zdea wrote:
Thanks for sharing your recommendation. Armbian looks like a nice project. I'll keep an eye on it. For now, it looks as if the image for this platform is not up to the point where I can use it. Hardware support (particularly gpu-side) seems to be behind the friendlydesktop image.
Most of people behind the project are interested in the headless useage. But since there is an interest and RK3399 gpu related features will be implemented to our desktop build when possible. We are reworking build system that this will not be as complex as it is now. We need to solve for other platforms as well. We have only done this for Allwinner boards, which are among most popular ones. Rockchip 3399 is relatively new.
zdea wrote:
The kernel is 4.4.162 (and curiously the headers that the armbian setup app installs are for 4.4.156) and of course ZFS (my ultimate target) can't be installed out of the box.
Version discrepancy is simpli due to lack of human resources and protocols when making updates on the repository which is updated manually. You can switch to automated repository (beta.armbian.com instead of apt.armbian.com -> armbian-config -> system -> switch to beta repo) and there you will have right combinations.
zdea wrote:
Couple quick things:
You said "This is very simple to solve"... did you think at the time that Armbian on M4 would support zfs out of the box or that kernel headers / building zfs would be easier on armbian or something else?
Yes, because we do provide headers (virtually since day 1) and build essentials are preinstalled. Usually you just need to run "make" on the sources.
I don't think we will add ZFS to the Armbian by default since implementing doesn't look trivial and such wishes easily wait a year or more that they are implemented. Unless there is your/external help.
zdea wrote:
Also, you mentioned reading about what works and what does not... from what I can tell, the M4 is not really even covered in the armbian documentation and the product page on the armbian site really only lists hardware-related "support" (and not much detail even at that). I hate to be one of those "lazy users" but I feel like in this case, what I'm looking for is not there, though I'd be glad to be proven wrong.
When board is in the development and testing phase, nobody is updating that page. We usually write there only known problems, what we are unable to solve or if something needs a workaround. In ideal world this board would get a dedicated maintainer, someone who would extract information from
https://forum.armbian.com/topic/7511-nanopi-m4/ and keep a summary here:
https://www.armbian.com/nanopi-m4 zdea wrote:
Btw... since I'm assuming you are "the IgorP" from Armbian... thank you for all the effort you and your crew have put in.
Yes, thank you. The crew is unfortunately far too small for the size of the project. It expanded quickly and now we struggle with maintaining it.