Difference between revisions of "NanoPC-T4"

Revision as of 08:42, 26 October 2023

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1 Introduction

Overview

Front

Back

• The NanoPC-T4 is by far the smallest RK3399 based high-performance ARM board with popular ports and interfaces. Its software is fully open source. It is as small as 100 x 64 mm. It has 4GB LPDDR3 RAM, 16GB eMMC flash, onboard 2.4G & 5G dual-band WiFi module and a full standard M.2 PCIe interface which supports an NVME SSD high-speed hard drive. The NanoPC-T4 supports GPU and VPU acceleration and works with Android 7.1 and Lubuntu Desktop.

• The NanoPC-T4 has a MIPI-CSI dual camera interface, a MIPI-DSI and an eDP display interfaces, and an HDMI 2.0 interface. It has Type-C/DP, USB 3.0, USB2.0, MicroSD, Gbps Ethernet port, 3.5mm audio jack, infrared receiver, AD input, serial debug interface and a 40Pin RPi compatible connector.

• The RK3399 SoC has an internal Mali-T860 GPU which has powerful capabilities of processing 3D and HD H.265/H2.64 video streams. It supports dual camera inputs, dual ISP interface capable of doing image processing up to 13MPix/s. The NanoPC-T4 is a perfect platform for AI and deep learning applications. It can be widely used in advertisement machines, game machines, video conference applications, surveillance systems, clusters, VR/AR applications, machine vision applications and etc.

2 Hardware Spec

• SoC: Rockchip RK3399
  • CPU: big.LITTLE，Dual-Core Cortex-A72(up to 2.0GHz) + Quad-Core Cortex-A53(up to 1.5GHz)
  • GPU: Mali-T864 GPU，supports OpenGL ES1.1/2.0/3.0/3.1, OpenCL, DX11, and AFBC
  • VPU: 4K VP9 and 4K 10bits H265/H264 60fps decoding, Dual VOP, etc
• PMU: RK808-D PMIC, cooperated with independent DC/DC, enabling DVFS, sofeware power-down, RTC wake-up, system sleep mode
• RAM: Dual-Channel 4GB LPDDR3-1866
• Flash: 16GB eMMC 5.1 Flash
• Ethernet: Native Gigabit Ethernet
• Wi-Fi/BT: 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.1, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth combo module, 2x2 MIMO, dual antenna interface
• Video Input: one or two 4-Lane MIPI-CSI, dual ISP, up to 13MPix/s，supports simultaneous input of dual camera data
• Video output
  • HDMI: HDMI 2.0a, supports 4K@60Hz，HDCP 1.4/2.2
  • DP on Type-C: DisplayPort 1.2 Alt Mode on USB Type-C
  • LCD Interface: one eDP 1.3（4-Lane，10.8Gbps）, one or two 4-Lane MIPI-DSI
• Audio Out: 3.5mm Dual channel headphone jack, or HDMI
• Audio In: 2-Pin 2.54mm microphone interface
• USB 2.0: 2 independent native USB 2.0 Host A interfaces
• USB 3.0: 1 native USB 3.0 Host A type interface
• USB Type-C: Supports USB3.0 Type-C and DisplayPort 1.2 Alt Mode on USB Type-C
• PCIe: One M.2 M-Key PCIe x4 socket, compatible with PCIe 2.1, Dual operation mode; Onboard M3 PCB nut for mounting M.2 2280 module
• microSD Slot x 1
• 40Pin GPIO Extension ports:
  • 3 X 3V/1.8V I2C, up to 1 x 3V UART, 1 X 3V SPI, 1 x SPDIF_TX, up to 8 x 3V GPIOs
  • 1 x 1.8V I2S, 3 x 1.8V GPIOs
• ADC: 3 x 1.8V ADC inputs, 5 Pin 2.54mm header
• Debug: one Debug UART, 4 Pin 2.54mm header, 3V level, 1500000bps
• Keys: PowerKey, Reset, MASKROM(BOOT), Recovery
• LED: 1 x power LED and 1 x GPIO Controlled LED
• IR reciver: Onboard IR reciver, Acceptes 38KHz carrier frequency
• RTC Battery: 2 Pin 1.27/1.25mm RTC battery input connector
• Cooling: two 2.5mm PCB nuts for mounting heat sink; 3 Pin 12V cooling fan interface with PWM
• Power supply: DC 12V/2A
• PCB: Ten Layer, 100 mm x 64 mm
• Ambient Operating Temperature: -20℃ to 70℃

3 Software Features

4 Diagram, Layout and Dimension

4.1 Layout

NanoPC-T4 Layout

• 40 Pin GPIO Pin Spec

Pin#	Assignment	Pin#	Assignment
1	VCC3V3_SYS	2	VCC5V0_SYS
3	I2C2_SDA(3V)	4	VCC5V0_SYS
5	I2C2_SCL(3V)	6	GND
7	GPIO1_A0(3V)	8	GPIO4_C1/I2C3_SCL(3V)
9	GND	10	GPIO4_C0/I2C3_SDA(3V)
11	GPIO1_A1(3V)	12	GPIO1_C2(3V)
13	GPIO1_A3(3V)	14	GND
15	GPIO1_A4(3V)	16	GPIO1_C6(3V)
17	VCC3V3_SYS	18	GPIO1_C7(3V)
19	SPI1_TXD/UART4_TX(3V)	20	GND
21	SPI1_RXD/UART4_RX(3V)	22	GPIO1_D0(3V)
23	SPI1_CLK(3V)	24	SPI1_CSn0(3V)
25	GND	26	GPIO4_C5/SPDIF_TX(3V)
27	I2C2_SDA(1.8V)	28	I2C2_SCL(1.8V)
29	I2S1_LRCK_RX(1.8V)	30	GND
31	I2S1_LRCK_TX(1.8V)	32	I2S_CLK(1.8V)
33	I2S1_SCLK(1.8V)	34	GND
35	I2S1_SDI0(1.8V)	36	I2S1_SDO0(1.8V)
37	GPIO3_D4(1.8V)	38	GPIO3_D5(1.8V)
39	GND	40	GPIO3_D6(1.8V)

• eDP Interface Pin Spec

Connector P/N: I-PEX-20455-030E

Pin#	Assignment	Description
1	GND	Signal ground
2	EDP_TX3N	eDP data lane 3 negative output
3	EDP_TX3P	eDP data lane 3 positive output
4	GND	Signal ground
5	EDP_TX2N	eDP data lane 2 negative output
6	EDP_TX2P	eDP data lane 2 positive output
7	GND	Signal ground
8	EDP_TX1N	eDP data lane 1 negative output
9	EDP_TX1P	eDP data lane 1 positive output
10	GND	Signal ground
11	EDP_TX0N	eDP data lane 0 negative output
12	EDP_TX0P	eDP data lane 0 positive output
13	GND	Signal ground
14	EDPAUXP	eDP CH-AUX positive differential output
15	EDPAUXN	eDP CH-AUX negative differential output
16	GND	Signal ground
17	VCC3V3_SYS	3.3V Power output for logic
18	VCC3V3_SYS	3.3V Power output for logic
19	I2C4_SDA	3V I2C data signal, Connect to touch panel
20	I2C4_SCL	3V I2C clock signal, Connect to touch panel
21	GPIO1_C4_TP_INT	3V interrupt input, Connect to the interrupt output of touch panel
22	GPIO1_B5_TP_RST	3V output for reseting touch panel, Connect to the reset input of touch panel
23	PWM0_BL	3V PWM output, for LCD backlight dimming. pull up to VCC3V3_SYS on LCD side.
24	GPIO4_D5_LCD_BL_EN	3V output for turning on/off the LCD backlight
25	GND	Backlight ground
26	GND	Backlight ground
27	GND	Backlight ground
28	VCC12V0_SYS	12V Power output for Backlight Power
29	VCC12V0_SYS	12V Power output for Backlight Power
30	VCC12V0_SYS	12V Power output for Backlight Power

• MIPI-DSI Interface Pin Spec

0.5mm FPC connector

Pin#	Assignment	Description
1, 2, 3	VCC5V0_SYS	5V power output
4	GND	Return current path
5	I2C4_SDA	3V I2C data signal, Connect to touch panel
6	I2C4_SCL	3V I2C clock signal, Connect to touch panel
7	GND	Return current path
8	GPIO1_C4_TP_INT	3V interrupt input, Connect to the interrupt output of touch panel
9	GND	Return current path
10	PWM0_BL	3V PWM output, for LCD backlight dimming
11	GND	Return current path
12	GPIO4_D5_LCD_BL_EN	3V output for turning on/off the LCD backlight
13	GPIO4_D6_LCD_RST_H	3V output for reseting the LCD module
14	GPIO1_B5_TP_RST	3V output for reseting touch panel, Connect to the reset input of touch panel
15	GND	Return current path
16	MIPI_TX0_D3N	MIPI DSI negative differential data line transceiver output
17	MIPI_TX0_D3P	MIPI DSI positive differential data line transceiver output
18	GND	Return current path
19	MIPI_TX0_D2N	MIPI DSI negative differential data line transceiver output
20	MIPI_TX0_D2P	MIPI DSI positive differential data line transceiver output
21	GND	Return current path
22	MIPI_TX0_D1N	MIPI DSI negative differential data line transceiver output
23	MIPI_TX0_D1P	MIPI DSI positive differential data line transceiver output
24	GND	Return current path
25	MIPI_TX0_D0N	MIPI DSI negative differential data line transceiver output
26	MIPI_TX0_D0P	MIPI DSI positive differential data line transceiver output
27	GND	Return current path
28	MIPI_TX0_CLKN	MIPI DSI negative differential clock line transceiver output
29	MIPI_TX0_CLKP	MIPI DSI positive differential clock line transceiver output
30	GND	Return current path

• MIPI-CSI Interface Pin Spec

0.5mm FPC Connector

MIPI-CSI2 can be configured to MIPI-DSI

Pin#	MIPI-CSI1	MIPI-CSI2	Description
1	VCC5V0_SYS	VCC5V0_SYS	5V Power ouput
2	VCC5V0_SYS	VCC5V0_SYS	5V Power ouput
3	GND	GND	Return current path
4	VCC_CSI_AF2.8V	VCC_CSI_AF2.8V	2.8V Power for VCM
5	VCC_CSI_1.2V	VCC_CSI_1.2V	1.2V Power for image sensor core circuit
6	VCC1V8_CAM	VCC1V8_CAM	1.8V power for I/O circuit
7	VCC_CSI_2.8V	VCC_CSI_2.8V	2.8V power for image sensor analog circuit
8	VCC_CSI_1.0V	VCC_CSI_1.0V	1.0V Power for image sensor core circuit
9	I2C1_SCL	I2C2_SCL	1.8V I2C clock signal
10	I2C1_SDA	I2C2_SDA	1.8V I2C data signal
11	MIPI_CSI0_RST	MIPI_CSI1_RST	reset camera module
12	MIPI_CSI0_PWN	MIPI_CSI1_PWN	Power down camera module
13	GND	GND	Return current path
14	GPIO2_B3_CIF_CLKOUTA	GPIO2_B3_CIF_CLKOUTA	MCLK to camera module
15	GND	GND	Return current path
16	MIPI_RX0_D3P	MIPI_TX1/RX1_D3P	MIPI CSI positive differential data line transceiver output
17	MIPI_RX0_D3N	MIPI_TX1/RX1_D3N	MIPI CSI negative differential data line transceiver output
18	GND	GND	Return current path
19	MIPI_RX0_D2P	MIPI_TX1/RX1_D2P	MIPI CSI positive differential data line transceiver output
20	MIPI_RX0_D2N	MIPI_TX1/RX1_D2N	MIPI CSI negative differential data line transceiver output
21	GND	GND	Return current path
22	MIPI_RX0_D1P	MIPI_TX1/RX1_D1P	MIPI CSI positive differential data line transceiver output
23	MIPI_RX0_D1N	MIPI_TX1/RX1_D1N	MIPI CSI negative differential data line transceiver output
24	GND	GND	Return current path
25	MIPI_RX0_CLKP	MIPI_TX1/RX1_CLKP	MIPI CSI positive differential clock line transceiver output
26	MIPI_RX0_CLKN	MIPI_TX1/RX1_CLKN	MIPI CSI negative differential clock line transceiver output
27	GND	GND	Return current path
28	MIPI_RX0_D0P	MIPI_TX1/RX1_D0P	MIPI CSI positive differential data line transceiver output
29	MIPI_RX0_D0N	MIPI_TX1/RX1_D0N	MIPI CSI negative differential data line transceiver output
30	GND	GND	Return current path

• M.2 PCIe Pin Spec

PCIe Gen 2.1 x4

M.2 Key M Connector for Socket 2/Socket 3 PCIe-based Module, such as PCIe SSD

Connector P/N: MDT-420-M-01002

Pin#	Assignment	Description	Pin#	Assignment	Description
1	GND	Return current path	2	VCC3V3_SYS	3.3V Power output
3	GND	Return current path	4	VCC3V3_SYS	3.3V Power output
5	PCIE_RX3_N	PCIe differential data input signals	6	N/C	no connection
7	PCIE_RX3_P	PCIe differential data input signals	8	N/C	no connection
9	GND	Return current path	10	N/C	no connection
11	PCIE_TX3N	PCIe differential data output signals	12	VCC3V3_SYS	3.3V Power output
13	PCIE_TX3P	PCIe differential data output signals	14	VCC3V3_SYS	3.3V Power output
15	GND	Return current path	16	VCC3V3_SYS	3.3V Power output
17	PCIE_RX2_N	PCIe differential data input signals	18	VCC3V3_SYS	3.3V Power output
19	PCIE_RX2_P	PCIe differential data input signals	20	N/C	no connection
21	GND	Return current path	22	N/C	no connection
23	PCIE_TX2N	PCIe differential data output signals	24	N/C	no connection
25	PCIE_TX2P	PCIe differential data output signals	26	N/C	no connection
27	GND	Return current path	28	N/C	no connection
29	PCIE_RX1_N	PCIe differential data input signals	30	N/C	no connection
31	PCIE_RX1_P	PCIe differential data input signals	32	N/C	no connection
33	GND	Return current path	34	N/C	no connection
35	PCIE_TX1N	PCIe differential data output signals	36	N/C	no connection
37	PCIE_TX1P	PCIe differential data output signals	38	DEVSLP/NC	internal pull up to VCC3V3_SYS with 10K
39	GND	Return current path	40	I2C2_SCL	1.8V I2C clock signal
41	PCIE_RX0_N	PCIe differential data input signals	42	I2C2_SDA	1.8V I2C data signal
43	PCIE_RX0_P	PCIe differential data input signals	44	GPIO2_A2_PCIE_ALERT#	1.8V GPIO signal
45	GND	Return current path	46	N/C	no connection
47	PCIE_TX0N	PCIe differential data output signals	48	N/C	no connection
49	PCIE_TX0P	PCIe differential data output signals	50	GPIO2_A4_PCIE_RESET#	1.8V GPIO signal
51	GND	Return current path	52	CLKREQ#/NC	internal pull down to GND with 0R
53	PCIE_REF_CLKN	differential reference clock out for PCIe peripheral	54	GPIO2_A3_PCIE_WAKE#	1.8V GPIO signal
55	PCIE_REF_CLKP	differential reference clock out for PCIe peripheral	56	N/C	no connection
57	GND	Return current path	58	N/C	no connection
59	Connector Key	Connector Key	60	Connector Key	Connector Key
60	Connector Key	Connector Key	61	Connector Key	Connector Key
62	Connector Key	Connector Key	63	Connector Key	Connector Key
64	Connector Key	Connector Key	65	Connector Key	Connector Key
66	Connector Key	Connector Key	67	N/C	no connection
68	RTC_CLKO_SOC	1.8V 32.768KHz clock output	69	N/C	no connection
70	VCC3V3_SYS	3.3V Power output	71	GND	Return current path
72	VCC3V3_SYS	3.3V Power output	73	GND	Return current path
74	VCC3V3_SYS	3.3V Power output	75	GND	Return current path

• ADC interface Pin Spec

ADC input rang : 0~1.8V

Pin#	Assignment
1	GND
2	VCC_1V8
3	ADC_IN0
4	ADC_IN2
5	ADC_IN3

• Cooling Fan interface Pin Spec

Connector P/N: JST GH connector，BM03B-GHS-TBT

Pin#	Assignment	Description
1	GND	0V
2	12V	12V output ,controlled by GPIO4_C6/PWM1
3	GPIO2_A6_FAN_TACH	connect to tachometer output signal , or float

• Debug UART Pin Spec

3V level signals, 1500000bps

Pin#	Assignment	Description
1	GND	0V
2	VCC5V0_SYS	5V power output
3	UART2DBG_TX	output
4	UART2DBG_RX	intput

• Power Jack

• DC-12V/2A IN, 5.5*2.1mm Power Jack

• Power Key

Plug in 12V power at power jack, then press the Power Key ( > 0.5s ) to boot NanoPC-T4.

• USB Port

USB Type-C port has 2A overcurrent protection.

USB 3.0 port has 2A overcurrent protection.

Two USB 2.0 host port share 2A overcurrent protection.

• BOOT Key

Press BOOT key to prevent the board from eMMC booting, making the board enter MASKROM mode.

• RTC

RTC backup current is 27uA.

Connector P/N: Molex 53398-0271

Notes

1. The Power Jack is the only power input port. All power pins at other ports are output.
2. How to make T4(1802) start automatically when power is plugged in
3. For more details refer to Schematics

4.2 Board Dimension

For more details refer to the CAD document: NanoPC-T4_1802_Drawing(dxf).zip

5 Get Started

5.1 Essentials You Need

Before starting to use your NanoPC-T4 get the following items ready

• NanoPC-T4
• Type-C cable
• TF Card: Class 10 or Above, minimum 8GB SDHC
• USB to serial adapter(optinal, for debugging or access from PC host)
• A DC 12V/2A power is a must
• HDMI monitor or LCD
• USB keyboard, mouse and possible a USB hub(or a TTL to serial board)
• A host computer running Ubuntu 18.04 64-bit system

5.2 Install OS

5.2.1 Downloads

5.2.1.1 Official image

Visit download link to download official image files (in the "01_Official images" directory).
The table below lists all official images, the word 'XYZ' in image filename meaning:

• sd: Use it when you need to boot the entire OS from the SD card
• eflasher: Use it when you need to flash the OS to eMMC via TF card
• usb: Use it when you need to flash the OS to eMMC via USB

Icon	Image Filename	Version	Description	Kernel Version
	rk3399-XYZ-android10-YYYYMMDD.img.zip	10	Android 10	4.4.y
	rk3399-XYZ-android8-YYYYMMDD.img.zip	8.1	Android 8.1	4.4.y
	rk3399-XYZ-android7-YYYYMMDD.img.zip	7.1.2	Android 7.1.2	4.4.y
	rk3399-XYZ-debian-bullseye-minimal-4.19-arm64-YYYYMMDD.img.gz	bullseye	Debian 11 Desktop, LXDE desktop, no pre-installed recommended software, supports hardware acceleration	4.19.y
	rk3399-XYZ-debian-bullseye-desktop-4.19-arm64-YYYYMMDD.img.gz	bullseye	Debian 11 Desktop, LXDE desktop, pre-installed mpv, smplayer and chromium brower, supports hardware acceleration	4.19.y
	rk3399-XYZ-debian-bookworm-core-4.19-arm64-YYYYMMDD.img.gz	bullseye	Debian 12 Core, No desktop environment, command line only	4.19.y
	rk3399-XYZ-ubuntu-focal-desktop-4.19-arm64-YYYYMMDD.img.gz	focal	Ubuntu 20.04 Desktop, LXQT desktop, pre-installed mpv, smplayer and chromium brower, supports hardware acceleration	4.19.y
	rk3399-XYZ-friendlydesktop-bionic-4.4-arm64-YYYYMMDD.img.zip	bionic	64-bit FriendlyDesktop image file based on Ubuntu desktop 18.04 64bit	4.4.y
	rk3399-XYZ-friendlycore-focal-4.19-arm64-YYYYMMDD.img.gz	focal	64-bit FriendlyCore image file(Qt 5.10.0) based on Ubuntu core 20.04 64bit	4.19.y
	rk3399-XYZ-friendlycore-bionic-4.4-arm64-YYYYMMDD.img.gz	bionic	64-bit FriendlyCore image file(Qt 5.10.0) based on Ubuntu core 18.04 64bit	4.4.y
	rk3399-XYZ-lubuntu-desktop-xenial-4.4-armhf-YYYYMMDD.img.zip	xenial	Lubuntu Desktop(with Qt 5.10.0)	4.4.y
	rk3399-XYZ-ubuntu-noble-core-4.19-arm64-YYYYMMDD.img.gz	noble	64-bit Ubuntu Lite image file based on Ubuntu core 24.04 64bit	4.19.y
	rk3399-XYZ-openmediavault-6.1-YYYYMMDD.img.gz	Shaitan	OpenMediaVault NAS system, base on Debian 12	6.1.y
	rk3399-XYZ-buildroot-4.19-arm64-YYYYMMDD.img.gz	--	Buildroot image file with Qt5-wayland (base on Rockchip Linux SDK)	4.19.y
	rk3399-XYZ-friendlywrt-21.02-YYYYMMDD.img.gz	21.02	FriendlyWrt, based on OpenWrt 21.02	6.1.y
	rk3399-XYZ-friendlywrt-21.02-docker-YYYYMMDD.img.gz	21.02	FriendlyWrt with Docker, based on OpenWrt 21.02	6.1.y
	rk3399-XYZ-friendlywrt-23.05-YYYYMMDD.img.gz	23.05	FriendlyWrt, based on OpenWrt 23.05	6.1.y
	rk3399-XYZ-friendlywrt-23.05-docker-YYYYMMDD.img.gz	23.05	FriendlyWrt with Docker, based on OpenWrt 23.05	6.1.y
Other Image
	Github Actions - FriendlyWrt	21.02,23.05	FriendlyWrt	6.1.y
	rk3399-XYZ-multiple-os-YYYYMMDD-25g.img.gz	-	It contains multiple OS image files, making it convenient for testing different operating systems, this image disables automatic flashing at startup; you will need to manually select the OS to flash.

5.2.1.2 Tools (optional)

Visit download link to download tools (in the "05_Tools" directory).

5.2.2 Flashing the OS to the microSD card

Follow the steps below:

• Get an 8G microSD card;
• Visit download linkto download image files (in the "01_Official images/01_SD card images" directory);
• Download the win32diskimager tool (in the "05_Tools" directory), or use your preferred tool;
• Extract the .gz format compressed file to get the .img format image file;
• Run the win32diskimager utility under Windows as administrator. On the utility's main window select your SD card's drive, the wanted image file and click on "write" to start flashing the SD card.
• Take out the SD and insert it to NanoPC-T4's microSD card slot;
• Power on NanoPC-T4 and it will be booted from your TF card, some models may require pressing the Power button to start;

5.2.3 Install OS to eMMC

5.2.3.1 Option 1: Install OS via TF Card

This method firstly boots a mini Linux from a TF card and then automatically runs an EFlasher utility to install the OS to eMMC. You can connect your system to an HDMI monitor and watch its progress.
This is optional. You can watch its progress by observing its LEDs as well:

By default, flashing starts automatically upon power-up, so be sure to back up the data in eMMC. If you don't want it to start automatically, you can use image file with a filename containing the words 'multiple-os' and manually select the OS you want to flash on the interface.

5.2.3.1.1 Flash Official OS to eMMC

Follow the steps below:

• Get an SDHC card with a minimum capacity of 8G
• Visit download linkto download image files (in the "01_Official images/02_SD-to-eMMC images" directory) and win32diskimager tool (in the "05_Tools" directory);
• Extract the .gz format compressed file to get the .img format image file;
• Run the win32diskimager utility under Windows as administrator. On the utility's main window select your SD card's drive, the wanted image file and click on "write" to start flashing the SD card.
• Eject your SD card and insert it to NanoPC-T4’s microSD card slot.
• Turn on NanoPC-T4, it will boot from the SD card and automatically run EFlasher to install the OS to the board’s eMMC.
• After flashing is complete, eject the SD card from NanoPC-T4, NanoPC-T4 will automatically reboot and boot from eMMC.

5.2.3.1.2 Flash third party OS (Image file) to eMMC

• Auto Install (Default Behavior)

1) Download an “eflasher” firmware from network drive(in the "01_Official images/02_SD-to-eMMC images" directory), extract it and install it to a TF card ;
2) Eject and insert the TF card to your PC, after a “FriendlyARM” device shows up(Under Linux, it is a “FriendlyARM” directory), copy the image file ending with .raw or .gz into the directory (Note: if your file is in .img format, please rename it to .raw format).
3) Open the eflasher.conf file on the TF card, set “autoStart=” to the name of your image file, such as:

autoStart=openwrt-rockchip-armv8_nanopi-ext4-sysupgrade.img.gz

In addition to third-party image, official image files which with the '-sd-' word in the filename are also supported, for example: rk3NNN-sd-friendlywrt-21.02-YYYYMMDD.img.gz
4) Eject the TF card, insert the TF card to NanoPC-T4, power it on it will automatically install your firmware. You can watch the installation progress by observing the LEDs’ status.

5.2.3.2 Option 2: Install OS on Web Page

Get a TF card which has been installed with FriendlyWrt, log in FriendlyWrt on the web page, click on “System” ->”eMMC Tools”. Click on “Select file” to select your wanted image file, either an official image (filename containing '-sd-') or a third party image. The file should be a “.gz” or “.img” file.
After a file is selected, click on “Upload and Write” to start installing an OS.

After installation is done, eject the SD card, the system will automatically reboot and load the OS from eMMC. After the OS begins to load, if the system LED is flashing and the network LED is on, it means the the OS has loaded successfully. If the OS is FriendlyWrt, you can click on “Go to Homepage” to enter the homepage.
For official OS, you need select the file with the filename containing '-sd-', for example: rk3NNN-sd-friendlywrt-21.02-YYYYMMDD.img.gz, the compression file only supports the .gz format. If the file is too large, you can compress it into .gz format before uploading.

5.2.3.3 Option 3: Install OS via USB

5.2.3.3.1 Step 1: Install USB Driver and Tools/Utilities

Download a driver file DriverAssitant_v5.12.zip under the “tools” directory from network drive, extract and install it.
Under the same directory, download a utility RKDevTool_Release_v2.84.zip and extract it.

5.2.3.3.2 Step 2: Connect NanoPC-T4 to PC and Enter Installation Mode

Press and hold the “Mask” key, Use a USB cable, connect NanoPC-T4 to a PC，After the status LED has been on for at least 3 seconds, release the Mask key;

5.2.3.3.3 Step 3: Install image to eMMC

A firmware in general is packaged in either of the two options: the first is an whole image (ie, update.img) which is often offered by third party developers, the second is that an image is packaged and placed in multiple partition images. FriendlyElec offers an image in the latter option.

• Option 1: Install whole image (ie, update.img)
  

On a PC which has the extracted RKDevTool_Release_v2.84 utility, go to the RKDevTool_Release_v2.84 directory, run the RKDevTool.exe file. If everything works, you will see a “Found a new Maskrom device” message on the utility;
Go to “Upgrade Firmware(升级固件)”, click on “Firmware(固件)”, select your wanted image file, and click on “Upgrade(升级)” to install. After installation is done, your board will reboot automatically and load the system from eMMC;

• Option 2: Install OS that is packaged & placed in multiple partition images
  

Go to network drive to download your needed package and extract it (in the "01_Official images/03_USB upgrade images). After it is extracted, you will see some utilities and a configuration file under the directory. double click on RKDevTool.exe, you will see a “Found a new Maskrom device” message on the utility. Click on the “Execute”, wait a moment and it will be installed. After installation is done your system will automatically reboot and load the system from eMMC.

5.3 The Boot order between eMMC and SD card

By default, the system will be booted from the TF card first, but this is not the case under all conditions. This section will explain all situations in detail;

Refer to rockchip official document [1], there are two types of loader program:
1) U-Boot TPL/SPL (i.e. upsream U-Boot, also called mainline U-Boot)
2) Rockchip MiniLoader

Things to note:
1) FriendlyELEC's image uses Rockchip MiniLoader
2) The third-party image usually uses U-Boot TPL/SPL

The following situations will always start from eMMC:
If the system in the eMMC, or the system in the TF card uses the first Loader type U-Boot TPL/SPL, it will always boot from the eMMC;
If you want to boot from the TF card, there are the following methods:
Method 1: Clear the Loader on the eMMC, the clearing method is as follows, after starting from the eMMC, enter the following command on the command line to clear the Loader on the eMMC:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/mmcblk2 bs=8M count=1

Method 2: Insert the TF card, Press Maskrom Key (or short-circuit the Maskrom contacts) and then power on (need to keep the short-circuit for about 3 seconds), it will start from the TF card

The summary is as follows:

6 Access hardware

6.1 Access Serial Interface

For now only UART4 is available for users:

Serial Interface	Serial Device
UART0	Used by Bluetooth
UART1	Used by Gbps Ethernet
UART2	Used by Serial Debug Port
UART3	Used by Gbps Ethernet
UART4	Available, device name is /dev/ttyS4 (note: this is only applicable for ROM released after 20180618)

7 Work with Debian11 Desktop

7.1 Introduction to Debian11 Desktop

Debian11 Desktop is a light-weighted debian desktop system，it has the following features：

• Uses LXDE as default desktop;
  
• Mali GPU-based OpenGL support;
  
• Support Rockhip MPP video hard coding and hard decoding;
  
• Pre-installed mpv and smplayer, both support 4K video hardware decoding;
  
• Pre-installed Chromium browser, support vpu/gpu hardware acceleration (video hard decoding limited to h264/mp4 format);
  
• Compatible with Plex Server and Docker;
  

7.2 Account & Password

Regular Account:
    User Name: pi
    Password: pi

Root:
    the root user account is disabled by default, you may configure the root password through the 'sudo passwd root' command.

7.3 View IP address

Since the Debian Bullseye hostname is the hardware model by default, you can use the ping command to get the IP address:ping NanoPC-T4

7.4 Connect to Debian via SSH

Run the following commandssh pi@NanoPC-T4
The default password is: pi

7.5 Update Software Packages

$ sudo apt-get update

7.6 Install x11vnc Server on Debian for Remote Access

7.6.1 Install x11vnc server

The following command to install x11vnc server:

sudo apt-get install x11vnc

7.6.2 Set your password

sudo x11vnc -storepasswd /etc/x11vnc.pwd

7.6.3 Setup x11vnc server with systemd auto start up

Create service configuration file:

sudo vi /lib/systemd/system/x11vnc.service

Let’s copy and paste the following configuration into our newly create service file:

[Unit]
Description=Start x11vnc at startup.
Requires=display-manager.service
After=syslog.target network-online.target
Wants=syslog.target network-online.target
 
[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/usr/bin/x11vnc -display :0 -forever -loop -noxdamage -repeat -rfbauth /etc/x11vnc.pwd -rfbport 5900 -shared -capslock -nomodtweak
ExecStop=/usr/bin/x11vnc -R stop
Restart=on-failure
 
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

The following commands to reload the systmd system and to enable and start the x11vnc service:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable x11vnc.service
sudo systemctl start x11vnc

7.6.4 Testing remote access

Start the VNC client software, input IP:5900 to connect:

7.7 Install the kernel-header package

sudo dpkg -i /opt/linux-headers-*.deb

try to compile a kernel module:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install git gcc make bc
git clone https://github.com/RinCat/RTL88x2BU-Linux-Driver.git
cd RTL88x2BU-Linux-Driver
make -j$(nproc)
sudo make install
sudo modprobe 88x2bu

7.8 Change time zone

7.8.1 Check the current time zone

timedatectl

7.8.2 List all available time zones

timedatectl list-timezones

7.8.3 Set the time zone (e.g. Shanghai)

sudo timedatectl set-timezone Asia/Shanghai

7.9 Change startup LOGO and Wallpaper

7.9.1 Change startup LOGO

Replace the following two files in the kernel source code directory and recompile the kernel：
kernel/logo.bmp
kernel/logo_kernel.bmp
Or use the script to operate, as shown below：

• Download scripts:

git clone https://github.com/friendlyarm/sd-fuse_rk3399.git -b kernel-4.19 --single-branch
cd sd-fuse_rk3399

• Compile kernel and repackage firmware

convert files/logo.jpg -type truecolor /tmp/logo.bmp
convert files/logo.jpg -type truecolor /tmp/logo_kernel.bmp
sudo LOGO=/tmp/logo.bmp KERNEL_LOGO=/tmp/logo_kernel.bmp ./build-kernel.sh debian-bullseye-desktop-arm64
sudo ./mk-sd-image.sh debian-bullseye-desktop-arm64
sudo ./mk-emmc-image.sh debian-bullseye-desktop-arm64

Note: If your system is not debian-bullseye-desktop-arm64, please specify according to the actual situation

7.9.2 Change Wallpaper

Modify the following configuration file:

/home/pi/.config/pcmanfm/LXDE/desktop-items-0.conf

7.10 Soft Factory Reset

Execute the following command in a terminal:

sudo firstboot && sudo reboot

7.11 Start the program automatically at startup(For example Kodi)

Put the desktop file in the ~/.config/autostart/ directory, for example：

mkdir ~/.config/autostart/
cp /usr/share/applications/kodi.desktop ~/.config/autostart/

7.12 Disable auto-mounting

sudo systemctl mask udisks2
sudo reboot

7.13 Setup Chinese language and Input method

7.13.1 Setup Chinese language

Enter the following command and select 'zh_CN.UTF-8':

sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales

Add environment variables to .bashrc:

echo "export LC_ALL=zh_CN.UTF-8" >> ~/.bashrc
echo "export LANG=zh_CN.UTF-8" >> ~/.bashrc
echo "export LANGUAGE=zh_CN.UTF-8" >> ~/.bashrc

Reboot device:

sudo reboot

7.13.2 Installing Chinese input method

Enter the following command to install fcitx and Pinyin input method:

sudo apt update
sudo apt-get install fcitx fcitx-pinyin
sudo apt-get install im-config
sudo apt-get install fcitx-table*
sudo apt-get install fcitx-ui-classic fcitx-ui-light
sudo apt-get install fcitx-frontend-gtk2 fcitx-frontend-gtk3 fcitx-frontend-qt4
sudo apt-get remove --purge scim* ibus*
sudo reboot

After reboot, press Ctrl+Space to switch between Chinese and English input methods, and the input method icon will appear in the upper right corner, right-click the input method icon in the upper right corner to switch input methods in the pop-up menu, as shown below:

7.14 Installing Plex Multimedia Server

Visit the Plex website: https://www.plex.tv/media-server-downloads/
On the download page, select the category "Plex Media Server", choose "Linux" for the platform and "Ubuntu(16.04+)/Debian(8+) - ARMv8" for the version,
After downloading the deb package, use the dpkg command to install the package:

sudo dpkg -i plexmediaserver_1.31.0.6654-02189b09f_arm64.deb

After installation, login to the Plex server by typing the following URL into your computer browser: http://IP地址:32400/web/

7.15 Install Docker on Debian

Please refer to: How to Install Docker on Debian

7.16 How to test NPU

Please refer to: NPU

7.17 WiFi Connection

7.17.1 Gui

Click on the icon on the top right in the Debian's main window, select your wanted WiFi hotspot and proceed with prompts

7.17.2 Console

Please visit: Use NetworkManager to configure network settings

7.18 Cancel auto-login

Edit file:

sudo vim /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf

Comment out the following two lines (insert # in front of them):

autologin-user=pi
autologin-user-timeout=0

7.19 Test OpenGL ES

You can test it by clicking on the Terminator icon to start a commandline utility in the System Tools and run the following commands:

glmark2-es2

7.20 HDMI/DP LCD Resolution

Open the system's menu and go to Perferences -> Monitor Settings to customize your settings.
Recommended resolution: 1920x1080@60Hz

7.21 Adjust HDMI overscan

Open the command line terminal and enter the command to operate, Note:
1) You need to login to the desktop;
2) If you are using ssh terminal, please use the same username as the desktop login. The default is pi. You cannot use the root user. you also need to assign the DISPLAY variable:

export DISPLAY=:0.0

7.21.1 Query which resolutions the display supports

xrandr -q

7.21.2 Set resolution

For example set to 1920X1080@60Hz:

xrandr --output HDMI-1 --mode 1920x1080 --refresh 60

7.21.3 Adjust the HDMI overscan

For example, the transformation scaling horizontal coordinates by 0.8, vertical coordinates by 1.04 and moving the screen by 35 pixels right and 19 pixels down:

xrandr --output HDMI-1 --transform 0.80,0,-35,0,1.04,-19,0,0,1

7.21.4 Automatic adjustment at boot

Edit ~/.config/autostart/lxrandr-autostart.desktop，Write the full xrandr command to the key at the beginning of "Exec= as shown below：

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Name=LXRandR autostart
Comment=Start xrandr with settings done in LXRandR
Exec=sh -c 'xrandr --output HDMI-1 --mode 1920x1080 --refresh 50 --transform 1.04,0,-35,0,1.05,-30,0,0,1'
OnlyShowIn=LXDE

7.22 Chromium web browser

7.22.1 GPU

Chromium web browser has enabled hardware acceleration by default, supports WebGL, and can view hardware acceleration details by entering the URL chrome://gpu, as shown below:

7.22.2 VPU

Play a video in the browser, then use fuser on the command line to view the mpp device node to confirm that the vpu interface is being called:

pi@FriendlyElec:~$ fuser /dev/mpp_service
/dev/mpp_service:     3258

If there is no content output from the fuser command, it means software decoding.

7.23 Test hardware encoding

mpi_enc_test -w 1920 -h 1080 -t 7 -f 0 -o test.h264 -n 300
export XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/run/user/0
ffplay test.h264

7.23.1 Check Supported Hardware Decoding Formats

Enter about://gpu in your browser's address bar and scroll to the bottom of the page to view the "Video Acceleration Information" table.
After playing a video, enter about://media-internals in your browser's address bar to check if hardware decoding was enabled for the most recent playback.

8 Work with Debian10 Desktop

• Refer to：
  • Debian Buster

9 Work with FriendlyDesktop

Arduino

Firefox

Scratch

FriendlyDesktop is a light-weighted Ubuntu desktop system. It is based on LXDE and has the following features:
    Latest Version － Based on Ubuntu 18.04 64
    Various Development Utilities － It is compatible with FriendlyCore and has integrated an optimized Qt5.10, QtCreator and Arduino IDE.
    Light-weighted － it consumes relatively less CPU resources than a common desktop system. When a system's RAM is sufficient it can achieve much better performance.
    Less Power Consumption － it consumes relatively less power or resources than a common desktop system to achieve the same performance.
    Compact and Neat － its desktop is based on GTK+ 2 and it supports multiple languages.
    Easy to Use － its GUI looks similar to MS Windows'.
    Customizable － Users can customize LXDE's GUI.
    Compatible － it is compatible with freedesktop.org.
FriendlyELEC has optimized support for Mali GPU and VPU in FriendlyDesktop for RK3399 and integrated drivers for X.org. FriendlyDesktop supports Hardware Cursor, OpenGL graphic acceleration, 4K video playing with hardware decoding.

9.1 Account & Password

Regular Account:

   User Name: pi
   Password: pi

Root:

   User Name: root
   Password: fa

9.2 WiFi Connection

Click on the icon on the top right in the FriendlyDesktop's main window, select your wanted WiFi hotspot and proceed with prompts

9.3 HDMI/DP LCD Resolution

Open the system's menu and go to Perferences -> Monitor Settings to customize your settings.
Recommended resolution: 1920x1080@60Hz

9.4 Adjust HDMI overscan

Open the command line terminal and enter the command to operate, Note:
1) You need to login to the desktop;
2) If you are using ssh terminal, please use the same username as the desktop login. The default is pi. You cannot use the root user. you also need to assign the DISPLAY variable:

export DISPLAY=:0.0

9.4.1 Query which resolutions the display supports

xrandr -q

9.4.2 Set resolution

For example set to 1920X1080@60Hz:

xrandr --output HDMI-1 --mode 1920x1080 --refresh 60

9.4.3 Adjust the HDMI overscan

For example, the transformation scaling horizontal coordinates by 0.8, vertical coordinates by 1.04 and moving the screen by 35 pixels right and 19 pixels down:

xrandr --output HDMI-1 --transform 0.80,0,-35,0,1.04,-19,0,0,1

9.4.4 Automatic adjustment at boot

Edit ~/.config/autostart/lxrandr-autostart.desktop，Write the full xrandr command to the key at the beginning of "Exec= as shown below：

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Name=LXRandR autostart
Comment=Start xrandr with settings done in LXRandR
Exec=sh -c 'xrandr --output HDMI-1 --mode 1920x1080 --refresh 50 --transform 1.04,0,-35,0,1.05,-30,0,0,1'
OnlyShowIn=LXDE

9.5 eDP LCD Display Rotation

If you want to rotate an eDP LCD's display you can do it by commanding "xrotate.sh" to rotate its display to 90/180/270 degrees. You can rotate display clockwise by 90 degrees by running the following command as root. This command calls lightdm to make your change effective immediately:

sudo xrotate.sh -m CW -r

For more details about its options you can run "xrotate -h".
Note: this command doesn't support HDMI display's rotation. If you want to rorate an HDMI's display you need to refer to X11's tech documents and make changes in "/etc/X11/xorg.conf".

Note: when you play a video with hardware decoding your player's display window doesn't rotate with your LCD's display

9.6 Test OpenGL ES

You can test it by clicking on the Terminator icon to start a commandline utility in the System Tools and run the following commands:

taskset -c 4-5 glmark2-es2

9.7 4K Video Playing

9.7.1 Play with Qt Player with Hardware Decoding

FriendlyDesktop has integrated a Qt5-VideoPlayer utility. This utility has support for Rockchip's gstreamer plug-in and supports 4K video playing with hardware decoding. You can start it by following the steps below: On FriendlyDesktop's main window open "Sound & Video" and click on "Qt5-VideoPlayer".

On the player's main window click on the bottom left's "Open" button to load a video file and double-click on its name on the file list to start video playing. Here is how it looks like. You can set the display window to full screen and adjust the volume:

Qt5-VideoPlayer source code: https://github.com/friendlyarm/rk-player-qt

9.7.2 Play with Linux Command

You can play it by running the following command in a commandline utility:

gst-player.sh

By default its voice will be output to audio jack. You can locate this script by commanding "which gst-player.sh". You can customize its behavior by making changes in this script.

9.8 Work with USB Camera

Insert the USB camera (such as Logitech C270/C920) into the development board. Double click the "USB Camera" icon on desktop will pop up the luvcview gui (need to use the 2019/05/11+ version firmware).
the luvcview tool is an open source software that you can compile yourself:

git clone https://github.com/ksv1986/luvcview
cd luvcview
make

View the usage of luvcview:

./luvcview -h

Parameter Description:

luvcview version 0.2.1
Usage: uvcview [-h -d -g -f -s -i -c -o -C -S -L -l -r]
-h print this message
-d /dev/videoX use videoX device
-g use read method for grab instead mmap
-w disable SDL hardware accel.
-f video format default jpg others options are yuv jpg
-i fps use specified frame interval
-s widthxheight use specified input size
-c enable raw frame capturing for the first frame
-C enable raw frame stream capturing from the start
-S enable raw stream capturing from the start
-o avifile create avifile, default video.avi
-L query valid video formats
-l query valid controls and settings
-r read and set control settings from luvcview.cfg

To preview USB camera (640x360@30fps), you can use the following command:

./luvcview -d /dev/video8 -i 30 -s 640x360

As you can see from the output of luvcview, hardware acceleration has been turned on:

pi@NanoPC-T4:/etc/xrdp$ luvcview -d /dev/video8 -i 30 -s 640x360
luvcview version 0.2.1
 interval: 30 fps
Hardware acceleration available
video /dev/video8

9.9 File Transfer with Bluetooth

Click on the "Preferences" in the main window's menu to start Bluetooth Manager and click on "Search" to search surrounding Bluetooth devices. Click on your wanted device, pair the device with your board and you will be able to do file transfer, here is how it looks like:

9.10 Install OpenCV

OpenCV has been pre-installed in FriendlyCore/FriendlyDesktop (Version after 201905) and does not require manual installation.
Please refre this link: https://github.com/friendlyarm/install-opencv-on-friendlycore/blob/rk3399/README.md

9.11 Develop Qt Applications

FriendlyDesktop has a Qt 5.10.0 which supports RK3399's OpenGL ES and Gstreamer 1.0 hardware acceleration and a QtCreator IDE which is ready and can be used to compile and run applications. Here is how it looks like:

When running the Qt app, you need to specify the platform parameter to xcb as follows:

./HelloQt --platform xcb

9.12 WiringPi and Python Wrapper

• WiringPi for RK3399
• WiringPi-Python for RK3399

9.13 Switch audio default output device

9.13.1 View the current default output device

On the terminal of the non-root user, enter the following command:

pactl info -vvv

The information displayed contains the following, indicating that the current audio output is directed to the headset:

Default Sink: alsa_output.platform-rt5651-sound.stereo-fallback

The information displayed contains the following, indicating that the current audio output is to HDMI:

Default Sink: alsa_output.platform-hdmi-sound.stereo-fallback

9.13.2 Set headphone jack as the default output device

On the terminal of the non-root user, enter the following command:

pactl set-default-sink  alsa_output.platform-rt5651-sound.stereo-fallback

Set default volume to 20%:

pactl -- set-sink-volume alsa_output.platform-rt5651-sound.stereo-fallback 20%

9.13.3 Set hdmi as the default output device

On the terminal of the non-root user, enter the following command:

pactl set-default-sink  alsa_output.platform-hdmi-sound.stereo-fallback

9.13.4 View settings have taken effect

cat /var/lib/pulse/*-default-sink

9.13.5 Temporary switching during playback

This method is only valid for the current playback process:
Open the menu "Sound & Video" -> "PulseAudio Volume Control", click the "Built-in Audio Stereo" button on the interface to switch between different output devices, such as switching between HDMI and headphone jack.

9.14 Play RTSP video stream (or IP Camera)

Open a command line terminal and enter the following command:

gst-launch-1.0 rtspsrc location="rtsp://admin:12345@192.168.1.120:554/live/main" ! rtph264depay ! decodebin ! rkximagesink

Change the address after rtsp:// to the real address.

9.15 Chromium web browser

Chromium web browser has enabled hardware acceleration by default, supports WebGL, and can view hardware acceleration details by entering the URL chrome://gpu, as shown below:

9.16 Screen saver and auto sleep related settings

The screen saver configuration file is /etc/xdg/autostart/xset_command.desktop. The default factory settings are that the screen saver and DPMS are both closed. You can change the configuration by modifying this file.

9.17 Install Scratch

enter the following command:

sudo apt-get install scratch:arm64

9.18 Install Arduino IDE

enter the following command:

sudo apt-get install arduino:arm64

9.19 Start the program automatically at startup

Put the desktop file in the ~/.config/autostart/ directory, for example：

cp /usr/share/applications/org.qt-project.qtcreator.desktop ~/.config/autostart/

9.20 Login to the desktop as the root user

Edit the /root/.profile file：

sudo vim /root/.profile

Replace with the following:

if [ -n "$BASH_VERSION" ]; then
    if [ -f "$HOME/.bashrc" ]; then
	. "$HOME/.bashrc"
    fi
fi
if [ -d "$HOME/bin" ] ; then
    PATH="$HOME/bin:$PATH"
fi

Run the following command to modify the lightdm configuration file and change the automatically logged-in user name to root:

sudo sed -i 's/autologin-user=pi/autologin-user=root/g' /usr/share/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/20-defaultsession.conf

Run the reboot command to restart:

sudo reboot

If you want to log in, the desktop icons and configuration are the same as the pi user, you can copy the relevant directory from the /home/pi directory:

sudo rm -rf /root/Desktop /root/Pictures /root/.config
sudo cp -af /home/pi/Desktop /home/pi/Pictures /home/pi/.config /root/
sudo chown root:root /root/Desktop /root/Pictures /root/.config

9.21 Using NVME SSD on FriendlyDesktop

Please see this article: How to Initialize and Format New SSD And HDD

9.22 How to setup WiFiAP on FriendlyDesktop

Please see this article: Template:Linux-Create-WiFiAP

10 Work with FriendlyCore

10.1 Introduction

FriendlyCore is a Ubuntu core based OS which doesn't have X Desktop. Its current version is 18.04

FriendlyCore targets enterprise users and is customized for industrial applications. FriendlyCore and Ubuntu base target different users. FriendlyCore has both a commandline utility and a two GUI utilities:
1）Qt 5.10.0 cuustomized for ROCKCHIP3399. It supports GPU and VPU acceleration and has modules like: QtQuick/QtWebEngine/QtMultimedia/WebGL and three display plug-ins:KMS, EGLFS and XCB;
2) Xorg system. It can run X11 applications and supports hardware acceleration;

FriendlyCore for RK3399 has the following features:

• supports FriendlyElec's 7"LCD with capacitive touch - HD702. If a board is connected to both an LCD and an HDMI monitor the LCD and the HDMI monitor can be set to display either differently or the same;
• supports Gstreamer 1.0 multi-media framework;
• supports hard encoding video playing with either commandline utility or Qt player;
• supports Qt5 WebGL;
• supports Qt5 VNC and runs a Qt application as a VNC Server allowing remote control;
• supports bluetooth. It has preinstalled bluez packages;

10.2 System Login

• If your board is connected to an HDMI monitor you need to use a USB mouse and keyboard.
• If you want to do kernel development you need to use a serial communication board, ie a PSU-ONECOM board, which will

You can use a USB to Serial on NanoPC-T4：

• FriendlyCore User Accounts:

Non-root User:

   User Name: pi
   Password: pi

Root:

   User Name: root
   Password: fa

The system is automatically logged in as "pi". You can do "sudo npi-config" to disable auto login.

• Update packages

$ sudo apt-get update

10.3 Configure System with npi-config

The npi-config is a commandline utility which can be used to initialize system configurations such as user password, system language, time zone, Hostname, SSH switch , Auto login and etc. Type the following command to run this utility.

$ sudo npi-config

Here is how npi-config's GUI looks like:

10.4 Develop Qt Application

The Qt 5.10.0 FriendlyELEC ported for RK3399 supports the following plug-ins:KMS, EGLFS and XCB. All these three plug-ins support OpenGL ES and GPU hardware acceleration but in different ways:

• KMS - it calls Linux kernel's DRM interface to display
  
• EGLFS - it calls OpenGL ES interface to display
  
• XCB - it runs on X11 server and is integrated in X11 windows system
  

Three plug-ins support different Qt features and here is a table:

Plug-in	OpenGL ES	QtWebEngine	QtMultimedia	Video Playing with Hardware Decoding	Different Display
KMS	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes
EGLFS	Yes	No	Yes	No	No
XCB	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

We recommend to use KMS or XCB.

FriendlyCore has four scripts for setting Qt environmental variables for users and here is a table:

Script	Comment
/usr/bin/setqt5env-kms	set kms' environmental variables
/usr/bin/setqt5env-eglfs	set eglfs' environmental variables
/usr/bin/setqt5env-xcb	set xcb's environmental variables
/usr/bin/setqt5env-nogui	set environmental variables for a system without a Qt GUI

For instance, if you want to use KMS to display you can run the following commands:

. setqt5env-kms
./apps

(Note:there is a space between '.' and 's')

10.4.1 Setup Qt Development Envronment

FriendlyELEC developed two methods for RK3399 to cross-compile a Qt program:

• 1:Use Docker. For more details you can refer to github :http://github.com/friendlyarm/friendlyelec-ubuntu18-docker
• 2:Setup a local cross-compiler. You need to run a Ubuntu 18.04 64-bit OS and you can refer to :How to Build and Install Qt Application for FriendlyELEC Boards/zh

10.4.2 Qt Demo

FriendlyCore has several Qt demo programs:

• Qt QML: CinematicExperience

CinematicExperience is a utility for selecting a video file and it is developed with Qt QML.
This demo uses Qt QML's various features and runs very smoothly on RK3399. This performance is achieved by hardware and software optimization.
You can start it in a commandline utility by running the following commands:

cd /opt/Qt5_CinematicExperience
./run.sh

Here is what it looks like:

• QQt WebEngine: web browser

Qt WebEngine uses Chromium and supports HTML5.
You can start it by running the following commands:

cd /opt/qt5-brower
./run.sh

Here is what it looks like:

Note:Qt WebEngine depends on the Xcb plug-in.

• Qt Different Display

This demo shows that when a board is connected to an HDMI monitor and an eDP LCD these two devices display differently. You can start it by running the following commands:

cd /opt/qt5-multi-screen-demo
./run.sh

Here is what it looks like:

• Qt Multimedia: qt5-player with hard decoding

The qt5-player works with Rockchip's gstreamer plug-in and supports 4K video playing. Since Rockchip's plug-in only supports output images to an X11 window the qt5-player needs to use XCB for display.
You can start the demo by running the following commands:

cd /opt/qt5-player
./run.sh

Here is what it looks like. You can set it to display in full-screen and adjust the voice's volume:

• Qt WebGL demo: nmapper

Qt WebGL allows you to remotely access a Qt program running on your board.
Before you run the demo you need to connect your board to the internet and run the following commands:

cd /opt/qt5-nmapper
./run-with-webgl.sh

You can open a browser on another device, type the IP address of your board on the browser's address bar, enter and you will be able to see a Qt GUI. Here is what it looks like:

• Qt VNC demo: Smart home applicance GUI

Qt VNC allows you to run a program as a VNC Server on your board and you can access the program from a VNC client on another device. This program can be developed with either QtWidgets or QML.
You can start it by running the following commands:

cd /opt/qt5-smarthome
./run-with-vnc.sh

Start a VNC viewer on a smart phone or mobile device and type your board's IP address and port number 5900. For instance if your board's IP address is 192.168.1.100 you can type "192.168.1.100:5900", enter and you will see the following GUI:

10.4.3 Play with Dual Cameras under Qt

This sample shows how to connect dual cameras to the board and play with them. Before run the sample make sure you connect dual cameras and an LCD to your board. In general popular UVC cameras should work however we suggest users use the following modules which we have tested:

Index	Model
1	Logitech C270
2	Logitech C270i
3	Logitech C922 Pro

Run the following commands:

cd /opt/dual-camera
./run.sh

Here is what you expect to observe:

10.5 Setup Program to AutoRun

You can setup a program to autorun on system boot with npi-config:

sudo npi-config

Go to Boot Options -> Autologin -> Qt/Embedded, select Enable and reboot.

10.6 Extend TF Card's Section

When FriendlyCore is loaded the TF card's section will be automatically extended.You can check the section's size by running the following command:

$ df -h

10.7 Transfer files using Bluetooth

Take the example of transferring files to the mobile phone. First, set your mobile phone Bluetooth to detectable status, then execute the following command to start Bluetooth search.：

hcitool scan

Search results look like：

Scanning ...
    2C:8A:72:1D:46:02   HTC6525LVW

This means that a mobile phone named HTC6525LVW is searched. We write down the MAC address in front of the phone name, and then use the sdptool command to view the Bluetooth service supported by the phone：

sdptool browser 2C:8A:72:1D:46:02

Note: Please replace the MAC address in the above command with the actual Bluetooth MAC address of the mobile phone.
This command will detail the protocols supported by Bluetooth for mobile phones. What we need to care about is a file transfer service called OBEX Object Push. Take the HTC6525LVW mobile phone as an example. The results are as follows：

Service Name: OBEX Object Push
Service RecHandle: 0x1000b
Service Class ID List:
  "OBEX Object Push" (0x1105)
Protocol Descriptor List:
  "L2CAP" (0x0100)
  "RFCOMM" (0x0003)
    Channel: 12
  "OBEX" (0x0008)
Profile Descriptor List:
  "OBEX Object Push" (0x1105)
    Version: 0x0100

As can be seen from the above information, the channel used by the OBEX Object Push service of this mobile phone is 12, we need to pass it to the obexftp command, and finally the command to initiate the file transfer request is as follows：

obexftp --nopath --noconn --uuid none --bluetooth -b 2C:8A:72:1D:46:02 -B 12 -put example.jpg

Note: Please replace the MAC address, channel and file name in the above command with the actual one.

After executing the above commands, please pay attention to the screen of the mobile phone. The mobile phone will pop up a prompt for pairing and receiving files. After confirming, the file transfer will start.

Bluetooth FAQ：
1) Bluetooth device not found on the development board, try to open Bluetooth with the following command：

rfkill unblock 0

2) Prompt can not find the relevant command, you can try to install related software with the following command：

apt-get install bluetooth bluez obexftp openobex-apps python-gobject ussp-push

10.8 WiFi

For either an SD WiFi or a USB WiFi you can connect it to your board in the same way. The APXX series WiFi chips are SD WiFi chips. By default FriendlyElec's system supports most popular USB WiFi modules. Here is a list of the USB WiFi modules we tested:

Index	Model
1	RTL8188CUS/8188EU 802.11n WLAN Adapter
2	RT2070 Wireless Adapter
3	RT2870/RT3070 Wireless Adapter
4	RTL8192CU Wireless Adapter
5	mi WiFi mt7601
6	5G USB WiFi RTL8821CU
7	5G USB WiFi RTL8812AU

You can use the NetworkManager utility to manage network. You can run "nmcli" in the commandline utility to start it. Here are the commands to start a WiFi connection:

• Change to root

$ su root

• Check device list

$ nmcli dev

Note: if the status of a device is "unmanaged" it means that device cannot be accessed by NetworkManager. To make it accessed you need to clear the settings under "/etc/network/interfaces" and reboot your system.

• Start WiFi

$ nmcli r wifi on

• Scan Surrounding WiFi Sources

$ nmcli dev wifi

• Connect to a WiFi Source

$ nmcli dev wifi connect "SSID" password "PASSWORD" ifname wlan0

The "SSID" and "PASSWORD" need to be replaced with your actual SSID and password.If you have multiple WiFi devices you need to specify the one you want to connect to a WiFi source with iface
If a connection succeeds it will be automatically setup on next system reboot.

For more details about NetworkManager refer to this link: Use NetworkManager to configure network settings

If your USB WiFi module doesn't work most likely your system doesn't have its driver. For a Debian system you can get a driver from Debian-WiFi and install it on your system. For a Ubuntu system you can install a driver by running the following commands:

$ apt-get install linux-firmware

In general all WiFi drivers are located at the "/lib/firmware" directory.

10.9 Ethernet Connection

If a board is connected to a network via Ethernet before it is powered on it will automatically obtain an IP with DHCP activated after it is powered up. If you want to set up a static IP refer to: Use NetworkManager to configure network settings。

10.10 WiringPi and Python Wrapper

• WiringPi for RK3399
• WiringPi-Python for RK3399

10.11 Custom welcome message

The welcome message is printed from the script in this directory：

/etc/update-motd.d/

For example, to change the FriendlyELEC LOGO, you can change the file /etc/update-motd.d/10-header. For example, to change the LOGO to HELLO, you can change the following line：

TERM=linux toilet -f standard -F metal $BOARD_VENDOR

To:

TERM=linux toilet -f standard -F metal HELLO

10.12 Modify timezone

For exampe, change to Shanghai timezone:

sudo rm /etc/localtime
sudo ln -ls /usr/share/zoneinfo/Asia/Shanghai /etc/localtime

10.13 Select the system default audio device

You can set the system default audio device by following the steps below.
Use the following command to view all the sound card devices in the system (Note: different development boards will have different results):

pi@NanoPi:~$ aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: realtekrt5651co [realtek,rt5651-codec], device 0: ff880000.i2s-rt5651-aif1 rt5651-aif1-0 []
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: rockchiphdmi [rockchip,hdmi], device 0: ff8a0000.i2s-i2s-hifi i2s-hifi-0 []
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 2: ROCKCHIPSPDIF [ROCKCHIP,SPDIF], device 0: ff870000.spdif-dit-hifi dit-hifi-0 []
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

As you can see, the following sound card devices are available on the hardware:

Sound card device	Sound card number	Description
realtekrt5651co	0	Realtek sound card's default output interface (through 3.5mm jack interface)
rockchiphdmi	1	HDMI
ROCKCHIPSPDIF	2	SPDIF (Note: temporarily unavailable, because the hardware is not exported)...

To configure the audio output to the 3.5mm jack, modify the configuration file /etc/asound.conf and modify it to the following:

defaults.pcm.card 0
defaults.pcm.device 0

To configure to output audio to HDMI, change the defaults.pcm.card above to 1.
Note that some boards do not have a Realtek sound card (no 3.5mm jack interface), so the card number of the HDMI device will be 0, so the configuration should be based on the result of the aplay -l command.

10.14 Change the behavior of the PWM fan

By default, the speed of the fan is dynamically adjusted according to the CPU temperature. If you need to let the fan run, you can modify the script /usr/bin/start-rk3399-pwm-fan.sh to the following:

#!/bin/bash
 
echo 0 > /sys/class/pwm/pwmchip1/export
sleep 1
echo 0 > /sys/class/pwm/pwmchip1/pwm0/enable
echo 50000 > /sys/class/pwm/pwmchip1/pwm0/period
echo 1 > /sys/class/pwm/pwmchip1/pwm0/enable
echo 45000 > /sys/class/pwm/pwmchip1/pwm0/duty_cycle

10.15 Run the X11 application

FriendlyCore system built-in lightweight Xorg，although there is no window manager, you can still run a single X-Windows application，For example, the program to run is ~/YourX11App，use the following command：

. /usr/bin/setqt5env-xcb
startx ~/YourX11App -geometry 1280x800

Note that there is a space between "." and /usr/bin/setqt5env-xcb. In addition, the resolution after -geometry should be changed to the actual resolution of your screen.

10.16 Mpv hardware decoding video player

FriendlyCore comes pre-installed with the ffmpeg-based command line video player mpv, which also includes libmpv.
The mpv player supports Rockchip MPP video decoder, so it supports 4K hardware decoding. There are many parameters of mpv. In order to simplify the use, we provide a script start-mpv. After simplification, there is only one parameter: video file name, as follows:

start-mpv /home/pi/demo.mp4

It should be noted that the pi user needs to log in during playback, because there are no mpv related settings in other users' directories. Of course, you can copy one from the pi user directory. The mpv settings file is stored in the following path：

/home/pi/.config/mpv/mpv.conf

The contents of the mpv.conf file are as follows：

vo=gpu
gpu-context=drm
hwdec=rkmpp
demuxer-max-bytes=41943040
demuxer-max-back-bytes=41943040
drm-osd-plane-id=1
drm-video-plane-id=0
audio-device=alsa/default:CARD=rockchiphdmi

These will be passed as parameters to mpv. When the value of hwdec is rkmpp, it means using hardware decoding, audio-device is used to specify the audio output device, and the default output is to HDMI. You can use the following command to query which audio devices are in the system：

mpv --audio-device=help

Another important parameter is drm-osd-size. When playing video in full screen, drm-osd-size is specified as the resolution of the screen. This parameter is automatically obtained by start-mpv and passed to mpv, start-mpv script will do one more important thing. It needs to ensure that the libmali library in the system uses the correct version, because mpv renders the image through gbm, so libmali.so needs to use this version: libmali-midgard-t86x -r14p0-gbm.so, which means that this version of mpv can only be used under FriendlyCore, can not be used under X11 Desktop.
Mpv official use guide：https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv/wiki

10.17 Change startup LOGO

Replace the following two files in the kernel source code directory and recompile the kernel：
kernel/logo.bmp
kernel/logo_kernel.bmp
Or use the script to operate, as shown below：

git clone https://github.com/friendlyarm/sd-fuse_rk3399
cd sd-fuse_rk3399
convert files/logo.jpg -type truecolor /tmp/logo.bmp
convert files/logo.jpg -type truecolor /tmp/logo_kernel.bmp
LOGO=/tmp/logo.bmp KERNEL_LOGO=/tmp/logo_kernel.bmp ./build-kernel.sh eflasher
LOGO=/tmp/logo.bmp KERNEL_LOGO=/tmp/logo_kernel.bmp ./build-kernel.sh friendlydesktop-arm64
./mk-emmc-image.sh friendlydesktop-arm64

11 Features applicable to FriendlyDesktop and FriendlyCore

11.1 Using Camera on Linux (MIPI Camera OV13850 & OV4689, and webcam logitect C920)

Hardware Setting: The Camera module can be connected to a MIPI port:

FriendlyELEC provides some scripts use to test a camera's functions. You can run it in a commandline to test picture taking and video recording.
You may try update this script to the lastest version by using the following commands:

cd /tmp/
git clone https://github.com/friendlyarm/gst-camera-sh.git
sudo cp gst-camera-sh/*.sh /usr/bin/

There are three scripts:
gst-camera.sh: preview, photo and video of a single camera
dual-camera.sh: preview two cameras
stop-gst-camera.sh: stop preview

11.1.1 Options in "gst-camera.sh"

Options	Comment
--index or -i	Camera's index, it can be either 0 or 1. When two cameras are connected to a board you need to specify 1 to access the second camera.
--action or -a	Specify an action, it can be "preview" to preview, "photo" to take a picture or "video" to record video
--output or -o	Specify an output file to save a picture when taking a picture or video file when recording video
--verbose or -v	If it is specified as "yes" it will output the complete command when "gst-launch-1.0" is called
-x	Using the rkximagesink plugin, the preview image will be output to the X11 window for the FriendlyDesktop and Lubuntu systems
-g	Using the glimagesink plugin, the preview image will be output to the X11 window for the FriendlyDesktop and Lubuntu systems
-k	Using the kmssink plugin, the preview image will be output directly to the screen for the FriendlyCore system

The script gst-camera.sh will automatically recognize OV13850, OV4689 and C920 camera, and then pass the appropriate parameters to gst-launch-1.0.

11.1.2 Usage of gst-camera.sh

• Preview

gst-camera.sh --action preview

• Picture Taking

You can run the following command to take a picture and save it as a "1.jpg" file,

gst-camera.sh -a photo -o 1.jpg

• Preview and Record

You can run the following command to record video and save your video to a "1.ts" file. Hardware encoding is activated when it is recording video.

gst-camera.sh --action video -output 1.ts

• Show Complete Command

If you add the "--verbose yes" option it will show a complete gsteamer command.

gst-camera.sh --action video --output 1.ts --verbose yes

Here is the complete gsteamer command you will see:

gst-launch-1.0 rkisp num-buffers=512 device=/dev/video0 io-mode=1 ! \
    video/x-raw,format=NV12,width=1280,height=720,framerate=30/1 ! \
        mpph264enc ! queue ! h264parse ! mpegtsmux ! \
        filesink location=/tmp/camera-record.ts

• Preview dual camera

Connect two mipi cameras, or one mipi camera and one usb camera (tested only: Logitech C920 pro), call the following command：

dual-camera.sh

Note: It is recommended to test this on FriendlyDesktop.

11.1.3 gst-launch-1.0 parameter description

Preview camera on FriendlyDesktop：

gst-launch-1.0 rkisp device=/dev/video1 io-mode=4 ! video/x-raw,format=NV12,width=1280,height=720,framerate=30/1 ! rkximagesink

Important parameters

parameter	description
device	preview device(selfpath): /dev/video1 and /dev/video5, picture device(mainpath): /dev/video0 and /dev/video4, webcam device: /dev/video8
io-mode	1: memory map, 4:dmabuf
rkximagesink/glimagesink/kmssink	rkximagesink for FriendlyDesktop, kmssink for FriendlyCore, glimagesink for webcam on FriendlyDesktop

11.1.4 Access the camera in OpenCV

MIPI camera：

cv.VideoCapture('rkisp device=/dev/video1 io-mode=4 ! video/x-raw,format=NV12,width=640,height=480,framerate=30/1 ! videoconvert ! appsink', cv.CAP_GSTREAMER)

USB camera：

cv.VideoCapture('rkisp device=/dev/video8 io-mode=4 ! videoconvert ! video/x-raw,format=NV12,width=640,height=480,framerate=30/1 ! videoconvert ! appsink', cv.CAP_GSTREAMER)

Please refer to the sample code here for details：https://github.com/friendlyarm/install-opencv-on-friendlycore/tree/rk3399/examples

11.1.5 Camera application tutorial: Push video stream

Please refre this guide: How to setup RTMP server on NanoPC-T4

11.1.6 Reference resource

http://blog.iotwrt.com/media/2017/10/01/camera/ http://www.360doc.com/content/16/1019/17/496343_599664458.shtml

11.2 How to install and use docker

11.2.1 How to Install Docker

Run the following commands：

wget https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/dists/bionic/pool/stable/arm64/containerd.io_1.2.6-3_arm64.deb
wget https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/dists/bionic/pool/stable/arm64/docker-ce-cli_19.03.2~3-0~ubuntu-bionic_arm64.deb
wget https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/dists/bionic/pool/stable/arm64/docker-ce_19.03.2~3-0~ubuntu-bionic_arm64.deb
sudo dpkg -i containerd.io_1.2.6-3_arm64.deb
sudo dpkg -i docker-ce-cli_19.03.2~3-0~ubuntu-bionic_arm64.deb
sudo dpkg -i docker-ce_19.03.2~3-0~ubuntu-bionic_arm64.deb

11.2.2 Test Docker installation

Test that your installation works by running the simple docker image:

git clone https://github.com/friendlyarm/debian-jessie-arm-docker
cd debian-jessie-arm-docker
./rebuild-image.sh
./run.sh

11.3 Using ffmpeg (video hardware decoding)

Both FriendlyCore and FriendlyDesktop systems are built-in ffmpeg, with bin file, static libraries, and header files, all stored in the /usr/ffmpeg-rkmp directory.
ffmpeg supports the RockChip MPP video decoder, for details, please refer to: https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/HWAccelIntro

Test the decoding performance of 4K video:

/usr/ffmpeg-rkmp/bin/ffmpeg -benchmark -loglevel 48 -vcodec h264_rkmpp -i 4K-Chimei-inn-60mbps.mp4 -map 0:v:0 -f null -

The results are shown below:

To play the video, you can use the ffmpeg-based player mpv. The 4K video used for the above test can be found in the test-video directory of the network disk. The network address is http://dl.friendlyelec.com/nanopct4.

12 Connect NVME SSD High Speed Hard Disk

12.1 Detection of SSD

root@FriendlyELEC:~# cat /proc/partitions 
major minor  #blocks  name
   1        0       4096 ram0
 259        0  125034840 nvme0n1

If there is a nvme0n1 device node it means an SSD is recognized.

12.2 Partition of SSD

To mount an SSD under Linux we re-partition it as one section by running the following command:

(echo g; echo n; echo p; echo 1; echo ""; echo ""; echo w; echo q) | fdisk /dev/nvme0n1

If you want to re-partition it to multiple sections you can run "fdisk /dev/nvme0n1". For more detail about this command refer to the fdisk's manual.

12.3 Format Section to EXT4

After an SSD is successfully partitioned you can check its sections by running "cat /proc/partitions". The /dev/nvme0n1p1 section is used to store data:

root@FriendlyELEC:~# cat /proc/partitions
major minor  #blocks  name
 
   1        0       4096 ram0
 259        0  125034840 nvme0n1
 259        2  125033816 nvme0n1p1

The following command formats a section to ext4:

mkfs.ext4 /dev/nvme0n1p1

12.4 Auto Mount SSD on System Startup

Before we mount an SSD's section you need to know its Block ID. You can check it by running "blkid":

blkid /dev/nvme0n1p1
/dev/nvme0n1p1: UUID="d15c4bbf-a6c3-486f-8f81-35a8dbd46057" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="887628f0-01"

Add a "Block ID" to "/etc/fstab" and here is what it looks like

UUID=<Block ID> /media/nvme ext4 defaults 0 0

You need to replace <Block ID> with the UUID obtained by running "blkid". To mount the SSD in our example we made the "/etc/fstab" file as follows:

UUID=d15c4bbf-a6c3-486f-8f81-35a8dbd46057 /media/nvme ext4 defaults 0 0

We want to mount an SSD to "/media/nvme" but this directory doesn't exist. Therefore we create it and change its access right by running the following commands:

mkdir -p /media/nvme
chmod 777 /media/nvme

Run "mount" to check if the SSD is mounted successfully:

mount /media/nvme

You can reboot your board to check if your SSD will be automatically mounted:

reboot

12.5 Fan speed setting

The fan uses PWM to automatically adjust the speed. It determines the fan switch and the fan speed according to the current CPU temperature. If the current CPU temperature is not high, the fan will be turned off or rotated at a lower speed (reducing unnecessary environmental noise). ),
If you want the fan to start working immediately, you can use the following command to get the CPU running at high load immediately. This is one way to test if the fan works：

cpuburn

if you want to change the speed regulation behavior of the fan, please modify the following file:

/usr/bin/fa-fancontrol.sh # Entry, called by the pwm-fan.service service to control the fan in two ways, either by the kernel or by the user space by control the PWM.
/usr/bin/fa-fancontrol-direct.sh # Script to control the fan from user space by control the PWM to control the fan speed, etc. This script is called from the above script.

Need to cancel the boot automatically start the fan (such as you need to connect the other PWM device), please enter the following command：

systemctl stop pwm-fan
systemctl disable pwm-fan

Or delete the two files below：

/etc/systemd/system/pwm-fan.service
/etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/pwm-fan.service

12.6 Using 4G Module EC20 on Linux

Please see this article: How to use 4G Module on NanoPC-T4

13 Buildroot Linux

Buildroot is a simple, efficient and easy-to-use tool to generate embedded Linux systems through cross-compilation. It contains a boot-loader, kernel, rootfs, various libraries and utilities(e.g. qt, gstreamer, busybox etc).

FriendlyELEC's Buildroot is based on Rockchip's version which is made with linux-sdk and maintained with git. FriendlyELEC's version is synced with Rockchip's version;

• Rockchip's Buildroot: https://github.com/rockchip-linux/buildroot
  
• Buildroot's official site: https://buildroot.org

Here is what Buildroot for rockchip looks like

For a more detailed description of the Buildroot system, please refer to: Buildroot

14 Work with Lubuntu

See here: Lubuntu desktop 16.04 for RK3399
Using NVME SSD on Lubuntu: How to Initialize and Format New SSD And HDD

15 Work with Android 8.1

FriendlyElec provides a full Android8.1 BSP for NanoPC-T4. The source code is hosted at gitlab.com and is open source. The BSP supports GPU and VPU hardware acceleration.

15.1 Connect MIPI Camera to NanoPC-T4

FriendlyElec developed a MIPI camera CAM1320 for board and it works under Android. You can use this camera to take pictures and record video. The operation is straightforward. You just need to connect the camera at your board's MIPI interface, boot your board to Android and start Android's camera app.
The board has two MIPI interfaces: one front camera and the other rear camera：
MIPI-CSI1 <--> Android rear camera
MIPI-CSI2 <--> Android front camera

How to connect：

15.2 Use dual MIPI camera preview and video

Download the sample source code below from github and compile and run it：

git clone https://github.com/friendlyarm/Dual-Camera.git -b working-branch

After the application is installed, you need to Set Android permissions to make the demo run normally. The method is enter system ui: Settings -> Apps & notifications -> Dual Camera -> Permissions, Select the following permissions：

Camera
Microphone
Storage

The gui looks like this：

Click the "CAPTURE VIDEO" button on the gui to record the video (two cameras at the same time), and the video file will be saved to the following location.：/storage/emulated/0/Download/dualcamera_h264.mp4. Known issue：
Recorded video file will play faster than normal, may need to adjust some parameters of mediacodec.

15.3 Change system language

The default system language of Android system is English. For example, if we want to set it to Chinese, the steps are as follows: 1) Go to Android settings：Settings -> System -> Languages & Input -> Languages;
2）Click "Add a language", Select "简体中文", and then select "中国";
3) At this time, there will be two languages, Chinese and English. Drag the Chinese item to the top of the list. Note that if you are using a mouse, drag it by placing the mouse pointer on the right side of the list item. On the icon and then press the middle mouse button to drag;

15.4 Android8.1 hardware access

You can use the FriendlyThings SDK to access and control hardware resources on the motherboard in the Android App, such as Uart, SPI, I2C, GPIO and other interfaces. For details, please refer to the following two documents.：

• Android: FriendlyThings for Rockchip
• Android: FriendlyThings APIs

15.5 Android Neural Networks SDK Sample

Android8.1 BSP comes pre-installed with Rockchip's Android NN SDK for Android 8.1, supporting GPU acceleration.。
Sample program for Android NN pre-installed in the Android8 firmware we provide：TfLiteCameraDemo，This is a MobileNet classifier demo using Rockchip AndroidNN GPU acceleration，The camera module is required to be connected to the motherboard during operation. The USB camera and CSI camera are supported，The sample program is launched by clicking the "TfLiteCameraDemo" icon on the home page. The running effect is as follows：


For a detailed description of the Android NN SDK, you can refer to this document：[RK3399_Android8.1_AndroidNN_SDK_V1.0_20180605发布说明.pdf]
TfLiteCameraDemo sample source code download link：[TfLiteCameraDemo source code]

15.6 Using the adb

1. The first time you start the system, if you need to change the system files, you need to turn off security verification (note: apk installation does not need to be closed), and restart after turning off security verification

adb root
adb disable-verity
adb reboot

2. After restarting, get root and remount /system to enable write permissions

adb root
adb remount

3. Upload a file

adb push example.txt /system/

15.7 HDMI resolution and overscan setting

If an HDMI display device is connected, go to Android Settings -> Display -> Advanced -> HDMI & Rotation to set it up.

HDMI Resolution	The default is Auto, you can manually set the display resolution, up to 4K resolution
Screen Zoom	click the four arrow buttons in the middle to adjust the zoom
Display Rotation	for horizontal and vertical screen switching

15.8 Screen rotation

go to Android Settings -> Display -> Advanced -> HDMI & Rotation to set it up.

Use the following command in shell to test screen rotation (Settings not saved)：

wm rotation 90

15.9 Hide Navigation bar

Enter Settings -> Accessibility, Turn on immersive mode, and then open an Android application, For example: Lightning, it will be in full screen mode.

15.10 Switch audio output channel

You can configure the audio output to the HDMI or headphone jack, Setting interface entry method: Android Settings -> Accessibility -> Force audio output. If the Force audio output menu item is gray, that is, it is in an unselectable state, the hardware you are using will automatically detect the headphone plug-in status and automatically switch the audio channel without setting.

15.11 Adjust the volume of the recording

1) First use the amix command to adjust the volume of the recording through the serial port or the adb shell with root privileges, for example:

Amix "IN2 Boost"
Amix "ADC Capture Volume"

The above command is used to view the current settings.
2) After debugging, modify the value of the corresponding configuration item in the rt5651_main_mic_capture_controls array in the hardware/rockchip/audio/tinyalsa_hal/codec_config/rt5651_config.h file, compile the Android source code and test it.

15.12 Custom logo and boot animation

15.12.1 On/Off

Change:
BOOT_SHUTDOWN_ANIMATION_RINGING := false
to:
BOOT_SHUTDOWN_ANIMATION_RINGING := true
in device/rockchip/common/BoardConfig.mk file.

15.12.2 Boot animation

Create or replace the following files in the Android source code directory：
kernel/logo.bmp
kernel/logo_kernel.bmp
device/rockchip/common/bootshutdown/bootanimation.zip

15.12.3 Shutdown animation

Create or replace the following files in the Android source code directory：
device/rockchip/common/bootshutdown/shutdownanimation.zip

15.12.4 How to make animation

Please refre to：http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_4960586c0100vu5v.html

15.13 Remove Google Framework

If you don't need to use the google service, you can delete the Google framework to save system resources by deleting the following directory in the Android source code and recompiling Android:
vendor/google

15.14 Navigate Android with Remote Control

The NanoPC-T4 supports the FriendlyARM RC-100 remote control under Android. To get a better experience your can connect your T4 to an HDMI monitor and navigate Android.


Here is a table for the remote control's keys and corresponding functions:

Key	Function
Up	Navigate - Up
Down	Navigate - Down
Left	Navigate - Left
Right	Navigate - Right
OK	Confirm
-	Volume -
+	Volume +
Mute	Mute
Menu	Android Menu
Home	Android Home
Return	Android Return
F1	Pull-Down Android Message Bar
F2	Android Screenshot
F3	Switch between mouse and key

15.15 Work with USB Camera to Take Pictures and Record Video

FriendlyELEC's Android system supports picture taking and video recording with a USB camera, Android's camera app has these functions. When you use the app to take pictures or record video you need to be aware of the following two things:
1) Make sure your camera's resolution works. We suggest you try a camera with a lower CIF resolution first. If it works you may switch to a camera with a higher resolution:
;
2）A USB camera cannot work simultaneously with a MIPI camera. Plug and play is not supporter for camera modules. After you connect a camera to a board you need to reboot your board to enable the camera.

Here are the camera modules we tested: Logitech C270 and LogitechC922 PRO
In our test the resolution was 1080P when we used a Logitech C922 PRO to take pictures or record video.

15.16 Using 4G Module EC20 on Android

15.16.1 Hardware Setup

Connect an EC20 module to a USB to miniPCIe board and connect the board to an ARM board's USB Host. Here is a hardware setup:

Power on the board and you will be able to surf the internet with the 4G module like using an Android phone.

15.16.2 Activate EC20's GPS Functions

By default GPS functions are disabled in Android. If GPS functions are enabled in Android but no GPS module is detected Android will continuously output log messages. After an EC20 module is connected you can enable GPS functions.
To enable the GPS functions open the "vendor/quectel/ec20/BoardConfigPartial.mk" file and change the following line:

BOARD_HAS_GPS := false

to

BOARD_HAS_GPS := true

and recompile Android。

15.17 Using SSD on Android

15.17.1 Step1: Format SSD as ext4

These steps need to be operated under the LINUX system.

For the convenience of operation, please switch to the root user with the following command on the terminal:

su -

The default password for the root user is fa.

15.17.1.1 Detection of SSD

root@FriendlyELEC:~# cat /proc/partitions 
major minor  #blocks  name
   1        0       4096 ram0
 259        0  125034840 nvme0n1

If there is a nvme0n1 device node it means an SSD is recognized.

15.17.1.2 Partition of SSD

To mount an SSD under Linux we re-partition it as one section by running the following command:

(echo o; echo n; echo p; echo 1; echo ""; echo ""; echo w; echo q) | fdisk /dev/nvme0n1

If you want to re-partition it to multiple sections you can run "fdisk /dev/nvme0n1". For more detail about this command refer to the fdisk's manual.

15.17.1.3 Format partition to EXT4

After an SSD is successfully partitioned you can check its partitions by running "cat /proc/partitions". The /dev/nvme0n1p1 partition is used to store data:

root@FriendlyELEC:~# cat /proc/partitions
major minor  #blocks  name
 
   1        0       4096 ram0
 259        0  125034840 nvme0n1
 259        2  125033816 nvme0n1p1

The following command formats a section to ext4:

mkfs.ext4 /dev/nvme0n1p1 -L SSD

15.17.2 Step2: Auto Mount SSD on Android System Startup

Android will automatically mount the SSD as an external storage device. No additional settings are required. Open the built-in Files application of Android and you can see that the SSD device is mounted：

third-party software can recognize SSDs normally.

15.18 Fan speed setting

The fan uses PWM to achieve automatic speed regulation. It determines the fan switch and the fan speed according to the current CPU temperature. If the current CPU temperature is not high, the fan will be turned off or rotated at a lower speed (reducing unnecessary environment). Noise), if you want to change the fan's speed behavior, please modify the following files in the Android bsp source code：

device/rockchip/rk3399/nanopc-t4/pwm_fan.sh

Need to cancel the boot automatically start the fan (such as you need to connect other PWM devices), please modify the following files in the Android bsp source code：

device/rockchip/rk3399/init.rk3399.rc

After modifying the source code, you need to recompile Android.

16 Work with Android7.1

See here: Android7

17 How to Compile

17.1 Setup Development Environment

17.1.1 Method 1: Using docker to cross-compile

Please refre to docker-cross-compiler-novnc

17.1.2 Method 2: Setup build environment on the host machine

17.1.2.1 Install required packages

Install and run requirements ubuntu 20.04, install required packages using the following commands:

sudo apt-get -y update
sudo apt-get install -y sudo curl
sudo bash -c \
  "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/friendlyarm/build-env-on-ubuntu-bionic/master/install.sh)"

The following cross-compilers will be installed:

17.1.2.2 Setting the compiler path

Based on the table in the previous section, select the appropriate version of the compiler and add the compiler's path to PATH. For example, if you want to use the 11.3 cross-compiler, edit ~/.bashrc using vi and add the following content to the end:

export PATH=/opt/FriendlyARM/toolchain/11.3-aarch64/bin:$PATH
export GCC_COLORS=auto

Run the ~/.bashrc script to make it effective in the current commandline. Note: there is a space after ".":

. ~/.bashrc

To verify if the installation was successful：

$ aarch64-linux-gcc -v
Using built-in specs.
COLLECT_GCC=aarch64-linux-gcc
COLLECT_LTO_WRAPPER=/opt/FriendlyARM/toolchain/11.3-aarch64/libexec/gcc/aarch64-cortexa53-linux-gnu/11.3.0/lto-wrapper
Target: aarch64-cortexa53-linux-gnu
Configured with: /home/cross/arm64/src/gcc/configure --build=x86_64-build_pc-linux-gnu --host=x86_64-build_pc-linux-gnu --target=aarch64-cortexa53-linux-gnu --prefix=/opt/FriendlyARM/toolchain/11.3-aarch64 --exec_prefix=/opt/FriendlyARM/toolchain/11.3-aarch64 --with-sysroot=/opt/FriendlyARM/toolchain/11.3-aarch64/aarch64-cortexa53-linux-gnu/sysroot --enable-languages=c,c++ --enable-fix-cortex-a53-843419 --with-arch=armv8-a+crypto+crc --with-cpu=cortex-a53 --with-pkgversion=ctng-1.25.0-119g-FA --with-bugurl=http://www.friendlyelec.com/ --enable-objc-gc --enable-__cxa_atexit --disable-libmudflap --disable-libgomp --disable-libssp --disable-libquadmath --disable-libquadmath-support --disable-libsanitizer --disable-libmpx --with-gmp=/home/cross/arm64/buildtools --with-mpfr=/home/cross/arm64/buildtools --with-mpc=/home/cross/arm64/buildtools --with-isl=/home/cross/arm64/buildtools --enable-lto --enable-threads=posix --disable-libstdcxx-pch --enable-clocale=gnu --enable-libstdcxx-time=yes --with-default-libstdcxx-abi=new --enable-gnu-indirect-function --enable-gnu-unique-object --enable-default-pie --enable-linker-build-id --with-linker-hash-style=gnu --enable-plugin --enable-gold --with-libintl-prefix=/home/cross/arm64/buildtools --disable-multilib --with-local-prefix=/opt/FriendlyARM/toolchain/11.3-aarch64/aarch64-cortexa53-linux-gnu/sysroot --enable-long-long --enable-checking=release --enable-link-serialization=2
Thread model: posix
Supported LTO compression algorithms: zlib
gcc version 11.3.0 (ctng-1.25.0-119g-FA)

17.2 Build Openwrt/Friendlywrt

17.2.1 Download Code

Two versions are available, please choose as required:

17.2.1.1 FriendlyWrt 21.02

mkdir friendlywrt21-rk3399
cd friendlywrt21-rk3399
git clone https://github.com/friendlyarm/repo --depth 1 tools
tools/repo init -u https://github.com/friendlyarm/friendlywrt_manifests -b master-v21.02 \
        -m rk3399.xml --repo-url=https://github.com/friendlyarm/repo  --no-clone-bundle
tools/repo sync -c  --no-clone-bundle

17.2.1.2 FriendlyWrt 23.05

mkdir friendlywrt23-rk3399
cd friendlywrt23-rk3399
git clone https://github.com/friendlyarm/repo --depth 1 tools
tools/repo init -u https://github.com/friendlyarm/friendlywrt_manifests -b master-v23.05 \
        -m rk3399.xml --repo-url=https://github.com/friendlyarm/repo  --no-clone-bundle
tools/repo sync -c  --no-clone-bundle

17.2.2 First compilation step

./build.sh rk3399.mk  # or rk3399-docker.mk

All the components (including u-boot, kernel, and friendlywrt) are compiled and the sd card image will be generated, then execute the following command to generate the image file for installing the system into the emmc:

./build.sh emmc-img

After making changes to the project, the sd card image needs to be repackaged by running the following command:

./build.sh sd-img

17.2.3 Secondary compilation steps

cd friendlywrt
make menuconfig
rm -rf ./tmp
make -j${nproc}
cd ../
./build.sh sd-img
./build.sh emmc-img

17.2.4 Build u-boot only

./build.sh uboot

17.2.5 Build kernel only

./build.sh kernel

17.2.6 Build friendlywrt only

./build.sh friendlywrt

Or go to the friendlywrt directory and follow the standard openwrt commands. If you get an error with the above command, try using the following command to compile in a single thread:

cd friendlywrt
make -j1 V=s

17.3 Build Buildroot

please refer to: Buildroot

17.4 Build Other Linux

17.4.1 Kernel and u-boot versions

• Kernel git repo：https://github.com/friendlyarm/kernel-rockchip
• U-boot git repo：https://github.com/friendlyarm/uboot-rockchip
• The cross-compile toolchain is located in the path: /opt/FriendlyARM/toolchain/
• The SD-Fuse is a helper script to make bootable SD card image.
• Click on MBR and GPT in the table to view the partition layout (configuration file) for each system.

17.4.2 Build kernel linux-v4.4.y

This section applies to the following operating systems:

Clone the repository to your local drive then build:

git clone https://github.com/friendlyarm/kernel-rockchip --single-branch --depth 1 -b nanopi4-linux-v4.4.y kernel-rockchip
cd kernel-rockchip
export PATH=/opt/FriendlyARM/toolchain/6.4-aarch64/bin/:$PATH
touch .scmversion
# Load configuration
make ARCH=arm64 CROSS_COMPILE=aarch64-linux- nanopi4_linux_defconfig
# Optionally, if you want to change the default kernel config
# make ARCH=arm64 CROSS_COMPILE=aarch64-linux- menuconfig  
# Start building kernel
make ARCH=arm64 CROSS_COMPILE=aarch64-linux- nanopi4-images -j$(nproc)
# Start building kernel modules
mkdir -p out-modules
make ARCH=arm64 CROSS_COMPILE=aarch64-linux- INSTALL_MOD_PATH="$PWD/out-modules" modules -j$(nproc)
make ARCH=arm64 CROSS_COMPILE=aarch64-linux- INSTALL_MOD_PATH="$PWD/out-modules" modules_install
KERNEL_VER=$(make CROSS_COMPILE=aarch64-linux-gnu- ARCH=arm64 kernelrelease)
rm -rf $PWD/out-modules/lib/modules/${KERNEL_VER}/kernel/drivers/gpu/arm/mali400/
[ ! -f "$PWD/out-modules/lib/modules/${KERNEL_VER}/modules.dep" ] && depmod -b $PWD/out-modules -E Module.symvers -F System.map -w ${KERNEL_VER}
(cd $PWD/out-modules && find . -name \*.ko | xargs aarch64-linux-strip --strip-unneeded)

After the compilation, the following files will be generated:

Run your build:
Please refre to #Running the build

17.4.3 Build u-boot v2014.10

This section applies to the following operating systems:

Clone the repository to your local drive then build:

git clone https://github.com/friendlyarm/uboot-rockchip --single-branch --depth 1 -b nanopi4-v2014.10_oreo
cd uboot-rockchip
export PATH=/opt/FriendlyARM/toolchain/6.4-aarch64/bin/:$PATH
make CROSS_COMPILE=aarch64-linux- rk3399_defconfig
make CROSS_COMPILE=aarch64-linux-

After the compilation, the following files will be generated:

Installing the u-boot:
Please refre to #Running the build

17.4.4 Build kernel linux-v4.19.y

This section applies to the following operating systems:

Clone the repository to your local drive then build:

git clone https://github.com/friendlyarm/kernel-rockchip --single-branch --depth 1 -b nanopi4-v4.19.y kernel-rockchip
cd kernel-rockchip
export PATH=/opt/FriendlyARM/toolchain/11.3-aarch64/bin/:$PATH
touch .scmversion
# Configuring the Kernel
# Load default configuration
make ARCH=arm64 CROSS_COMPILE=aarch64-linux- nanopi4_linux_defconfig
# Optionally, load configuration for FriendlyWrt
# make ARCH=arm64 CROSS_COMPILE=aarch64-linux- nanopi4_linux_defconfig friendlywrt.config
# Optionally, if you want to change the default kernel config
# make ARCH=arm64 CROSS_COMPILE=aarch64-linux- menuconfig
# Start building kernel
make ARCH=arm64 CROSS_COMPILE=aarch64-linux- nanopi4-images -j$(nproc)
# Start building kernel modules
mkdir -p out-modules
make ARCH=arm64 CROSS_COMPILE=aarch64-linux- INSTALL_MOD_PATH="$PWD/out-modules" modules -j$(nproc)
make ARCH=arm64 CROSS_COMPILE=aarch64-linux- INSTALL_MOD_PATH="$PWD/out-modules" modules_install
KERNEL_VER=$(make CROSS_COMPILE=aarch64-linux-gnu- ARCH=arm64 kernelrelease)
rm -rf $PWD/out-modules/lib/modules/${KERNEL_VER}/kernel/drivers/gpu/arm/mali400/
[ ! -f "$PWD/out-modules/lib/modules/${KERNEL_VER}/modules.dep" ] && depmod -b $PWD/out-modules -E Module.symvers -F System.map -w ${KERNEL_VER}
(cd $PWD/out-modules && find . -name \*.ko | xargs aarch64-linux-strip --strip-unneeded)

After the compilation, the following files will be generated:

Run your build:
Please refre to #Running the build

17.4.5 Build kernel linux-v6.1.y

This section applies to the following operating systems:

Clone the repository to your local drive then build:

git clone https://github.com/friendlyarm/kernel-rockchip --single-branch --depth 1 -b nanopi-r2-v6.1.y kernel-rockchip
cd kernel-rockchip
export PATH=/opt/FriendlyARM/toolchain/11.3-aarch64/bin/:$PATH
touch .scmversion
# Configuring the Kernel
# Load default configuration
make CROSS_COMPILE=aarch64-linux-gnu- ARCH=arm64 nanopi4_linux_defconfig
# Optionally, load configuration for FriendlyWrt
# make CROSS_COMPILE=aarch64-linux-gnu- ARCH=arm64 nanopi4_linux_defconfig friendlywrt.config
# Optionally, if you want to change the default kernel config
# make CROSS_COMPILE=aarch64-linux-gnu- ARCH=arm64 menuconfig
# Start building kernel
make CROSS_COMPILE=aarch64-linux-gnu- ARCH=arm64 -j$(nproc)
# Start building kernel modules
mkdir -p out-modules && rm -rf out-modules/*
make CROSS_COMPILE=aarch64-linux-gnu- ARCH=arm64 INSTALL_MOD_PATH="$PWD/out-modules" modules -j$(nproc)
make CROSS_COMPILE=aarch64-linux-gnu- ARCH=arm64 INSTALL_MOD_PATH="$PWD/out-modules" modules_install
KERNEL_VER=$(make CROSS_COMPILE=aarch64-linux-gnu- ARCH=arm64 kernelrelease)
[ ! -f "$PWD/out-modules/lib/modules/${KERNEL_VER}/modules.dep" ] && depmod -b $PWD/out-modules -E Module.symvers -F System.map -w ${KERNEL_VER}
(cd $PWD/out-modules && find . -name \*.ko | xargs aarch64-linux-strip --strip-unneeded)

Pack the kernel.img and resource.img:

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/friendlyarm/sd-fuse_rk3399/kernel-6.1.y/tools/mkkrnlimg && chmod 755 mkkrnlimg
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/friendlyarm/sd-fuse_rk3399/kernel-6.1.y/tools/resource_tool && chmod 755 resource_tool
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/friendlyarm/sd-fuse_rk3399/kernel-6.1.y/prebuilt/boot/logo.bmp
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/friendlyarm/sd-fuse_rk3399/kernel-6.1.y/prebuilt/boot/logo_kernel.bmp
./mkkrnlimg arch/arm64/boot/Image kernel.img
mkdir kernel-dtbs
cp -f arch/arm64/boot/dts/rockchip/rk3399-nanopi-r4s.dtb kernel-dtbs/rk3399-nanopi4-rev09.dtb
cp -f arch/arm64/boot/dts/rockchip/rk3399-nanopi-r4s.dtb kernel-dtbs/rk3399-nanopi4-rev0a.dtb
cp -f arch/arm64/boot/dts/rockchip/rk3399-nanopi-r4se.dtb kernel-dtbs/rk3399-nanopi4-rev0b.dtb
cp -f arch/arm64/boot/dts/rockchip/rk3399-nanopc-t4.dtb kernel-dtbs/rk3399-nanopi4-rev00.dtb
./resource_tool --dtbname kernel-dtbs/*.dtb logo.bmp logo_kernel.bmp

After the compilation, the following files will be generated:

Run your build:
Please refre to #Running the build

17.4.6 Build u-boot v2017.09

This section applies to the following operating systems:

Clone the repository to your local drive then build:

git clone https://github.com/friendlyarm/rkbin --single-branch --depth 1 -b friendlyelec
git clone https://github.com/friendlyarm/uboot-rockchip --single-branch --depth 1 -b nanopi4-v2017.09
export PATH=/opt/FriendlyARM/toolchain/11.3-aarch64/bin/:$PATH
cd uboot-rockchip/
./make.sh nanopi4

After the compilation, the following files will be generated:

Run your build:
Please refre to #Running the build

17.4.7 Running the build

17.4.7.1 Install to target board

17.4.7.1.1 MBR partition

This section applies to the following operating systems:

The MBR partitioning is only used by the Linux v4.4 kernel. You can check the partition layout by clicking on this link: partmap. To write an image file, you can use the dd command. For example, in the parameter.template file, "0x00014000@0x00014000(kernel)" specifies that the kernel partition starts at 0x00014000, which is equivalent to 81920 in decimal. Therefore, the dd command should be as follows:

dd if=kernel.img of=/dev/mmcblk0 seek=81920

17.4.7.1.2 GPT partition

This section applies to the following operating systems:

The OS uses GPT partitions by default which is using the Linux v4.19 and Linux v5.15 kernel, you can use the dd command, but be careful to choose the right output device:

• The SD/TF Card device node: /dev/mmcblk0
  
• The eMMC device node: /dev/mmcblk2
  

The following is an example of how to update the kernel to eMMC:
Use the 'parted' command to view the partition layout:

parted /dev/mmcblk2 print

Sample outputs:

Model: MMC BJTD4R (sd/mmc)
Disk /dev/mmcblk2: 31.3GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt
Disk Flags:
 
Number  Start   End     Size    File system  Name      Flags
 1      8389kB  12.6MB  4194kB               uboot
 2      12.6MB  16.8MB  4194kB               trust
 3      16.8MB  21.0MB  4194kB               misc
 4      21.0MB  25.2MB  4194kB               dtbo
 5      25.2MB  41.9MB  16.8MB               resource
 6      41.9MB  83.9MB  41.9MB               kernel
 7      83.9MB  134MB   50.3MB               boot
 8      134MB   2500MB  2366MB  ext4         rootfs
 9      2500MB  31.3GB  28.8GB  ext4         userdata

as shown above, the resource partition is located at 5 and the kernel partition is located at 6. Use the dd command to write the resource.img and kernel.img files to these partitions, the commands are as follows:

dd if=resource.img of=/dev/mmcblk2p5 bs=1M
dd if=kernel.img of=/dev/mmcblk2p6 bs=1M

If you want to update u-boot:

dd if=uboot.img of=/dev/mmcblk2p1 bs=1M

To update new driver modules, copy the newly compiled driver modules to the appropriate directory under /lib/modules.

17.4.7.2 Packaging and creating an SD image

To create a new OS image file, you need to use the "sd-fuse" packaging tool.

"sd-fuse" is a collection of scripts that can be used to create bootable SD card images for FriendlyElec boards. Its main features include:

• Creation of root filesystem images from a directory
  
• Building of bootable SD card images
  
• Simple compilation of kernel, U-Boot, and third-party drivers
  

Please click on the following link to find out more:

17.4.7.3 USB flashing

Note: kernel v4.4.y is not supported

17.4.7.3.1 Linux

Reboot the board and enter loader mode with the following command:

sudo reboot loader

To flash U-Boot and kernel using the "upgrade_tool_v2.17_for_linux" tool, please use the following command:

sudo upgrade_tool di -k kernel.img
sudo upgrade_tool di -re resource.img
sudo upgrade_tool di -u uboot.img
sudo upgrade_tool RD

Note: "upgrade_tool" is a command-line tool provided by Rockchip for Linux operating systems (Linux_Upgrade_Tool).

17.5 Build the code using scripts

17.5.1 Download scripts and image files

git clone https://github.com/friendlyarm/sd-fuse_rk3399.git -b kernel-4.19
cd sd-fuse_rk3399
wget http://112.124.9.243/dvdfiles/RK3399/images-for-eflasher/friendlycore-focal-arm64-images.tgz
tar xvzf friendlycore-focal-arm64-images.tgz

17.5.2 Compile the kernel

Download the kernel source code and compile it. the relevant image files in the friendlycore-focal-arm64 directory will be automatically updated, including the kernel modules in the file system:

git clone https://github.com/friendlyarm/kernel-rockchip --depth 1 -b nanopi4-v4.19.y kernel-rk3399
KERNEL_SRC=$PWD/kernel-rk3399 ./build-kernel.sh friendlycore-focal-arm64

17.5.3 Compile the kernel headers

git clone https://github.com/friendlyarm/kernel-rockchip --depth 1 -b nanopi4-v4.19.y kernel-rk3399
MK_HEADERS_DEB=1 BUILD_THIRD_PARTY_DRIVER=0 KERNEL_SRC=$PWD/kernel-rk3399 ./build-kernel.sh friendlycore-focal-arm64

17.5.4 Compile the uboot

Download the uboot source code and compile it. the relevant image files in the friendlycore-focal-arm64 directory will be automatically updated:

git clone https://github.com/friendlyarm/uboot-rockchip --depth 1 -b nanopi4-v2017.09
UBOOT_SRC=$PWD/uboot-rockchip ./build-uboot.sh friendlycore-focal-arm64

17.5.5 Generate new image

Repackage the image file in the friendlycore-focal-arm64 directory into sd card image:

./mk-sd-image.sh friendlycore-focal-arm64

After the command is completed, the image is in the out directory, you can use the dd command to make the SD boot card, for example:

dd if=out/rk3399-sd-friendlycore-focal-4.19-arm64-YYYYMMDD.img of=/dev/sdX bs=1M

17.6 Building AOSP from source

17.6.1 Hardware and Software Requirements

• Your computer should have at least 16GB of RAM and 300GB of disk space. We recommend using a machine with 32GB of RAM and a large-capacity, high-speed SSD, and we do not recommend using virtual machines.
• If you encounter compilation errors, they may be caused by problems with the compilation environment. We recommend using the following Docker container for compilation: docker-cross-compiler-novnc.

17.6.2 Compile Android10

17.6.2.1 Download Android10 Source Code

There are two ways to download the source code:

• repo archive file on netdisk

Netdisk URL: Click here
File location on netdisk："07_Source codes/rk3399-android-10.git-YYYYMMDD.tar.xz" (YYYYMMDD means the date of packaging)
After extracting the repo package from the network disk, you need to execute the sync.sh script, which will pull the latest code from gitlab:

tar xf "/path/to/netdisk/07_Source codes/rk3399-android-10.git-YYYYMMDD.tar.xz"
cd rk3399-android-10
./sync.sh

• git clone from gitlab

NanoPC-T4 source code is maintained in gitlab, You can download it by running the following command:

git clone --recursive https://gitlab.com/friendlyelec/rk3399-android-10.git -b main

Note: If the following error "error: unknown option `recurse-submodules'" appears, please upgrade git to v2.0.0 or above.

17.6.2.2 Generate Image File

You can compile an Android source code and generate an image file (non-root user is recommended):

cd rk3399-android-10
./build-nanopc-t4.sh -F -M

If you need to include google apps, you need to set an environment variable and then compile, as shown below:

cd rk3399-android-10
export INSTALL_GAPPS_FOR_TESTING=yes
./build-nanopc-t4.sh -F -M

17.6.2.3 Make OTA Packages

If you need the support of A/B (Seamless) System Updates, you need to do the following:
a) Build your own update server for http download of update files;
b) Customize the Updater application, the code is located in packages/apps/Updater, let it connect and download file from your server;
c) Use the quick compilation script parameter -O or --ota to compile OTA Packages, as shown below:

cd rk3399-android-10
./build-nanopc-t4.sh -F -O -M

After the compilation is successfully completed, the OTA update related packages are located in the directory: rockdev/otapackage/ ，Please do not delete this directory.
After you have made some changes, compiling again with the parameter -O will generate ota-update-XXXXXXXX.zip, which is an incremental update package.
OTA Packages decides whether to generate incremental update package according to BUILD_NUMBER, for details, please refer to build-nanopc-t4.sh.
To disable the A/B feature, you can refer to the following to modify device/rockchip/rk3399/nanopc-t4/BoardConfig.mk, and then recompile uboot and android:

BOARD_USES_AB_IMAGE := false

17.6.2.4 Update System with New Image

After compilation is done a new image file will be generated in the "rockdev/Image-nanopc_t4/" directory under Android 10's source code directory. You can follow the steps below to update the OS in NanoPC-T4:
1) Insert an SD card which is processed with EFlasher to an SD card reader and insert this reader to a PC running Ubuntu. The SD card's partitions will be automatically mounted;
2) Copy all the files under the "rockdev/Image-nanopc_t4/" directory to the SD card's android10 directory in the "FRIENDLYARM" partition;
3) Insert this SD card to NanoPC-T4 and reflash Android
When flashing Android 10, EFlasher requires v1.3 or above. When flashing with Type-C, please use the tool AndroidTool v2.71 or Linux_Upgrade_Tool v1.49 provided by Rockchip.

17.6.3 Compile Android8.1

17.6.3.1 Download Android8.1 Source Code

There are two ways to download the source code:

• repo archive file on netdisk

Netdisk URL: Click here
File location on netdisk：sources/rk3399-android-8.1.git-YYYYMMDD.tgz (YYYYMMDD means the date of packaging)
After extracting the repo package from the network disk, you need to execute the sync.sh script, which will pull the latest code from gitlab:

tar xvzf /path/to/netdisk/sources/rk3399-android-8.1.git-YYYYMMDD.tgz
cd rk3399-android-8.1
./sync.sh

• git clone from gitlab

NanoPC-T4 source code is maintained in gitlab, You can download it by running the following command:

git clone https://gitlab.com/friendlyelec/rk3399-android-8.1 --depth 1 -b master

17.6.3.2 Generate Image File

You can compile an Android source code and generate an image file:

cd rk3399-android-8.1
./build-nanopc-t4.sh -F -M

17.6.3.3 Update System with New Image

After compilation is done a new image file will be generated in the "rockdev/Image-nanopc_t4/" directory under Android 8.1's source code directory. You can follow the steps below to update the OS in NanoPC-T4:
1) Insert an SD card which is processed with EFlasher to an SD card reader and insert this reader to a PC running Ubuntu. The SD card's partitions will be automatically mounted;
2) Copy all the files under the "rockdev/Image-nanopc_t4/" directory to the SD card's android8 directory in the "FRIENDLYARM" partition;
3) Insert this SD card to NanoPC-T4 and reflash Android
Here is an alternative guide to update OS: sd-fuse_rk3399

17.6.4 Compile Android7

17.6.4.1 Download Android7 Source Code

There are two ways to download the source code:

• repo archive file on netdisk

Netdisk URL: Click here
File location on netdisk：sources/rk3399-android-7.git-YYYYMMDD.tgz (YYYYMMDD means the date of packaging)
After extracting the repo package from the network disk, you need to execute the sync.sh script, which will pull the latest code from gitlab:

tar xvzf /path/to/netdisk/sources/rk3399-android-7.git-YYYYMMDD.tgz
cd rk3399-nougat
./sync.sh

• git clone from gitlab

NanoPC-T4 source code is maintained in gitlab, You can download it by running the following command:

git clone https://gitlab.com/friendlyelec/rk3399-nougat --depth 1 -b nanopc-t4-nougat

17.6.4.2 Generate Image File

You can compile an Android7 source code and generate an image file:

cd rk3399-nougat
./build-nanopc-t4.sh -F -M

17.6.4.3 Update System with New Image

After compilation is done a new image file will be generated in the "rockdev/Image-nanopc_t4/" directory under Android7's source code directory. You can follow the steps below to update the OS in NanoPC-T4:
1) Insert an SD card which is processed with EFlasher to an SD card reader and insert this reader to a PC running Ubuntu. The SD card's partitions will be automatically mounted;
2) Copy all the files under the "rockdev/Image-nanopc_t4/" directory to the SD card's android8 directory in the "FRIENDLYARM" partition;
3) Insert this SD card to NanoPC-T4 and reflash Android
Here is an alternative guide to update OS: sd-fuse_rk3399

18 Access hardware

18.1 Access Serial Interface

For now only UART4 is available for users:

Serial Interface	Serial Device
UART0	Used by Bluetooth
UART1	Used by Gbps Ethernet
UART2	Used by Serial Debug Port
UART3	Used by Gbps Ethernet
UART4	Available, device name is /dev/ttyS4 (note: this is only applicable for ROM released after 20180618)

19 Backup rootfs and create custom SD image (to burn your application into other boards)

19.1 Backup rootfs

Run the following commands on your target board. These commands will back up the entire root partition:

sudo passwd root
su root
cd /
tar --warning=no-file-changed -cvpzf /rootfs.tar.gz \
    --exclude=/rootfs.tar.gz --exclude=/var/lib/docker/runtimes \
    --exclude=/etc/firstuser --exclude=/etc/friendlyelec-release \
    --exclude=/usr/local/first_boot_flag --one-file-system /

Note: if there is a mounted directory on the system, an error message will appear at the end, which can be ignored.

19.2 Making a bootable SD card from a root filesystem

Run the following script on your Linux PC host, we'll only mention "debian-bullseye-desktop-arm64 os" for brevity, but you can apply the same process for every linux OS.

su root
git clone https://github.com/friendlyarm/sd-fuse_rk3399 --single-branch -b kernel-4.19
cd sd-fuse_rk3399
tar xvzf /path/to/netdrive/03_Partition\ image\ files/debian-bullseye-desktop-arm64-images.tgz
tar xvzf /path/to/netdrive/03_Partition\ image\ files/emmc-eflasher-images.tgz
scp pi@BOARDIP:/rootfs.tar.gz /rootfs.tar.gz
mkdir rootfs
tar xvzfp rootfs.tar.gz -C rootfs --numeric-owner --same-owner
./build-rootfs-img.sh rootfs debian-bullseye-desktop-arm64
./mk-sd-image.sh debian-bullseye-desktop-arm64
./mk-emmc-image.sh debian-bullseye-desktop-arm64 autostart=yes

20 Configuring kernel command line parameters (only support for kernel4.4)

20.1 eMMC Boot

Here are the steps:
Make an eflahser bootable SD card (use the firmware file starting with rk3xxxx-eflasher-)，
Insert the SD card into your computer, go to the SD card's OS-related directory, and edit the file parameter.txt, which is a text file containing command-line parameters，
Then boot from the SD card and burn the system to the eMMC.

20.2 SD Boot

To modify the command line parameters of the SD card, you need to repackage the SD card image file,
you can use the sd-fuse script we provide to assist packaging:

git clone https://github.com/friendlyarm/sd-fuse_rk3399.git -b master --single-branch
cd sd-fuse_rk3399
tar xvzf /path/to/netdrive/03_Partition\ image\ files/friendlydesktop-arm64-images.tgz
tar xvzf /path/to/netdrive/03_Partition\ image\ files/emmc-flasher-images.tgz
vim friendlydesktop-arm64/parameter.txt   # Edit command-line parameters
./mk-sd-image.sh friendlydesktop-arm64    # Repackage sd image file
./mk-emmc-image.sh friendlydesktop-arm64  # Repackage sd-to-emmc image file

21 More OS Support

21.1 DietPi

DietPi is a highly optimised & minimal Debian-based Linux distribution. DietPi is extremely lightweight at its core, and also extremely easy to install and use.
Setting up a single board computer (SBC) or even a computer, for both regular or server use, takes time and skill. DietPi provides an easy way to install and run favourite software you choose.
For more information, please visit this link https://dietpi.com/docs/.

DietPi supports many of the NanoPi board series, you may download the image file from here:

• https://dietpi.com/docs/hardware/#nanopi-series-friendlyarm
  

22 Link to Rockchip Resources

• Link to Rockchip's resources: https://gitlab.com/friendlyelec/rk3399-nougat/tree/nanopc-t4-nougat/RKDocs
• RK3399 datasheet V2.1
• RK3399TRM V1.4

23 Schematic, PCB CAD File

• Schematic: NanoPC-T4-1802-Schematic.pdf
• Schematic: NanoPC-T4-1902-Schematic.pdf
• PCB CAD File：NanoPC-T4_1802_Drawing(dxf).zip

24 Update Log

24.1 2024-04-21

24.1.1 OpenMediaVault

• Update to 7.0.5-1
• Update to Debian12

24.2 2024-03-15

24.2.1 Ubuntu focal desktop

• Fix the bluetooth issue

24.3 2024-01-31

24.3.1 Debian/Ubuntu/FriendlyCore/Buildroot

• Add adb support

24.4 2023-12-01

24.4.1 FriendlyWrt

• Update to kernel 6.1.63
• Update to openwrt-23.05.2

24.5 2023-10-31

24.5.1 Add a new system

• Add NAS system OpenMediaVault, base on Debian 11 with kernel 6.1

24.5.2 Debian Core/FriendlyCore-Lite-Core

• Update to kernel 6.1

24.5.3 FriendlyWrt

• Update to kernel 6.1
• Update to openwrt-23.05

24.6 2023-07-01

24.6.1 Debian11

• Update to the latest Rockchip sdk version, improve xserver and video playback performance
• Fix some known issues

24.7 2023-05-26

24.7.1 FriendlyWrt

• Updated v22.03 to openwrt-22.03.5
• Updated v21.02 to openwrt-21.02.7

24.8 2023-05-21

24.8.1 Debian11:

• Update to Rockchip sdk version linux-5.10-gen-rkr4
• Switch desktop to LXDE

24.9 2023-04-26

24.9.1 FriendlyWrt：

• Upgrade v22.03 to openwrt-22.03.4
• Upgrade v21.02 to openwrt-21.02.6

24.10 2023-02-10

24.10.1 Added Debian11

There are three versions:

• Debian11 Core: Command-line only
• Debian11 Minimal: With Xfce desktop, lite version
• Debian11 Desktop: With Xfce desktop, full version

24.11 2023-01-09

24.11.1 FriendlyCore：

• optimized the systemd service

24.12 2022-12-04

24.12.1 FriendlyWrt：

• Fix the issue that the storage space cannot be expanded
• Improve stability of the eMMC Tools

24.13 2022-09-06

24.13.1 FriendlyWrt：

• Improved eMMC read performance of NanoPi-R4SE
• Added Fullcone NAT support
• upgrade to 22.03.0
• Fix NanoPC-T4 eMMC stability issue

24.14 2022-08-19

24.14.1 Lubuntu/Android8/FriendlyDesktop：

• Add support for 7" screen HD703E
• Fixed FriendlyDesktop not booting from eMMC

24.14.2 Buildroot：

• Fix the issue of Som-RK3399 not loading WiFi module automatically

24.15 2022-08-03

24.15.1 FriendlyWrt：

• Upgrade FriendlyWrt to the latest version 22.03-rc6
• Fixed the problem that the R4S/R4SE may not recognize the pcie device (lan port) after a soft reboot (small probability)
• Fixed the issue where the R4SE status led did not reflect the burn progress when burning the system to eMMC
• Firewall settings adjustment: single-port devices (e.g. NanoPi-T4/NanoPi-M4) are set to allow WAN inbound traffic by default for easy web configuration, while multi-port devices are still denied WAN inbound traffic by default
• Updated FriendlyWrt firmware with 4.19 kernel to match FriendlyWrt 21.02 docker with 5.15 kernel

24.16 2022-07-27

24.16.1 FriendlyWrt:

• Beta version 22.03-rc3 is available, you can choose according to your package requirements, stable version 21.02.3 is recommended.
• Both docker and non-docker versions are available, all features are the same except for docker.
• Improved compatibility issues with third-party packages
• Added support for "Soft Factory Reset" function
• Added web-based tool eMMC-Tools, support install FriendlyElec and some third party firmware to eMMC, besides raw-image also support rockchip package format firmware
• Other details: default timezone setting to Shanghai, new NAS category menu, remove lcd2usb, improve security settings, tune sysctl parameters, fix docker firewall settings, etc.
• Add support for new hardware model: NanoPi-R4SE