Adding support for Orange Pi 3 LTS (affordable, popular & more powerful RPi3 clone) [sunxi/cortexa53 target]

For Developers
#1

Hello OpenWrt community!

How complex would it be to add support for Orange Pi 3 LTS?
The device is getting more & more popular due to affordable prices (~ $50 for a case-equipped quad-core 1.8GHz CPU, 2GB RAM, 1Gbit RJ45 port, eMMC, USB C plug, USB3.0 ports & 2.4/5GHz WiFi support)... It is superior to Raspberry Pi 3, performance-wise & price-wise.
It is definitely a best buy, especially these days when the general availability of Raspberry Pi 3 & 4 is extremely low and prices are terrible (resellers & scalpers are reselling them on eBay for $100+)...
Anyhow, the device is equipped with "Allwinner H6" SoC (Cortex A53 architecture).
I believe a support for this device wouldn't require too much effort, since it is open-source.
Also, the OpenWrt project already supports Allwinner sunxi family of SoCs - and this exact CPU architecture as well...

Feel free to hop on discussion!

Thanks!

#2

At a glance, it doesn't seem like it'd be particularly difficult. Seems like most of the required stuff is there already. A couple of days to a week, depending on how familiar one is with OpenWrt's sources, I'd say. I mean, the H6 is already supported, so the work would mostly amount to adjusting a few makefiles and then testing.

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#3

The YT8531C PHY might need a little work, backporting if you're lucky, integrating patches from the OEM firmware at worst. In terms of networking performance, Allwinner/ sunxi traditionally didn't quite score full points though.

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