Orange Pi One Woes

[EEVblog]

So I got my $10 Orange Pi One's after several failed attempts at AliExpress.
Ok, great, just install the O/S...

Claims to be compatible with RPi2 Raspbian. Nope, tried two different versions.

So the download page For Orange OS:
http://www.orangepi.org/downloadresources/orangepiLite/2016-05-17/191.html
No linux version available, no Raspbian build, just the Android based Orange OS.

You have to download sun8iw7p1_android_dolphin-p1_uart0_PiLite.rar and image it, ok, no problem...
Oops, the One Drive link doesn't work at all, and if you peek at the HTML it points to
https://onedrive.live.com/?cid=7636df980ad414a0&id=7636DF980AD414A0%21109&lor=shortUrl
Which in Android for Banana Pi. Doesn't sound right.

The Chinese website "Baidu Cloud" link gets flagged by Google and either doesn't let you download, or deletes the download if you can get it to work. Great.
Other browsers are all in Chinese and I can't seem to download a thing. Great.

Someone on twitter pointed to :
http://www.armbian.com/orange-pi-one/
This sounds promising, so downloading this now...

So far the Orange Pi One is a big  from a usability point of view.
But yeah, $10.

[timb]

Why would you think Raspbian would even work? Does the Orange Pi use the same Broadcom SoC as the RPi series? If not, chances are very slim it would even boot, let alone provide you with a useable display or serial driver. (Just because they're both ARM processors doesn't mean anything, because Raspbian only contains kernel drivers for RPi hardware.)

Raspbian is a Raspberry Pi specific distro of Debian. Hence the Rasp in Raspbian.

When they say compatible with the RPi2, I would assume they mean from an I/O perspective, i.e., it has header with the same pinout as the RPi2, allowing you to use existing RPi add-on boards ("Hats").

Do you know what kind of SoC it uses? I'm sure it's a common one. If so, there's a good chance Debian or Arch ARM will run on it. (In the case of Debian, you only need to download the ARM7 build, it will load the correct kernel drivers on startup for you. For Arch ARM, it's a bit tricker, depending on your hardware, but their site should have instructions.)

[EEVblog]

Why would you think Raspbian would even work?

Because they claim it does.

It’s an open-source single-board computer. It can run Android 4.4, Ubuntu, Debian, Rasberry Pi Image, as well as the banana pi Image.

I don't know the in's and out's of those O/S builds.

Does the Orange Pi use the same Broadcom SoC as the RPi series?

No.
Allwinner H3

[timb]

Okay, that Allwinner chip should be supported in Debian just fine. Just go download their ARM build. Seeing the quote above, I interpret it to mean, "Will run the same Linux flavors as the Raspberry Pi."

It doesn't specifically state it will run Raspbian, but I can totally see how you would think that if you don't know much about it! (Raspbian is basically Debian, with only RPi related drivers and more bloat.)

[EEVblog]

Okay, that Allwinner chip should be supported in Debian just fine. Just go download their ARM build. Seeing the quote above, I interpret it to mean, "Will run the same Linux flavors as the Raspberry Pi."

I don't know how you get that interpretation from "Rasberry Pi Image"

[Monkeh]

Okay, that Allwinner chip should be supported in Debian just fine. Just go download their ARM build. Seeing the quote above, I interpret it to mean, "Will run the same Linux flavors as the Raspberry Pi."

I don't know how you get that interpretation from "Rasberry Pi Image"

Quite. "Raspberry Pi Image" quite clearly infers it will run from the same image as a Raspberry Pi.


It's sad that the technical superiors are so far behind the Raspi in support.

[EEVblog]

Why don't you try the Raspbian for the Orange Pi2plus.

Of course, I plan to give that a crack.
But their page does imply quite clearly that it's not for the OPi One. And it's an old build, almost a year old.

[jnz]

It's not of my business where you spend your money... But having been for years on the being knocked off and cloned side of the Chinese economy... I'd never spend a single dollar on clones/knockoffs willingly.

That "only $10"... Isn't.

[timb]

Or he could just run Debian ARM? (Or Ubuntu, Arch, etc.)

I don't see why you'd run a shitty out of date custom image when an off the shelf image would work....


Sent from my Smartphone

[Towger]

All we wants is to run Bonic, the less OS bloat the better.

[edavid]

Did you find this page?

http://www.armbian.com/orange-pi-one/

[westfw]

Yeah; one of the things you notice eventually is that it's not really about who can build hardware for the lowest price.  It's about who can create hardware with a good support infrastructure for the lowest (or "a reasonable") price.  Arduino did it (in a way that lets a lot of others ride their coattails), Raspberry Pi did it.  MBed is pretty good.  BeagleXXX is ... close.  A *LOT* of others - not so much.

[filssavi]

I'm sorry to say it Dave but you get what you don't pay for, the biggest saving are made by cheap chines cloners not in hardware (ok they save quote a bit in hardware also) but in software/firmware (the cheapest software  is the One you don't even have to develop) and that is true not only for RPi clonea but also for smartphones tablet and stuff...

It's like the 5$ multimeters sure as hell they are cheap, butbare they safe/accurate??

As westfw told hardware is not that difficult to design since 99.9% they are just using usin app note/devkit circuit stripped of all non vital components, the software is a differenti can of worms

[briandorey]

I got the Debian server running on the Orange Pi One but the raspbian os refused to boot, first boot took about 5 minutes

[cezar]

I purchased Orange Pi couple months ago and after first try it has landed in a "maybe later (probably never)" box.
It was very unstable, very slow, completely unusable for simple desktop applications, not able to decode h264 content in realtime etc.
It also cannot be powered via usb but you can hack it  (http://blog.atx.name/orange-pi-pc-first-impressions/)

[EEVblog]

It's not of my business where you spend your money... But having been for years on the being knocked off and cloned side of the Chinese economy... I'd never spend a single dollar on clones/knockoffs willingly.
That "only $10"... Isn't.

It is not a clone or knockoff. It uses and entirely different processor and they have made it open source. This is only a good thing.
Sure it uses the same HAT pinout, but that's a good thing too, compatibility.

[EEVblog]

Of course, I plan to give that a crack.
But their page does imply quite clearly that it's not for the OPi One. And it's an old build, almost a year old.

Big deal, if it works for your application. Are you going to spend your life continually updating the OS. What a waste of time. 
If you want regularly updated software you should have bought a Rpi.

Geeze, I'm just pointing out that they don't have an obvious Raspian build for the One available. Nothing more, nothing less.
Armbian worked just fine BTW, didn't need to try that old Raspbian build.

[dannyf]

"It's like the 5$ multimeters sure as hell they are cheap, butbare they safe/accurate??"

Dont know about those 5usd ones. But I got a few 0usd ones and they are all very save and accurate.

[filssavi]

Dont know about those 5usd ones. But I got a few 0usd ones and they are all very save and accurate.

Tell me where, I need one

[CJay]

Of course, I plan to give that a crack.
But their page does imply quite clearly that it's not for the OPi One. And it's an old build, almost a year old.

Big deal, if it works for your application. Are you going to spend your life continually updating the OS. What a waste of time. 
If you want regularly updated software you should have bought a Rpi.

Geeze, I'm just pointing out that they don't have an obvious Raspian build for the One available. Nothing more, nothing less.
Armbian worked just fine BTW, didn't need to try that old Raspbian build.

No criticism Dave. Just too lazy to get out the emoticons. Glad to hear Armbian worked. 
Just sayin if you have a fixed application and fixed hardware there is no need to sit on the bleeding edge OS wise. Those alien waves have been travelling for a long time.

That's what I took from it, once it's working there's little need to patch if it's not 'net facing and/or exposing security flaws.

FWIW, there's what looks like a handy little guide to installing Debian here if you read down a bit, I'm very tempted to get a couple of them for myself if they're only $10 inc. shipping:

http://tech.scargill.net/orange-pi-pc-battle-of-the-pis/

[Neverther]

Remember that the Orange Pi PC is 5$ more with more USB ports, double the ram and 400Mhz higher clock if you want to use it as generic computer, also the IR receiver is nice if you get bored with it and slap openelec in.

[EEVblog]

Just sayin if you have a fixed application and fixed hardware there is no need to sit on the bleeding edge OS wise.

True.
But it's about "the vibe". You go to the website and most things are 6-9 months old, or simply missing like the OPi One.
Someone could get the mistaken impression that they don't care.
It's just not a good look.

[nctnico]

Just sayin if you have a fixed application and fixed hardware there is no need to sit on the bleeding edge OS wise.

True.
But it's about "the vibe". You go to the website and most things are 6-9 months old, or simply missing like the OPi One.
Someone could get the mistaken impression that they don't care.

IMHO that is a common misconception. Some software is just finished as it is and doesn't really need any more tinkering.

[Rasz]

Just sayin if you have a fixed application and fixed hardware there is no need to sit on the bleeding edge OS wise.

True.
But it's about "the vibe". You go to the website and most things are 6-9 months old, or simply missing like the OPi One.
Someone could get the mistaken impression that they don't care.

IMHO that is a common misconception. Some software is just finished as it is and doesn't really need any more tinkering.

you mean an os image with broken throttling, ancient kernel full of bugs and security vulns, non working video and 3d acceleration etc 'doesn't really need any more tinkering'?
there is no mistaken impression, those chinese dev board houses (or rather SoC vendors in general) are only good for cheap hardware, they dont touch nor care about software

my favourite anecdote - Mediatek send some Linux engineers to Linaro, they all had iphones

[EEVblog]

IMHO that is a common misconception. Some software is just finished as it is and doesn't really need any more tinkering.

Yes, but it's a real vibe with actual consequences that can sink your product. If the customer gets a feeling that your product isn't maintained, then they might go somewhere else.
It makes no difference how right a company is technically, vibes matter.