WIP Support for LinkStar H68K-RK3568

glowland · July 10, 2025, 7:26pm

Hm, doesn't boot for me—no HDMI output or status LED activity when powered up. Using the windows tool to flash emmc (and the boot loader file that comes with / as in the wiki), I've tried switching a few times between this and a couple of armbian community builds, which do boot. But it's not accepting this one, alas...

TahomaSoft · July 10, 2025, 8:45pm

Well, shoot, that's a bummer.

Thank you for trying and letting me know!

FWIW, I've only ever had HDMI output with the Android build that shipped on my V1; it hadn't worked with the Seeed image or Corey's.

I've also had problems using Seeed's emmc flash technique with any image; I've resorted to other methods to write to the emmc, usually using dd to overwrite it with the new boot + kernel image.

What Armbian builds have you been able to use successfully? I've not had luck with any I have tried.

I'll keep reporting my developments here; hopefully another improvement will do the trick for your V2.

glowland · July 10, 2025, 9:14pm

If no HDMI is expected, I can take another look.. but the LEDs didn't show any activity, and I'm used to seeing at least some initial blinking. Will be away for a few days & can return next week to keep poking at it.

Would love to not have to use the windows flash tool — do you happen to have a link to a guide for this dd method?

Re: Armbian, only the community builds have booted for me. I just grabbed the latest minimal today and it seems alright so far. Wifi works out of the box, and all eth ports except "eth0" (which the OS sees as end1).

TahomaSoft · July 10, 2025, 9:24pm

My V1's green LED will blink at a couple of different rates while it is booting, then turn on solid.

Note I use dd, the raw write command, not DD-WRT.

It is roughly along the lines of:
https://teklager.se/en/knowledge-base/openwrt-installation-instructions/.

I'll see if I can find or write up something better. An approach might be to use Armbian to flash OpenWRT.

While you are away, I'll try a few things and report back.

Regards,

Erik

TahomaSoft · July 14, 2025, 2:17pm

Updates made. WiFi working, all four ethernet ports working, LEDs behave better, USB ports working.

Can an admin PLEASE add Seeed as a vendor in the TOH so I can start documenting this board?

Thanks!

nemesis · July 16, 2025, 2:28pm

I've been using this OpenWrt fork for the Linkstar H28K which has been working well up to now:

github.com/coolsnowwolf/lede

target/linux/rockchip/files/arch/arm64/boot/dts/rockchip/rk3528-opc-h28k.dts

6ebb377dd


      
          // SPDX-License-Identifier: (GPL-2.0+ OR MIT)
          
          /dts-v1/;
          #include <dt-bindings/gpio/gpio.h>
          #include <dt-bindings/pinctrl/rockchip.h>
          
          #include "rk3528.dtsi"
          
          / {
          	model = "HINLINK OPC-H28K Board";
          	compatible = "hinlink,opc-h28k", "rockchip,rk3528";
          
          	aliases {
          		mmc0 = &sdhci;
          		mmc1 = &sdmmc;
          		ethernet0 = &gmac1;
          
          		led-boot = &led_work;
          		led-failsafe = &led_work;
          		led-running = &led_work;
          		led-upgrade = &led_work;

If H68K is merged it should be easier to merge also H28K later on!

TahomaSoft · July 17, 2025, 12:04am

Thank you for the information about the H28k! I agree, even though it is based on a different Rockchip Soc (rk3528 vs rk3568), getting one LinkStar into the mainline OpenWRT codebase should make subsequent ones easier to pull in later.

I submitted a pull request earlier today for the H68k:

github.com/openwrt/openwrt

Add Support for LinkStar H68K-1432V1 (Rockchip 3568)

main ← TahomaSoft:PullRequest-LinkstarH68k-16July2025

opened 06:52PM - 16 Jul 25 UTC

TahomaSoft

+1773 -0

# Add initial support for Seeed LinkStar H68K-1432v1, an RK3568-based board. …## Main features of this PR: * Creates the device tree needed for this device - device tree both for kernel and u-boot * Creates the defconfig needed for u-boot to support this device * Created necessary files to support changes above - bootscript * Patches other files as needed to support the changes above. ## Rationale for the PR: Adds support for previously unsupported board, Seeed LinkStar H68K-1432v1. ## What's Working All basic functions needed for typical OpenWRT use cases, mainly: * All four ethernet ports working * All four USB ports working in host mode * Wifi Card working * LEDs work as expected, including boot and failsafe flash behaviors * Debug console * Real time clock * Basic PTP support on ethernet cards * eMMC * Removable uSD/TransFlash card ## What's Not Functional Some elements of the board ancillary to use as a router and wireless access point are not currently supported by this pull request, such as: * Audio output * Video output * USB Gadget/OTG mode

TahomaSoft · July 17, 2025, 12:06am

Thank you Hauke for adding Seeed as a vendor in the ToH! I'm starting to populate the LinkStar H68k page with info.

Thelasttenno · August 12, 2025, 10:21pm

Hey Tahoma! I downloaded both the ext4 and the squashfs images and tried to run them using the stock bootloader included with the eMMC flash tools, both of the files only give me eth 1/0 and no wifi. Also having disconnection issues every couple minutes and have to replug the eth cord to get connected again.

I am on the V2, and I notice this is being built for the v1, is there any chance of this being built for the V2 as well?

@glowland have you had any luck so far with your v2? If so what has been your method?

glowland · August 15, 2025, 8:00pm

Hey, after the last round of effort here I put armbian on, and that seemed stable enough with interfaces & wifi working. A bit awkward configuring it for router purposes, but ok… until it also stopped working after a few weeks (ssh not responding, etc). Since this has happened with every firmware/OS I’ve tried, I suspect this gadget is defective in some way and I’m pretty ready to shelve it in favor of a nanopi or similar.

@TahomaSoft perhaps it’s useful enough for firmware dev/testing and I can ship it to you to continue work on V2?

TahomaSoft · August 16, 2025, 2:27pm

Thanks for the info!

I am refining things for the V1, which will hopefully also run on the V2.

I’ve been putting time into sending code upstream to kernel.org; I’m in the midst of a revise-resubmit cycle there.

TahomaSoft · August 16, 2025, 2:28pm

Hi @glowland I’d love to have a V2 on hand to develop and test with!

I’ll DM you my address.

Thanks!

leeson · September 24, 2025, 9:54pm

for v2 can try

TahomaSoft · December 1, 2025, 9:27pm

I have just submitted pull request #21015 to backport the HinLink/LinkStar h66/h68 boards from the just-released kernel 6.18.

leeson · December 1, 2025, 9:42pm

openwrt mainline now is 6.12 ...you must follow them.

TahomaSoft · December 1, 2025, 10:36pm

I do know that mainline OpenWRT is currently 6.12.x. That is why the relevant code is being backported from 6.18.

Backporting from more recent kernel versions is very common.

See all the patches in ../target/linux/generic/backport-6.12/ for example:

…stuff…

782-04-v6.16-net-phy-introduce-genphy_match_phy_device.patch
782-05-v6.16-net-phy-Add-support-for-Aeonsemi-AS21xxx-PHYs.patch
783-01-v6.18-net-dsa-Move-KS8995-to-the-DSA-subsystem.patch
783-02-v6.18-net-dsa-ks8995-Add-proper-RESET-delay.patch

…stuff…

And the contents of ../target/linux/rockchip/patches-6.12

Regards,

Erik

leeson · December 1, 2025, 10:54pm

good job.

TahomaSoft · December 2, 2025, 12:00am

Thank you! I’m sorry the post you originally responded to wasn’t written very clearly.

leeson · December 8, 2025, 10:38pm

hi Erik
My English is terrible.sorry~
Could you create a Telegram group so that everyone can join the discussion?

Daibaron · December 9, 2025, 9:18am

Hi,

Thanks for your time and efforts.

When will I be able to download a working image and update it trough time ?

Regards