Feature Complete Debian Desktop Release

[Faradn]

There has been a high demand for a feature complete and fully capable Linux Desktop for the RockPro64 RK3399, so myself and Lukasz teamed up to build one based on my minimal Debian build.

DOWNLOAD:
The download is available on the GitHub release

VIDEO PREVIEW:
Lukasz recorded a quick demo / intro to the capabilities for this release which can be viewed below


The video was taken prior to me correcting some of the MPV code so it doesn't showcase 4K, but that is now supported in the final release (30fps only).

INTRODUCTION:
This is a custom Debian Mate desktop build based on my minimal image. The great majority of hardware features of the RockPro64, such as WiFi/BT SDIO module and PCIe, work on this image!
Please reference the aforementioned minimal build thread to learn of the details for a minimal Debian install.

This build is meant to bring full fledged desktop functionality to the RockPro64 (and, in the future, to the Pinebook Pro) with an appreciation for end-user ease of use. We hope that the image manages to balance out-of-the-box usability, an aesthetic look and performance with sparsity of preinstalled applications, so that each user can tweak the experience to their individual liking and use-case.

INCLUDED:

• Mate desktop at 1080p (with 4K as optional*) with Arc theme + icons, custom layout and background
  
• Glamor accelerated Xorg with window compositing; running smooth as butter on default settings
  
• Accelerated Chromium browser, with WebGL and WebGL 2.0 as well as accelerated video playback in browser - including 1080p Youtube and similar services
  
• SMPlayer: Accelerated playback of 1080p and 720p local media
  
• MPV Player: 4K @ 30fps playback of local media (right click 4k video -> select MPV Player)
  
• OpenGL 3D acceleration via GL4ES; so if you want to play games then you’re in luck!
  
• Set of common desktop utilities as well as some quality of life additions, including:  LibreOffice, caja-share (SMB GUI), Synaptic Package Manager, Puseaudio (for GUI audio output source selection), Mate Tweak (for desktop tweaks), GPARTED, handy applet to set CPU governor (non-scaling by default), etc.
  
• Endless number of tweaks for smooth desktop performance
  

Experimental:

• [edit Luke - moved from untested] USB-C video output 
  

LOGIN:
User credentials: rock/rock
Root credentials root/root

FIRST BOOT:
The first boot will take longer to boot and then immediately reboot once time, this is to auto-size your system to the full capacity of your SD card or eMMC

REPORTING ISSUES:
This is an initial release of the OS image and, as with any such release, some things may not work as intended or break. To help us fix the issues you’re experiencing, please provide any relevant information when reporting problems; we presently don’t have a crystal ball on hand, so we are heavily reliant on logs to deduce the nature of the issue you’re experiencing. The preinstalled Hexchat takes you directly to #Rock64 in the IRC (please immediately change your nick using /nick after you enter the channel).

KNOWN ISSUES:

• Chromium cannot be updated (it has been removed from apt update list on purpose) as it is custom and updating will break it's functionality
  
• Installing Iceweasel (Firefox) via apt will not work. If Firefox is something you need then we know this .deb works, altho it's an older version
  
• Thunderbird doesn’t work, you probably need a deb (armhf) for it too, or a custom compilation.
  
• Some OpenGL 3D applications will either not work correctly with GL4ES OR will only work in full screen at native resolution of your monitor (e.g. Tux Racer Extreme) when downloaded via apt. For most of these, the fix is to compile from source with necessary flags, rather than installing via apt to get them working.
  
• LCD eDP and DSI / TP panels do not work … yet
  
• [edit 17/03/2019 Luke] Low volume output on headphone jack
  
• [edit 18/03/2019] the board locks up when mounting a PCIe drive as user (not root).
  

UNTESTED:

• Cameras from PINE64 store
  

APPRECIATION
Please remember this is a community build, and just something we have worked on in our free time. There's no pressure at all, but if you appreciate the work then feel free to send me a buck on Paypal: mrfixit2001 at gmail. 

While I have done a great deal of debugging and development from a programming standpoint, the credit for the way the desktop interface is setup goes completely to Lukasz. He spent a LOT of time configuring it and setting it up to look so great!

Lastly, thanks to all of YOU for being part of the community!
- Mr Fix IT

---

Whoops...too excited...wow!

This is my definitive RP64 distro.
Will continue to test and post results.
Great job!

/Faradn

[seandepagnier]

Some things to try for Cura -- you may need to recompile it?  But I think forcing GL 2.1 for GLES worked.

LIBGL_GL=21 cura

Cura is Qt so it supports -platform also, you can play with that:

LIBGL_GL=21 cura -platform xcb


Will be playing with this in a bit here ..

I have tried these suggestions and more.   I even compiled mesa from source and built a working software only libGL.so.1 and provides up to 3.3 context instead of only 2.0 from gl4es.  This works when I set LD_LIBRARY_PATH but it is of course slower.

Despite this, I cannot get Qt built with "./configure -opengl desktop" to work.  With either gl4es or the mesa library the result is exactly the same running any qt program including the opengl examples in qt:

Code:

Cannot find EGLConfig, returning null config
Unable to find an X11 visual which matches EGL config 0
Segmentation fault

I don't understand why it is using EGL at all.   I don't want to use EGL only GLX.  I know this is probably deprecated, but I just want to run Qt with desktop gl and I don't care if it's accelerated.   I suspect that Qt has something hardcoded to use EGL specifically for armhf.  Likely the developers only used armhf platforms with GLES, and did not consider desktop gl.

Without desktop GL neither Cura nor openscad will work.   It might be an interesting exercise to make them work in a GLES Qt, but I am not a developer of either so it would be a difficult task.

I have plenty of other opengl programs that are not Qt based, and all of these work fine.

[KoU2N]

Hello,my LG Ultrawide monitor can not set resolution to 2560*1080.
I have tried cvt,xrandr command to add a new mode.
When set the new mode the screen become no signal.
Ayufan's mate release works good.Does anyone can help me?Thx.

[Mrfixit2001]

KoU2N - edit extlinux.conf and remove the 1080p setting for HDMI

benjhm - thank you for the heads up on pcie and pulse - we will be investigating! How strange!

[seandepagnier]

The audio problem may well be the reason my pci-e didn't work either.

The image seems stable, using it about a week now, but I notice the sound clicks on and off frequently. Like someone tapping a microphone. I think it has something to do with audio timing out? Other computers don't do this and it's a little annoying. Is there a way to keep the audio output always running even if there is no sound?

[KoU2N]

KoU2N - edit extlinux.conf and remove the 1080p setting for HDMI

benjhm - thank you for the heads up on pcie and pulse - we will be investigating! How strange!

Thank you for reply,I tried to del this "video=HDMI-A-1:1920x1080@60" and it doesn't work.

[kardanadm]

Hi

I can't make a VPN. I wanted to install openvpn, I'm getting this error.

ERROR: Cannot open TUN / TAP dev / dev / net / tun: No such device (errno = 19)

[axelf]

Is this image supposed to have a desktop ?
I can not see any display manager defined by default under Xorg.
and it boots direct into the command line!

[KoU2N]

Is this image supposed to have a desktop ?
I can not see any display manager defined by default under Xorg.
and it boots direct into the command line!

this image is debian+ mate

[Luke]

Is this image supposed to have a desktop ?
I can not see any display manager defined by default under Xorg.
and it boots direct into the command line!

Happened to me when I used a broken SD card on a different build.