2 is available.

 overlays=rk3328-uart2

Example for UART communication

Step one. Hardware connection.

 UART1_TXD <---> UART2_RXD
 UART1_RXD <---> UART2_TXD

Step two. Use ssh to access ROCK Pi E.

Step three. Enable UART1 and UART2 via adding the following line to file /boot/uEnv.txt.

 overlays=rk3328-uart1 rk3328-uart2

Also disable console via removing the following line in file /boot/uEnv.txt.

 console=ttyS2,1500000n8

Step four. Reboot the device.

Step five. Use ssh to access ROCK Pi E. Set up SSH terminal one and two.

In terminal one.

 $ sudo su
 # stty -F /dev/ttyS1 9600
 # cat /dev/ttyS1

In terminal two.

 $ sudo su
 # stty -F /dev/ttyS2 9600
 # echo "hello rock pi e" > /dev/ttyS2

In terminal one, we would see the following string.

 hello rock pi e

Changelogs

2021.07.15

rockpie_ubuntu_bionic_server_arm64_20210715_1311-gpt.img

Kernel version: 4.4.194-28-rockchip-g3443041f5e70

2021.01.26

rockpie_ubuntu_bionic_server_arm64_20210126_0104-gpt.img

Kernel version: 4.4.194-17-rockchip-g07288d4ebac7
U-Boot version: 2019.10-11661-g46695f4700

2020.07.17

rockpie_ubuntu_bionic_minimal_arm64_20200717_0225-gpt.img

Rename Wi-Fi interface to wlan0

2020.06.16

rockpie_ubuntu_bionic_minimal_arm64_20200615_1238-gpt.img

Fix the issue of failing to find root device. System boot log may show like this.

 [    3.345451] RAMDISK: incomplete write (3154 != 27844)
 [    3.345455] write error
 [    3.345526] Waiting for root device UUID=f19f09a0-c5b2-4753-853b-584c9e6c27c6...

Update rockchip-overlay package

2020.05.28

rockpie_ubuntu_bionic_minimal_arm64_20200528_0711-gpt.img

Automatically load Bluetooth firmware after system startup.
Available for at least 256 MB DDR SDRAM
Default non-root user: rock (password: rock)
Default serial console: UART2
Hostname: rockpie
Kernel version: 4.4.194-12-rockchip-g615ae7431150
Resize root filesystem to fit available disk space for the first boot
System partitions: boot and rootfs
Support SSH by default.
Support uEnv and boot.scr
The version of systemd: 237
U-boot version: 2019.10-11661-g46695f4700