Rock64

The Rock64 is a credit card sized single board computer. It utilizes the Rockchip RK3328, a quad core 1.5GHz ARMv8 Cortex-A53 SoC.

Features:

  • 1GB, 2GB, or 4GB LPDDR3 RAM
  • Micro SD
  • eMMC socket
  • 1x USB 3.0
  • 2x USB 2.0
  • Infrared receiver
  • Gigabit ethernet
Architecture
ARMv8 Cortex-A53
Processor
Rockchip RK3328 1.5GHz
RAM
4GB
SD
Micro SD
USB
3
Ethernet
Gigabit

Install to a micro SD card

Replace sdX in the following instructions with the device name for the SD card as it appears on your computer.

  1. Zero the beginning of the SD card:
    dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdX bs=1M count=32
  2. Start fdisk to partition the SD card:
    fdisk /dev/sdX
  3. At the fdisk prompt, create the new partition:
    1. Type o. This will clear out any partitions on the drive.
    2. Type p to list partitions. There should be no partitions left.
    3. Type n, then p for primary, 1 for the first partition on the drive, 32768 for the first sector, and then press ENTER to accept the default last sector.
    4. Write the partition table and exit by typing w.
  4. Create the ext4 filesystem:
    mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdX1
  5. Mount the filesystem:
    mkdir root
    mount /dev/sdX1 root
  6. Download and extract the root filesystem (as root, not via sudo):
    wget http://os.archlinuxarm.org/os/ArchLinuxARM-aarch64-latest.tar.gz
    bsdtar -xpf ArchLinuxARM-aarch64-latest.tar.gz -C root
  7. Download the boot.scr script for U-Boot and place it in the /boot directory:
    wget http://os.archlinuxarm.org/os/rockchip/boot/rock64/boot.scr -O root/boot/boot.scr
  8. Unmount the partition:
    umount root
  9. Download and install the U-Boot bootloader:
    wget http://os.archlinuxarm.org/os/rockchip/boot/rock64/rksd_loader.img
    wget http://os.archlinuxarm.org/os/rockchip/boot/rock64/u-boot.itb
    dd if=rksd_loader.img of=/dev/sdX seek=64 conv=notrunc
    dd if=u-boot.itb of=/dev/sdX seek=16384 conv=notrunc
  10. Insert the micro SD card into the Rock64, connect ethernet, and apply 5V power.
  11. Use the serial console or SSH to the IP address given to the board by your router.
    • Login as the default user alarm with the password alarm.
    • The default root password is root.
    • HDMI video is not yet supported in the mainline kernel.
  12. Initialize the pacman keyring and populate the Arch Linux ARM package signing keys:
    pacman-key --init
    pacman-key --populate archlinuxarm

Install the U-Boot package

  1. Remove the boot.scr file manually downloaded previously:
    rm /boot/boot.scr
  2. Install the U-Boot package:
    pacman -Sy uboot-rock64
  3. When prompted, press y and hit enter to write the latest bootloader to the micro SD card.

UART

UART is accessible on the Pi-2 bus (same pins as on a Raspberry Pi), using a baud rate of 1500000.

MAC Address

The MAC address for the system is configurable in /boot/boot.txt. Use spaces instead of colons between each octet. After making changes, run the mkscr script from within /boot.


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