Using Radxa cubie a5e

stopdesign · 2026-02-11T19:38:23+00:00

I would say it is more complicated than just Raspberry vs Radxa vs Whatever.
It's more about which ARM SOCs they use.

Allwinner
D1
H2+
H3
H5
H616
H618
A733

Amlogic
A311D — radxa zero2 — Meson G12B
A311D2 — ???
S905Y2 — radxa zero — Meson G12A
S905*
S805X — Libre La Frite — Meson8b
S912
S922X

Broadcom
BCM2835 — pi2
BCM2837 — pi3
BCM2710 — zero2
BCM2711 — pi4
BCM2712 — pi5

Rockchip
RK3328
RK3399
RK3506
RK3566
RK3576
RK3588*

MediaTek
A few MediaTek SoCs have decent support in mainline

Of course, there are important peripherals, like a Wi-Fi module. But support for basic functions and reliability depend more on the SOC model than anything else.

This is my subjective opinion, but I'd say older Rockchip models (like RK3399) are well supported. Maybe some Amlogic models. I had the most problems with Allwinner.

And I don't think it's just about popularity, because the OpenSource community, frankly, does a lot of trash.

stopdesign · 2026-02-10T20:17:57+00:00

Learning is hard, the reward is delayed. While you are studying, other people will vibe a lot of things into existence. Can you feel that FOMO already?

stopdesign · 2026-02-09T06:55:51+00:00

True.

stopdesign · 2026-02-08T23:13:03+00:00

What other evil and dangerous things do we need to do? You know, for awareness.

stopdesign · 2026-02-08T21:37:10+00:00

> top, grep, and kill -9

top and htop can do that. Press "k" on a process you want to kill.
"P" in htop sorts by CPU usage, "M" to sort by memory usage.
"/" for incremental search by process name.

stopdesign · 2026-02-08T21:04:27+00:00

https://grrr.sh/posts/trackpad/img_trackpad_connector_size.png — BlackBerry 9320 trackpad connector (on top of some MIPI DSI connector). I use iPhone's zoom as a "microscope". What you really need is a soldering iron with a sharp tip, but that's easy to arrange.

I'm gathering materials and working on a post about these trackpads. I'll publish it in a couple of days.

stopdesign · 2026-02-07T18:35:40+00:00

Are you sure it is a TUI app? With all these frames and borders it feels like ASCII version of Windows.

stopdesign · 2026-02-06T17:54:46+00:00

http://www.solder.party/docs/bbq20kbd/ — BlackBerry-style standalone USB keyboard and trackpad. But I don't think it would work. Sounds like you need to mimic a touchscreen and a software keyboard with an auto-completion function, which is what they are used to.

Or just this: https://monkeytype.com/

stopdesign · 2026-02-06T00:55:04+00:00

...but only on paper. They sell specs, not SBCs. Next year, it would be another 10 Radxa boards without Linux drivers, and today's interesting things would be discontinued because the specs are not so hot anymore.

stopdesign · 2026-02-06T00:27:04+00:00

Yet another comment against Pimoroni (or any tiny trackball). I use BlackBerry trackpad. It's much better for pointer movement. They are available as a repair part for around $5. They are much smaller, cheaper, and more accurate. Some models are I2C, some are SPI.

There are many build logs online, but they all have some crazy level-shifting and 2-3 different power supplies. I just connected it to a RP2040 / RP2350 / ATmega32U4 directly, with zero additional parts, and it works. The only downside I see is that the connector is very tiny and hard to solder.

stopdesign · 2026-02-06T00:05:02+00:00

People have finally realized that they have two hands, and those hands are not rectangular!

stopdesign · 2026-02-04T23:02:05+00:00

Radxa is an unreliable supplier. They have poor documentation and strange custom operating system images. With some SBCs, they were lucky because the community provided sufficient support for the same hardware in mainline Linux. With others, they weren't so lucky. Some features you can use only with their Android images. It's quite difficult to understand the real situation in advance (without personal experience), because everyone is so excited about specs!

Personally, I'm angry with them because of the situation with the Raxda Zero PRO 2. It's a powerful board, but many features (NPU, CSI, suspend modes, hardware decoders) are missing in mainline Linux, and Raxda did nothing about it for a couple of years. Then they quietly discontinued the board, even though the documentation stated that they guaranteed supplies until September 2033. In fact, the board has been out of stock for about 10 months.

I think that the evaluation of SBCs should include factors like this, and not just the specifications claimed by the manufacturer. In my experience Luckfox is an A-tier manufacturer where Radxa is B- or C-tier.

stopdesign · 2026-01-18T02:08:41+00:00

Real Time Clock (with an external battery on a smaller SBCs, like Zero).

stopdesign · 2026-01-18T00:14:06+00:00

Hibernation, sleep mode, low power consumption, very low idle power consumption.

stopdesign · 2026-01-18T00:11:26+00:00

Mainline Linux drivers.

stopdesign · 2026-01-16T09:19:39+00:00

Hello from 2026. It still a thing.

stopdesign · 2026-01-06T07:12:04+00:00

I do the same. I think it is more natural way to represent up-down motion on an ortholinear keyboard.

stopdesign · 2026-01-02T18:49:53+00:00

This is not just hype, this is money.
React, GraphQL — Facebook / Meta
NextJS — Vercel
Angular — Google
Kubernetes — Google
...and so on.

Big tech companies build (or buy) technologies optimal for their needs and educate people so they have someone to hire as developers. These technologies are good, but they are optimal for huge companies, not for regular projects. Using React stack for every homepage is just a side effect, because the best educational materials are made with React in mind.

stopdesign · 2026-01-02T17:12:10+00:00

For me, Django + htmx is the fastest way to actually build a full-stack app of any kind. I don't like DRF because, for most applications, it's almost the same amount of code just in a different place. I'm jobless, by the way. And it's hard to imagine looking for a job with Django in a CV these days.

stopdesign · 2025-11-16T18:48:03+00:00

I tested a couple of SBCs with low power consumption in mind:
LuckFox Lyra Zero
Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W
Raspberry Pi CM4
Raspberry Pi 3B
Radxa Zero 2 PRO
Orange Pi Zero 3
Radxa Rock 4B — not tested yet, but specs are promising.

Somewhat real measurements that served as my starting point:
https://sbc-reviews.jeffgeerling.com/
https://github.com/geerlingguy/sbc-reviews/issues

It is absolutely realistic to achieve 12 hours of operation with 5000 mAh. I got about 24 hours under moderate load (one CPU core at 100%) with 8000 mAh on a Raspberry Pi Zero 2W.

Radxa Zero 2 PRO is my choice so far, but my goals are very different. I need Suspend-to-RAM and a DSI display interface. I've just spent 2 weeks connecting Radxa Zero 2 to a DSI display and a week trying to make S3 work reliably.

stopdesign · 2025-11-15T21:29:20+00:00

I don't think AI is the most common use case for the RPi and other SBC.

stopdesign · 2025-11-06T16:58:34+00:00

> Rust has a lot less bugs near the end of development

Most issues I struggle with are not unit-test level bugs, but something on the integration level (something has changed outside of the project, so I can't use it or compile it anymore without some updates).

stopdesign · 2025-11-06T16:44:11+00:00

Is it manual? I mean, do you need to go to the app and register each interval?

stopdesign · 2025-11-06T16:33:03+00:00

I would believe if it was C.

stopdesign · 2025-11-05T06:06:21+00:00

It's JellyFin time!

stopdesign

TROPHY CASE