Preliminary findings...

[11b2p508]

Received Rock64 the other day found some time to mess with it. 

So finding there are some tools to add that I would like, just the same I decided to proceed without them, i.e. serial port setup, etc.  Hesitated a bit since I had not done one of these before, didn't want to hose it up beyond repair first time around.  But.. did anyway.

Loaded bionic.  Boots fine, do not have a working monitor on it, got to find the right combo.  I am logged in and updating bionic as I speak.

I have not pinpointed, but am investigating as I observe.  There is no apparent reason for it, do not know if it specifically has been mentioned, but ethernet is show RX errors, I noticed right off the bat.  Superficially, it should not have errors, i.e. a fairly new cable from Wally-World (it is one of those flat ones), but technically between my router and the rock64, the cable is the only thing.  Except for low level OS drivers... in ubuntu.  I am pretty confident in my network in house, as I am 4 TV cord cutter as well as internet... it is pretty solid.  And running ubuntu 17.10 vm under windows on the same subnet same route, no RX errors.

I have not noticed anyone else mentioning that, but have noticed the mention of poor network I/O.

Been trying to setup qemu dev environment for this (not really much luck booting anything on it).

Will continue to observe, and inform as I progress.

[11b2p508]

So, after much ado about bionic... too bleeding edge, spend more time kernel grinding and fixing this and that to even be worth messing with at this stage. Old school, too much coding can do more to make things unusable, rather than functional, and too many coders out there just coding to code... why a python wrapper when it previously operated without one...? oh, well...

So I downgraded to artful, what I am currently using in real life...

So, out of the box, dns is broken (I seemed to have remembered this from my 17.10 version - upgraded 17.04).

To get apt updates, stub in all of the hosts that are missing from dns

91.189.88.150 ports.ubuntu.com
91.189.95.83 ppa.launchpad.net
62.210.220.148 deb.ayufan.eu

in /etc/hosts.

run

apt update

then

apt upgrade


The fix for resolv.conf

remove /etc/resolv.conf
relink to proper path...

ln -s /run/systemd/resolve/stub-resolv.conf /etc/resolv.conf

systemctl restart systemd-resolved

So, X... I muddled with this, was going to try gnome (that would be my desktop choice), but mucking with bionic, somewhat soured that approach, even when I downgraded..

So, I retreated and regrouped...

Here is what I did:

apt-get -y install xubuntu-desktop
apt-get -y install xorgxrdp xrdp
apt-get -y install xserver-xorg-legacy

I am fond of xrdp rather than vnc, unless it is unavailable, works well...

On this version, you need to install xserver-xorg-legacy for the /etc/X11/Xwrapper.config. To enable logins from other than the console with X11

So, good, bad, lots of changes taking place in desktop area with ubuntu, having said that in comparison, I would probably attempt some non-graphic things with bionic on these boards, but a trivial desktop, takes much more time than I want to put into bionic at this time - maybe that will settle down, I will let coders code to their hearts content, no use in me trying to fix it.

Had a screen pic, I am sure others have done this. Can't post a pic.

On bionic, I will be awaiting the PERL wrapper around the python wrapper, both encased in a php wrapper... and the code some visual basic on top of that, to call the php wrapper..