BalenaOS on Rock Pi 4 SE

Product support balenaOS
1

Hi,

Due to the shortage of Rpi I decided to purchase a few Rock Pi 4 SE to use for my fleet (of Rpi4). I have gone through the usual process of adding a new device, setting wifi credentials, downloading the image (Rock Pi 4) and flashed it to my microSD (with etcher). However, the device never shows up and both the blue and green leds are constantly on. Am I missing something trivial here? Does this image not work for the SE-model? I believe they are very similar.

I flashed Rock Pi:s debian os and then it booted up fine so I dont believe it is something wrong with the board. And I use a quality USB-C charger.

Anyone out there who has set up the 4 SE model who can share some guidance? :slight_smile:

2

Welcome to the forums @hoffman :slight_smile:
I don’t have any Rock Pi, but looking on their webpage: Rock4/hardware - Radxa Wiki - it looks like the Rock Pi 4 B and the Rock 4 SE use different CPUs. Same family, but other revision - and sadly a completely different beast with about 4 years of development time between them: The 3399 is (I think) a dual core CPU, while the -T is a hexcore:

RK3399 datasheet - The SoC of ROCK 4A/B/C
RK3399-T datasheet - The SoC of ROCK 4 SE(2022) and ROCK 4C Plus(2022)

Most importantly, the Rock 4 SE has no BSP / support from the manufacturer for Yocto ( Yocto-layer-for-radxa-boards - Radxa Wiki ) - meaning it will not be possible to integrate it for a working balenaOS as long as no one writes that compability layer. So for the time being, there will be no easy way to integrate it - or even get it booting at all I fear. Sorry!

3

Thanks a lot Nico! Quick and great answer and it will save me a lot of time :slight_smile:

I will return the Rock Pi:s and just ordered 3 Rpi4 8gb for $200 each. The plug-and-play is worth the extra cost :slight_smile:

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4

You’re most welcome! Hope you get your setup running the way you’d like! :slight_smile:

7

I have just tried ROCK 4B image on Radxa ROCK 4C+. No luck either. No flashing blue LED, no device in dashboard, no HDMI output.
In linux kernel, ROCK 4C+ device tree is still considered as rk3399 linux/rk3399-rock-4c-plus.dts at a088c855acb85ab52fdbffd9b3473f6c9a3f0b35 · torvalds/linux · GitHub

8

Looking at the provided file I cannot confirm that.
Yes, it does include the overall rk3399.dtsi (which is for the overarching family and does have a lot of parts that were not available at the release of the 4B and original rk3399) - but also needs to include the rk3399-t-opp.dtsi to support the RK3399-T processor in the 4C+. This file e.g. implements the different processor architecture. As it stands, Radxa still does not implement their own board support packages for their Plus series, only for the original 4 A, B and C.

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9

Thanks for insight. I already asked Radxa for 4SE and 4C+ yocto scripts.

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10

Radxa:

Yocto is on our todo list. We plan to release yocto for ROCK 4 SE/ 4C+ in March.

11

@ondronr keep us updated with your advances here please :slight_smile:

@nmaas87 thanks for your support :wink:

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13

Any updates on support for Rock Pi 4 SE?

15

Any update on this?

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16

Hello @farid @luandro and @ondronr

We are currently working with a partner to support the Rock Pi 4 Model C+

We will keep you updated when this is going to be public. Thank you for your patience.

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