R68s a new openwrt arm device. RK3568 2*2.5G+2*1G

Hardware Questions and Recommendations
61

I assume you mean the R5S is $20 extra and you assume it has extra performance, in which case I would say not necessarily.

The R4S has two ARM A72 cores (in addition to four slower A53 cores) that are appreciably faster than the R5S A55 cores. For CPU performance (especially applications that can only use a single core like OpenVPN and CAKE SQM), the R4S may be a better option. For 2.5G LAN and/or HDMI port for a monitor, the R5S is a better option. It really depends on what is more important for you.

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62

That's interesting because I actually meant the R4S as the more expensive one, which means the R5S should be good for my needs? Or would i miss the faster cores and 2GB of extra ram on the R4S, maybe for other use cases of the device? (though i don't think I'm an expert enough to try them)

63

I would get the R4S 4GB for your needs (gigabit routing with sqm cake, along with some simple vpn and adblock), not the R5S. Get the metal case either way.

The RK3399 in the R4S is ~2X faster for single core tasks, and ~1.4x faster for multi-core than the RK3568 in the R5S. The faster CPU in the R4S will be better for SQM CAKE and VPN.

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64

does your pcie slot work? which dts/patches did you use?

thanks

65

If your asking for the R5S M.2 PCIe x1, yes works , I have tried with NVMe sdd and a m.2 to pcie adapter, connected to an intel i350 t4 NIC that make a total 7 ports, 5 x 1G and 2 x 2.5G, impressive device.

root@OpenWrt:~# cat /tmp/sysinfo/board_name
friendlyelec,nanopi-r5s
root@OpenWrt:~# lspci
0000:00:00.0 PCI bridge: Rockchip Electronics Co., Ltd RK3568 Remote Signal Processor (rev 01)
0000:01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8125 2.5GbE Controller (rev 05)
0001:00:00.0 PCI bridge: Rockchip Electronics Co., Ltd RK3568 Remote Signal Processor (rev 01)
0001:01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8125 2.5GbE Controller (rev 05)
0002:00:00.0 PCI bridge: Rockchip Electronics Co., Ltd RK3568 Remote Signal Processor (rev 01)
0002:01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation I350 Gigabit Network Connection (rev 01)
0002:01:00.1 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation I350 Gigabit Network Connection (rev 01)
0002:01:00.2 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation I350 Gigabit Network Connection (rev 01)
0002:01:00.3 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation I350 Gigabit Network Connection (rev 01)
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66

Hi, is there any way to boot from the nvme disk?

68

Whoops, hit reply too quick,
See: https://wiki.friendlyelec.com/wiki/index.php?title=NanoPi_R5S#The_Boot_order_between_eMMC_and_SD_card and
https://wiki.friendlyelec.com/wiki/index.php?title=NanoPi_R5S#Install_OS_to_eMMC

What I did was boot the onboard FriendlyWRT, then just download the image into /tmp and dd=... as mentioned above and then reboot.

See: R68s a new openwrt arm device. RK3568 2*2.5G+2*1G - #46 by mj82

69

Simplest way of managing is stay with customized firmware from manufacturer and attach & wait for their updates and config process. In the other hand, better way of doing things IMO is the official OpenWRTish community supported way, which from I was reading here in forums is better recommended in order to use extended partitions space without dealing with resize2fs monkeyBuisness: For the Rxxs scenario, this is to boot read-only build images from a quality sdcard and configure the emmc as an ext4/F2FS formatted read-write extroot overlay space.

Cheers!

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70

Does anyone know if the mj22226/openwrt build is being planned on being merged/submitted to the next openwrt branch?

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71

I would also be interested in the answer

@mj82

72

@mj82 I've been doing my own builds for the R5S from your repository (https://github.com/mj22226/openwrt), branch linux-6.0.

So far it is running very well and quite stable. I really appreciate and thank you for your work in supporting this device from an official OpenWrt fork (FriendlyWrt build is very cumbersome).

One question: is there any technical aspect that is preventing adding R5S to the official OpenWrt builds?

Thank you!

1 Like
73

Rockchip hasn't release yet the TF-A arm-trusted-firmware sources for rk3568, that is used by OpenWrt in u-boot https://github.com/ARM-software/arm-trusted-firmware/tree/master/plat/rockchip, time is unkown https://lore.kernel.org/linux-arm-kernel/YnPdgUvEvitCPbfG@e120937-lin/T/

4 Likes
74

I'm curious, how do you work around this for your builds? I just booted it from an SD Card and everything seemed to just work.

75

Thanks @mj82 for building the images

Same issue here. Anyone knows the reason and how to extend the partition?
I should have 8G MMC

With the firmware in https://github.com/mj22226/openwrt/releases/download/rockchip-6.0/openwrt-rockchip-armv8-friendlyelec_nanopi-r5s-squashfs-sysupgrade.img.gz
when upgrading packages I have this error:

Executing package manager

Upgrading base-files on root from 1-r0-f546d66 to 1498-r20860-c27b439564...
Downloading https://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/targets/rockchip/armv8/packages/base-files_1498-r20860-c27b439564_aarch64_generic.ipk

Errors

Command failed: ubus call service delete { "name": "system" } (Not found)
Command failed: ubus call service delete { "name": "gpio_switch" } (Not found)
umount: mountd(pid2031) busy - remounted read-only
umount: can't remount /dev/nvme0n1 read-only
umount: devpts busy - remounted read-only
umount: tmpfs busy - remounted read-only
umount: can't remount tmpfs read-only
umount: proc busy - remounted read-only
Collected errors:
 * copy_file: unable to open `/etc/group-opkg.backup': Read-only file system.
 * file_copy: Failed to copy file /etc/group to /etc/group-opkg.backup.
 * backup_make_backup: Failed to copy /etc/group to /etc/group-opkg.backup
 * opkg_install_cmd: Cannot install package base-files.
 * pkg_write_filelist: Failed to open //usr/lib/opkg/info/base-files.list: Read-only file system.

The opkg install command failed with code 255.
76

I'm interested in using the nanoPI r5s for some OpenWRT tinkering and possibly as a travel router.

The travel router setup requires WIFI obviously and the fact that the case has an antenna mount hole already is curious and convenient!

Can anyone recommend a good way to use the M.2 slot for this?

I guess that an M.2 key adapter might be required (from M to A/E).
Or an adapter to be able to use a mini PCIe card might allow for a more suitable AP-capable card. The latter would probably require some case modifications.

Thanks!
Daniel

77

Hello,

Check this.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004732242585.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.0.0.2c2d5c39iyoATS&algo_pvid=9d7c6aff-b0ab-462d-9306-a03cf83f5cb4&algo_exp_id=9d7c6aff-b0ab-462d-9306-a03cf83f5cb4-2&pdp_ext_f=%7B%22sku_id%22%3A%2212000030269831614%22%7D&pdp_npi=2%40dis%21USD%219.99%219.99%21%21%21%21%21%402103255b16653742834426730e9ba0%2112000030269831614%21sea&curPageLogUid=5Fsa7XZyGroY
1 Like
78

Did you also have a link for a LTE/SIM adapter?

79

Thanks!

For posterity, and in case of broken links, this is an example of an M.2 M to M.2 A+E adapter along with a new base cover for the r5s with a cutout for the card and two antennas + mounts.

It then begs the question of suitable AP-capable cards. I see this is an OpenWRT FAQ but if anyone has r5s specific advice on this, that would be great too.

80

On the r5s with a m.2 to m.2 key e+a adapter, I had tested these cards: mt7922 and mt7921k with ax and Wi-Fi 6E support and Atheros QCNFA364A , only support ac Wi-Fi.

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81

Thanks!

Did you observe any performance issues or driver problems worth noting?

Ideally I'd be able to use something with DBDC for best AP functionality. There seem to be a few options but not sure of driver quality / support.
e.g.
QCA6391 via ath11k driver
mt7615d or mt7915d

I'll follow the various threads and report back here if I try something with the r5s.