I saw this baby online and I haven’t went deep on it but the possibility of having 8 cores, 8gm of ram and 128 gb on storage… AUCH! <3
Is this one: SOM3588 Octa-core System-on-Module with RK3588 - Geniatech
I think the measures are different and will dive more tomorrow on it 
…You’re not helping. Where’s your source? I’m flagging this post as spam for the meantime. This content does not belong in this forum.
And one more thing. If it ain’t a Raspberry, then it’s worth squat.
Oh sorry, I think I didn’t put the link isn’t? Nope it’s not spam. It’s a rockship module? I need to search again, wait. Sorry I was making the bed for some kittens!
…314-pin SODIMM. Good luck jamming that to the 200-pin port on the mainboard. (You can’t; it’s physically impossible.) Oh, and Rockchip is a certified red flag. 'Nuff said.
Yes the pin count is different, I think the size too which is pretty bad.
Those of us with the A04 and A06 know why this is a bad idea.
So heated discussion, guys need to chill out ;-). You could try building an adapter and creating a BSP (Board Support Package) for it. It’s a lot of work, but the schematics are available on GitHub, so you can match the pinout.
I haven’t been around here in ages guys, but can I ask what happened with those modules?
A04 isn’t being sold anymore, probably because certain arguably core features were never worked out, like HDMI out, and a few other things I’m probably forgetting. The A06 continued to be sold past the A04, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the “out of stock” listing for it on the website is a permanent thing now. It had minor issues compared to the A04, but like other folks I’ve read comments from here, I too have turned my A06 Devterm into a CM4 device about a year ago, and the A06 has been collecting dust in a drawer where I expect it will remain. Personally, I never saw much, if any performance boost on the A06 compared to the CM4. While it had extra cores, it generally ran too hot to use them all. It’s possible I never got my scheduler and gear-shifting settings just right, but it just didn’t seem worth the hassle for an expectedly minor performance boost. Although most code/projects/applications built ok on it, some things had issues. Everything seems to work with the CM4 though, due to the ubiquity of the Raspberry Pi.
Interestingly, the R01 still seems alive on the forums and is still for sale. I never got one, and have been curious and almost got one just to have it and since it’s cheap, but I’m not sure I personally have a use for it. While it’s experimental and underpowered, it also sounds like it’s extremely power efficient, so if all you need is a terminal on the go or minimal graphics/GUI needs, then it might be a nice option for long battery life. I’ve kept an eye on the threads where people are doing interesting things with it, and it sounds like it’s pretty capable for what it is, and especially for the price. But it’s not really something to do anything but the barest minimum of web browsing on, and it wouldn’t be good for watching videos or running emulators or games, either.
on my todo is to build a an adapter for this one Radxa CM5
Looks pretty close from the datasheet not sure what the support looks like in terms of buildroot etc
That sounds interesting, sadly I have some power hungry needs to be meet with the device and that will play against the battery. Most of them are science related but I ams are they will keep the device hop when I get it.
I am extremely interested in running Linux which might lead me to the pi module (hopefully the new one can be out inside the machine). This mostly because I will need libraries, system, etc…
Looks cool! It has a lite version and a heavy version from what I can see!
If the software support for that Radxa CM5 is good, I van see this as an option. There just isn’t good support for anything besides the Pi option which is why so many people switched, including myself. My Devterm sits in a drawer waiting for the CM4 adapter to arrive, I’m just tired of fighting with the software on the a06. Right now, if I need it, it’s a serial or ssh terminal and that’s about it.
like other folks I’ve read comments from here, I too have turned my A06 Devterm into a CM4 device
I have the opposite experience: the CM4 is sluggish and I almost only ever use my A06 (really nice performance) or R01 (runs 6-8 hours and “not fast enough for a browser besides w3m/lynx” turns out to be a benefit). I have the CM4 in my uConsole and it’s fine but the A06 is speedy and works fine for me. (I even sprang for the 8GB CM4.) I ended up putting the CM4 into a module and slotting it into the TPi to use as a NAS.
it generally ran too hot to use them all
I think the big piece of copper and thermal paste came with later orders, or at least mine came with one; mine gets hot when it’s cranked all the way up but I rebuilt everything on-device except qt webengine (because it required more RAM to link than I could muster even after plugging in extra USB drives to use as swap). All the cores maxed out, it got up to 71C, kinda hot but still fine.
It’s possible I never got my scheduler and gear-shifting settings just right
I think what was helpful for me was I keep conky on the side (ratpoison with set padding 280 0 0 0, but I set it to toggle so I can hide conky if I want the rest of the screen), so I can see what’s going on and shift appropriately. I usually keep it cranked all the way down (-s 1 or -s 2) and turn it up when I am compiling something or if I attempt to use Firefox or mplayer or something starts to eat a lot of CPU. It’s on -s 1 right now, so just the ambient X/conky/ssh/drawterm stuff eats 13%, but it still lasts a long time. I tried to attach my .conkyrc but it’s not an allowed file type so here’s a screenshot and a gist The .conkyrc I am using on my DevTerm. · GitHub . Anyway, long way of saying it’s easier to figure out when you need to crank the gears up or down when you have a CPU monitor running.
As far as performance, I did some test compiles, the performance cores are about twice as fast at the same clock rate.
It’s been a while since I opened my Devterm and I don’t remember what I received for cooling, but it wasn’t what you described. I seem to remember reading about upgraded components in later shipments. (I never asked if I could get a set later on, so I guess that’s on me.) I don’t have a 3D printer, but my original plan was to get the plastic fan shield printed that someone posted but I never got around to it. Sounded like the fan shroud moved enough air through to reduce the temps to a better level. But a better heat sink might have prevented the fan from running as often too. It’s been a while but I’m pretty sure mine was going well over 71C (I remember getting into the 80s or possibly low 90s) when cranking through a build. I don’t think it was “unsafe” temperatures, but it worried me.
When I was actively using mine with the A06, I got in the habit of using it remotely, even though it was on the desk in front of me. I had a ssh window open with htop and eventually btop running that I would check, and adjust accordingly. But your windowing solution is cool. I had no problem using it cranked all the way down, but I felt like I could never fully use it cranked up all the way due to the heat. One day I hope to print that fan shield anyway, as it would work just as well with both the A06 and the CM4. Not sure if there were performance comparisons but I think cranked all the way down the A06 is probably friendlier with battery life than the CM4? Definitely more customizable in terms of power and battery usage, but even if less flexible, the CM4… “just works”. Funny thing is, I’m usually the type to want to tinker (PC and Android user, and not an Apple user), but in this case I guess not. Maybe I can improve the thermals and use the A06 again at some point.
Ouch. Yeah, I’d be worried if it hit the 90s.
I have kind of a pile of SBC heatsinks, I probably would have cut a hole in the back to fit one if it didn’t come with something to cool it off. The CM-4 can barely get by without a heatsink, the A-06 really needs one. The RK1 (similar CPU, 3588 vs. the A-06’s 3399) has a heatsink with a built-in a fan and case fans and it idles at ambient room temperature, but that wouldn’t work on a machine like the DevTerm (bulky heatsink plus all the fans uses a little more juice).
The R-01 I’ve been running with no heatsink. 40 degrees, never gets past 50 when its single core is fully loaded. I’d be really excited about a beefier RISC-V one; it seems about time for a new CPU board, but the existing ones still do the job fine; I use the A-06 about as much as I use my desktop machine.
I seem to remember reading about upgraded components in later shipments.
Yeah, basically moves the heat to the sheet and also covers the vent slots in the back of the case up to the fan, so it makes a little duct instead of just shooting air in the general direction of the CPU and hoping for the best. I didn’t see pictures of it in anyone’s build (I spent an excessive amount of time looking at pictures before the DevTerm arrived; I was very excited) and it came with separate instructions so I figured that it wasn’t part of the first run.
I think cranked all the way down the A06 is probably friendlier with battery life than the CM4?
I think so, but you can turn off cores in the CM-4 by doing sudo sh -c 'echo 0 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpuN/online' (replacing N) for as many cores as you want to turn off, and setting the powersave governor. I kind of wonder why the gear system doesn’t just change governors around instead of setting max frequency; like you can set the CPU governors independently, and that caps all of them at the min frequency, and adjust. There’s a “conservative” governor that is like ondemand or schedutil but it has a delay when changing frequencies so there’s a ramp-up and ramp-down period, but I think (don’t quote me on this, haven’t checked, going from memory) that it’s not included for the CM-4.
I’ve hounded ClockWork on this and basically been told all of their ARM custom modules have been dropped, due to issues that they could not get the vendor to fix. This leaves either R01, rPi CM3 or 4. I gave up on RISC-V because its architecture is too simplistic for my taste. Now I’m looking to put an ARM in my DevTerm. rPi says they are shipping CM3s for a couple of more years, yet I can’t find any and I really didn’t want to buy an adapter and a CM4. Still that may be the only way to go…
I would tend to believe this. My experience is that the Broadcom CPUs are slow compared to other similarly spec’d devices. My Allwinner H3 (32bit @ 1GHz * 4core) feels nimble compared to my rPi3b (4x@1.2GHz). I’m going to have to put them to a more scientific test at some point just to settle it in my own mind. 
Do the CM3 use the same OS images? I might be willing to track one down while I wait for my CM4 adapter to ship.
