RockPro64 and Pine H64 Discussion Thread

[Tigger]

The price is some 120 €, isn't it?

Yeah they are 120€ from the RK store.

Where I live I have to pay 21% sales tax on arrival from China (AliExpress).
Ordering online locally, is the price range that I mentioned. If you don’t believe me, google “Rikomagic MK39 kopen”. Unquoted.
Still, there is also the fact that the MK39 is not a dev board.

Mecool do an RK3399 dev board for 4gb/32gb for 145€ https://www.aliexpress.com/item/MECOOL-V...51229.html

Just like the MK39, the Mecool RK3399 is not a dev board. I asked Mecool official site on AliExpress if they were making available full source code of their Android and Linux releases. And the answer was no. The guy/gal didn’t even bother answering my other questions. Luckily I’m able to compile my own, if the hardware is not too exotic or datasheets are available. But with boxes like that, in the end you’ll be stuck at whatever Android/Linux version they released last. I have yet to see any Android 8 releases/boxes from manufacturers who only release Android images/ROMs for them, and never the source code of the images/ROMs.

[stuartiannaylor]

The price is some 120 €, isn't it?

Yeah they are 120€ from the RK store.

Where I live I have to pay 21% sales tax on arrival from China (AliExpress).
Ordering online locally, is the price range that I mentioned. If you don’t believe me, google “Rikomagic MK39 kopen”. Unquoted.
Still, there is also the fact that the MK39 is not a dev board.

Mecool do an RK3399 dev board for 4gb/32gb for 145€ https://www.aliexpress.com/item/MECOOL-V...51229.html

Just like the MK39, the Mecool RK3399 is not a dev board. I asked Mecool official site on AliExpress if they were making available full source code of their Android and Linux releases. And the answer was no. The guy/gal didn’t even bother answering my other questions. Luckily I’m able to compile my own, if the hardware is not too exotic or datasheets are available. But with boxes like that, in the end you’ll be stuck at whatever Android/Linux version they released last. I have yet to see any Android 8 releases/boxes from manufacturers who only release Android images/ROMs for them, and never the source code of the images/ROMs.

That of been the vendor its just videostrong board as far as I am aware and its a dev board https://www.cnx-software.com/2017/09/25/...399-board/
https://www.cnx-software.com/2017/09/27/...enchmarks/

But I was posting as there are quite a few already popping up on the RK3399 https://www.96rocks.com/ which is videostrong again.
There are a few others also and this is really good as hopefully there should be a really big dev pool behind these with hopefully little difference.
Even Orange or was it banana have an rk3399 on the way.

[RWK]

OK...no SIM socket onboard I should have noticed that/ I have USB adapters already. What sort of other arrangement can be made for SIM cards?

[Tigger]

..........
That of been the vendor its just videostrong board as far as I am aware and its a dev board https://www.cnx-software.com/2017/09/25/...399-board/
https://www.cnx-software.com/2017/09/27/...enchmarks/

But I was posting as there are quite a few already popping up on the RK3399 https://www.96rocks.com/ which is videostrong again.
There are a few others also and this is really good as hopefully there should be a really big dev pool behind these with hopefully little difference.
Even Orange or was it banana have an rk3399 on the way.

I frequent CNX regularly for years.
I hope that you are not serious about what you wrote.
So for a Mecool board you have to get downloads from Videostrong. Who predominantly sell TV Boxes etc, and have no developer resources at their own website. A company which I crossed off the list even before Mecool.
Videostrong equals : No response to emails. No response to AliBaba messages. The Community link at their website leads to a forum/board in the Chinese language only (Go ahead and join). Image/Rom downloads (without their Android or Linux source code) at Mega, which means download limits and throttling. And why would a company associate with Mega ? Very unprofessional.

Image downloads without source code is a violation of the Open Source license. If a company or individual distributes binaries (compiled from open source code), they must also make available the source code of the binaries that they are distributing. If they don't , their target group/audience are not developers. If they can upload binaries to Mega, they can also create repos for the source code at GitHub, Gitlab, Bitbucket, etc. But if they don't want you, it won't happen.

I'm going to leave it at this, because I/we have gone off-topic. Just be careful where you shop and what you buy.
I stick to Pine and 96boards/Linaro. And maybe Firefly.

EDIT:
P.S. Go to the Linux mainline repo : https://github.com/torvalds/linux and search for your favourite board vendor or board model. You won't find Mecool and Videostrong. But you will find Pine64, Linaro, 96boards, HiKey, Firefly, etc in the source code.
In other words, you have no access at all to the source code from Mecool + Videostrong. Not from them, and not through the Linux mainline source code. Because they don't commit their additions and changes to the Linux mainline repo. Maybe because they are not committed to developers.

[stuartiannaylor]

..........
That of been the vendor its just videostrong board as far as I am aware and its a dev board https://www.cnx-software.com/2017/09/25/...399-board/
https://www.cnx-software.com/2017/09/27/...enchmarks/

But I was posting as there are quite a few already popping up on the RK3399 https://www.96rocks.com/ which is videostrong again.
There are a few others also and this is really good as hopefully there should be a really big dev pool behind these with hopefully little difference.
Even Orange or was it banana have an rk3399 on the way.

I frequent CNX regularly for years.
I hope that you are not serious about what you wrote.
So for a Mecool board you have to get downloads from Videostrong. Who predominantly sell TV Boxes etc, and have no developer resources at their own website. A company which I crossed off the list even before Mecool.
Videostrong equals : No response to emails. No response to AliBaba messages. The Community link at their website leads to a forum/board in the Chinese language only (Go ahead and join). Image/Rom downloads (without their Android or Linux source code) at Mega, which means download limits and throttling. And why would a company associate with Mega ? Very unprofessional.

Image downloads without source code is a violation of the Open Source license. If a company or individual distributes binaries (compiled from open source code), they must also make available the source code of the binaries that they are distributing. If they don't , their target group/audience are not developers. If they can upload binaries to Mega, they can also create repos for the source code at GitHub, Gitlab, Bitbucket, etc. But if they don't want you, it won't happen.

I'm going to leave it at this, because I/we have gone off-topic. Just be careful where you shop and what you buy.
I stick to Pine and 96boards/Linaro. And maybe Firefly.

EDIT:
P.S. Go to the Linux mainline repo : https://github.com/torvalds/linux and search for your favourite board vendor or board model. You won't find Mecool and Videostrong. But you will find Pine64, Linaro, 96boards, HiKey, Firefly, etc in the source code.
In other words, you have no access at all to the source code  from Mecool + Videostrong. Not from them, and not through the Linux mainline source code. Because they don't commit their additions and changes to the Linux mainline repo. Maybe because they are not committed to developers.

Well if you have been a regular visitor of CNX then you will be well aware that it really doesn't matter where you buy from as maybe apart from the exception of Raspberry, developer and support resources are far too thinly spread on platforms of relatively short lifespan.
I made no indication of purchase but was purely saying the plethora of vendors irrespective of content is a good thing.
There seems to be a lot of activity with the RK3399 platform from a wide range of vendors and this is all good in terms of dev and support that has requirements far in excess of many of the individual vendors resources.
It could have the potential to surpass many other platforms in economy of scale which will have benefits for all is all I said and just gave a few examples.

There is a 96Boards version https://www.cnx-software.com/2017/09/29/...k3399-soc/
OrangePi https://www.cnx-software.com/2018/01/29/...d-for-109/
Aaaeon https://www.cnx-software.com/2018/01/26/...processor/
Sappphire https://www.cnx-software.com/2017/08/05/...ent-board/
Odroid https://www.cnx-software.com/2018/02/06/...-and-more/

All good for the platform ecosphere but like I say I make no mention if a single vendor has any merit or benefit over another.

[Tigger]

In the FOSDEM 2018 blog post I see the photo at the bottom of this post.
On the PCI-e adapter/card I read this warning : "NOTE: This adapter does not support SATA connection".

Is this a limitation of that specific PCI-e adapter/card, or a limitation of the PCIe slot on the RockPro64 board (the PCI-e slot not passing signals from a SATA controller on PCI-e expansion cards if they are not made by Pine64) ?
Or is it about that particular PCI-e expansion card being for NVMe drives only, and not SATA drives ?

[xalius]

The adapter is for M.2 m key cards only, since there is no SATA controller on the adapter, which means only NVME drives will work, not M.2 b key SATA SSDs... for those you would need either a SATA controller on the RockPro64 or on the adapter card...

[Tigger]

Thanks. So it was my last question/possibility. Which is good for me. I was terrified a bit because I wanted to use one of the 2 mSATA connections of a Delock 89372 PCI-e x4 card that I have (collecting dust at the moment).

[angelscream09]

Is a new DAC going to be made for the RockPro64?

[tllim]

Is a new DAC going to be made for the RockPro64?

Rockpro64 using ES8316 CODEC and here is the link: http://www.everest-semi.com/pdf/ES8316%20PB.pdf