Orange Pi 5 Plus review with Armbian

My review in text : docs.lane-fu.c...
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#singleboardcomputer #orangepi #arm64 #rockchip #armbian #nicod #gaming #box64 #box86 #linux

[@NotRealNamesAgain]

It's borderline ridiculous how good these tiny little SBC's are getting.

[@drabjan]

Nice SBC. I'll get one when I'll collect the money. You've done a lot of hard work on it. Thank you Nico, have a nice day.

[@NicoDsSBCs]

Thank you. Enjoy your toy when you get it.

[@suntoryjim]

The OPi5 is an awesome SBC with plenty of power for almost any application. I have a V1 OPi5 running Armbian Bullseye with OpenMediaVault 6 and a handful of Docker instances. It's connected to a Terramaster D3-400 DAS that I salvaged from the community garbage room.

[@Lurch-Bot]

I'm planning to try video editing on mine this week. The Joshua Rieck version of Ubuntu for Rockchip 3588 is absolutely the best OS to run on any OP5. Their versions suck (couldn't even update it) and I really don't like Xfce. Rieck's 22.04.03 comes with GNOME (should really be the default for OP but I understand they have people trying to run a desktop environment with 4GB RAM). I also like Cinnamon. The rest can suck it. I'm getting back into tech in a big way. Will be taking a cybersec cert and re-learning coding this year. This is the machine that will help make it happen. I may also use it for some video editing. It is a powerhouse (as far as ARM goes), especially the Plus with 16GB RAM. Rockchip will probably be going toe to toe with Apple's M series in a couple of years. Qualcomm X is interesting but they're going to be facing stiff competition in a year or two. I want to help get Linux Mint working on OP5 because then they can go toe to toe with x86 minis. I know x86 is dead, just like anyone in the industry who has their eyes open. Eventually, I will be running WARM on this thing. If the RP5 can run Windows, the OP5 can do it better. To put it in smartphone terms, the 3588 is roughly equivalent to the Exynos 1280 in my 2 year old A53. A side project will be trying out CODM on the OP5+...

[@heathjandu8177]

Hello, I've tried loading Ubuntu on my Orange PI 5 plus but all i see is the insulation stops and shows the following. Any help please? mount: mounting /run on /root/run failed: sturcture needs cleaning (!!!!!!) Failed to mount early API filesystems.

[@eolle43]

Awesome content! I have been playing around with the OP 5+ and using the NPU's for a project. It is a great little board but the support is underwhelming when compared to Raspberry Pi products. In the future I may need to see if there is a usable boot loader for different OSes on the MMC and NVME.

[@NicoDsSBCs]

Well, it's not gonna come from Orange Pi themselves. It is a wonder they are so popular. They do make good boards, but support isn't something they're known for.

[@chimerical26]

@@NicoDsSBCsI also bought this SBC with high hopes. Every other week I search for videos of people doing anything with them and it's how I got subbed to you. This is a great video. It's fantastic to see someone with so much experience making something of this board. I wish Werner would let you keep it so you could make more videos but of course it's important he has one too so he can continue contributing to Armbian! Still it's disheartening to think you won't have your own Orange Pi 5 Plus anymore.

[@NicoDsSBCs]

@@chimerical26 Yhank you. I have 8 other rk3588 boards. I don't mind. For my goals of on the road board the NanoPiR6S is as good. I just have to make sure to bring a compatible wifi dongle.

[@Lurch-Bot]

The NPU is the main reason I canceled my RP5 backorder and got an OP5+. By the time you configure the RP5 for the same work, you're paying the same price for half the cores and half the RAM. And that is after you spent $30 on a 4 TOPS Coral TPU and another $20 on a hat and probably about 100 hours getting it all to work right. RP5 should have launched 2 years ago and it is now DOA because they can't meet demand and are a generation behind the competition. We are about 6 months away from a RISC-V SBC being a better choice than a RP5. The RP5 is for emulators and people like my mom who want a Linux mini PC that is easy to use. Absolutely zero dev use there unless you have a time machine and can take your work back in time 5 years to profit off it. RP5 would have been great for developing mobile apps like 8 years ago. They are the Betamax of SBCs (literally made by Sony, while they are waiting to make the next batch of ARM based Smart (dumb) TV boards) and the IPO everyone is lambasting is the only way they could salvage any kind of market position. I bet dollars to doughnuts the owners of that company are just raping the hell out of it with backdoor deals. Private means easy to embezzle. Period. I guarantee they are even more guilty of selling directly to scalpers than Nvidia. The only complaint I have of my OP5+ is that I paid an extra dollar or two for a completely worthless (in 2024) eMMC header. Just as it was 20 years ago, eMMC just means paying way too much per GB for slow ass storage. A second TF slot would have been a better use of the money. Yeah, it is slightly slower, but not enough to prefer eMMC and is a fraction of the price per GB, even when you buy the proper pro/endurance type card you need for reliability in an actual PC. If you need a fast drive, that's why it has an x4 NVMe slot. RP5 is 1x after you pay more money for a hat that will probably be a setup nightmare. Like I said, RP5 was supposed to launch 2 years ago and is now obsolete.

[@srvuk]

Very useful. Still being stuck on that old kernel seems to be hamstringing the RK3588 right now. As for Orange Pi, they conned people by making us believe that they were going to support the products but they gave up on development for the most part a long time ago and support is almost zero. They won't be getting any more of my money again. The Raspberry Pi 5 does seem to be stealing a lead right now with a rather unexpected drive in development that has surpassed Rockchip in very quick time. I hope that the RK388 doesn't become another lemon like the RK3399.

[@NicoDsSBCs]

I love RK3399 still. Love my PBP tho it's dead for the moment. Took a few years to get software right, but it is great now for me. Also love the RK3588. The vendor kernel isn't great but it's functional. It does for my goals, but I wouldn't advice to run it in sensitive environment. OPi does very litle softwrare development. They even copied all armbian code and replaced every mention of armbian with orangepi. Removed the copyright licenses... It is the community that does al the dirty work, and I'm happy to be part of it. Raspberry says me nothing, nothing but bad memories. All flawed designs.

[@fk_tech]

Opi, radxa and khadas have good upstream process with 6.7 and 6.8 most of the io will work from upstream kernel itself.

[@dominick253]

That's why I went with pi 5. Maybe not the best specs but you know everyone will make software for it.

[@Razor_Burn]

Great video Nico D!

[@NicoDsSBCs]

Thank you.

[@medallish]

I’m happy to hear goldmember took up a new hobby!

[@NicoDsSBCs]

I'm more starting to lean towards fat basterd. Another year like this and I'm it.

[@terrydaktyllus1320]

Nico, I can't remember if I asked you this before but do you know who in the Armbian team knows how to build and configure u-boot for all of these different boards? I'm doing a fresh Gentoo Linux build on an old Banana Pi M1 board and I can get u-boot to initialise and start booting the BPi M1 but it just doesn't seem to be able to find the boot partition to boot the kernel. Is there someone there that can give me a few pointers?

[@NicoDsSBCs]

There are multiple people doing that. But if it's not armbian they'll not quickly help. I don't know these things.

[@xandercode]

Where is the case from looks great

[@bitsofeverything47]

Hi. I am thinking of buying OPI 5 plus, but can't decide on what would be enough of RAM. I'm experimenting with wxPython and OpenCV on OPI PC, but that platform was far from optimal. So, how much of RAM would you suggest? Thanks.

[@NicoDsSBCs]

I use 16gb and need it. Otherwise I need swap file.

[@bitsofeverything47]

If I am not asking too much, what role your OPI5 is used for? Gaming machine, regular PC, compiling machine? Something else? So I can get a picture. RAM is expensive, so...

[@NicoDsSBCs]

@@bitsofeverything47 Not using the OPi5+ but other RK3588 devices, one for desktop that really needs its 16GB, one for building armbian that's 8GB, and a NAS/Media server with 8GB. That one would be ok with 4GB. But rather have too much than too little. I never thought 16GB would be this useful for an ARM device. It's more future proof. So maybe worth paying a bit more for it.

[@bitsofeverything47]

@@NicoDsSBCs Thanks.

[@yomboprime]

Please, could you test the HDMI input before sending the SBC back? In theory it reaches 4K @ 60 FPS, but I've seen other reviewers test it and it does 10 FPS at 1080. Probably because of software, but they didn' test on Armbian.

[@NicoDsSBCs]

I'll try to do that, haven't used it on this board but it works on other RK3588. You do need the multimedia ppa from amazingfate for it.

[@yomboprime]

Thanks! @@NicoDsSBCs

[@yomboprime]

BTW I've subscribed to your other channel about retro PCs

[@NicoDsSBCs]

@@yomboprime I gave up on it before I began. I enjoy my retro pc's by myself. Problem is my capture device can't handle anything different to 720p, 1080p, 1440p and 4k. So none of the old resolutions. Maybe it would be possible with an RK3588. Need to test that.

[@yomboprime]

I have two cheap Aliexpress 3$ vga to hdmi converters that work incredible with low resolutions and FPS. I can send you one of them if you want it. @@NicoDsSBCs

[@SignalChange]

Can you install open fydeos on it ?

[@EmmEff3168]

As @srvuk stated, Orange Pi has just 'developed' (hacked) the Rockchip code a little bit. Stale kernels are the rule. Bug fixes are slow or ignored. Yuck. Meanwhile, Intel N100 mini pc designs are plentiful and comparibly priced on Amazon. Most generic Linux 64 bit builds work fine. I have the GMKtec Nucbox G3 and Cybergeek Nano J1, both of which have M.2 PCIe slots, upgradable wifi and modern features that RPi hasn't got to (maybe never).

[@NicoDsSBCs]

I should have an N100 on the way. I'm curious to see how it is. I've been using RK3588 for a while and I love it. I use one for main desktop, one for build server, one for fast NAS and one for gaming. It takes some time to set them up well. And if set up well don't update/upgrade. Mainline is on the way. Always takes a few years of development to be able to get the most out of them. And I like that, else we'd have nothing to do.

[@albertstrohmaier4034]

​@NicoDsSBCs what does the n100 need for power?

[@NicoDsSBCs]

@@albertstrohmaier4034The N100 has a TDP of 6W, but that means nothing. That's when using it at a base clock of 2Ghz. It can consume up to 35W with a bit of OC. I'm waiting in an N100 SBC to arrive to review. It should be about as powerful as RK3588 but consumes more than double.

[@korpiusleitinusk6736]

With the N100 you get Intel ME = spyware

[@SasaPaunkovic-camplus2]

How is the mainline kernel coming along

[@NicoDsSBCs]

There are images that run but I haven't had much luck. I do get something on the display so HDMI works, but image doesn't boot. Didn't look further into it. Joshua Riek has them working.

[@JapanWolf666]

Mr. Nikodi, thanks for the new video! Do your friends collect Android? I would like to install a good build of android

[@ratlinuxgamer2855]

I have the 5b, when 6.7 kernel?

[@NicoDsSBCs]

Should be soon, few weeks to days to be set to edge.

[@chrisvkr8200]

After installing the Armbian 24.2.1 Jammy Gnome Desktop version, the board is very laggy. After starting something like Mozilla Thunderbird just moving the mouse around makes the pointer stop here and there for seconds before continuing. Is this normal?

[@NicoDsSBCs]

I had that bug too once. I now start with a Armbian Jammy cli image and install ubuntu-desktop manually, then add the amazingfate ppa's. Then install all apps and chromium-browser. That's the best experience I've got. I do have a fix for your issue, it's written in the text review in the discription.

[@chrisvkr8200]

@@NicoDsSBCsdo you think it would work with Bookworm as well? I didn’t see a Jammy CLI image btw

[@NicoDsSBCs]

​@@chrisvkr8200 No. The GPU and VPU drivers don't work on bookworm. You can build Jammy cli with any jammy image. I've got tons of video's where I show how to do this. Search build armbian.

[@chrisvkr8200]

​@@NicoDsSBCsthanks for making all those videos. I'll check it out. Just bummed about the dreadful linux driver support for this board. I would've bought something else had I known before

[@NicoDsSBCs]

@@chrisvkr8200There is nothing better in arm. Khadas VIM4 doesn't even have open source GPU or VPU drivers while its older than the oldest RK3588. Still no mainline in sight for VIM4. Odroid N2+ is the fastest with mainline support and GPU drivers. Else you ned to go to RK3399. merged

[@xandercode]

Found it

[@bolovanro]

Hello NicoD. I am in search to replace my Odroid N2. Plans are to replace with Raspberry PI 5 (I am using as desktop replacement...but N2 it's a little bit slow on browsing). Can you make a comparison between Raspberry PI 5, N2+ and Orange PI 5 as desktop replacement?

[@NicoDsSBCs]

Hi. I just ordered the RaspberryPi5 so will compare it with others. I have no experience yet with RPi5. So only can talk about OPi5+ and N2+. OPi5+ can be set up so it's a near perfect desktop experience. But it took me a lot of time and effort before I found fixes for every problem. So it's not for novice users yet. N2+ should run fine, but can't compete with OPi5+. But it should still do well against RPi5.

[@StringFellow-Hawke-ek1bb]

Where did you ger the case? I would like to order the same.

[@NicoDsSBCs]

AliExpress. From the opi store.

[@loccustroccus4391]

Hello everyone, so, can anyone tell me about the green statics light and no running opi5+, and can you tell me where do i find any armbian os that works, that you know? please, thanks

[@jasango]

the os can run only with sd card without nvme? Has anyone used it for months as a firewall or 24/7 server? is it stable?

[@NicoDsSBCs]

I use Armbian on all my devices and some are up for +1 year. So it is stable as server. I've got 3 NAS devices, a build server, my main desktop, ... Of course you can run it off an SD-card. Doesn't matter if you run from sd/eMMC or NVMe. Do use good sd-cards. 16gb no brand will not last long in such a case.

[@jasango]

@@NicoDsSBCsThank you! :) One last question... have you tried streaming with live ffmpeg transcoding of a video like at 1080p50 10Mbps? 😅 How much CPU is used? Does it distribute the process across a single core or multiple cores?

[@jasango]

@@NicoDsSBCs..and.. Were you able to achieve full bandwidth of 2.5Gbps or 5Gbps?

[@NicoDsSBCs]

@@jasango Never tried it and never needed it. I watch my content on the device itself. No idea how it does with that. I do know that Intel devices can do it better.

[@NicoDsSBCs]

@@jasango Yes. With FTP on Linux client or with Samba on Windows. Then 280MB/s. Samba on Linux client doesn't perform well, about 60MB/s and sftp about 100MB/s. No idea why it doesn't perform better. It's the same on any device.

[@ralphmcmahan2139]

What's even better? They will ship you one if you give them money.

[@NicoDsSBCs]

Indeed, I'm unable to get RPi5 for reasonable prices in Belgium. Before Brexit I could order in UK. Now it's too expensive. I might get an Intel N100 SBC, but haven't gotten more news from that. Curious about that SoC.

[@garygranato9164]

hope you didnt waste the remaining egg :)

[@NicoDsSBCs]

It was out of date, was about to trow them away and thought about this... Need to buy fresh eggs :) Cheers.

[@garygranato9164]

@@NicoDsSBCs lol:)