Linux in The News 11-14-22

Last Updated on November 14, 2022 by KC7NYR

$60.00 Orange Pi 5 SBC available for pre-order

A few days ago, Orange Pi announced their new Single Board Computer based on the Octa-core Rockchip RK3588S SoC. Starting at $60, the new Orange Pi 5 includes up to 32GB RAM, 8K@ 60fps display support, one M.2 module for NVMe SSD.

The new Orange Pi 5 implements the 8nm Rockchip RK3588S seen in other recently launched SBCs (i.e. NanoPi R6S, Khadas Edge2).

Rockchip RK3588S  — 4x Cortex A76 cores (up to 2.4GHz); 4x Cortex-A55 cores (up to 1.8GHz); Arm Mali-G610 GPU; 6 TOPS AI accelerator

RK3588S basic specs
(click image to enlarge)

Orange Pi is offering this board in two variants 4GB and 8GB LPDDR4/4x. The storage interface seems to include 16MB of QSPI NOR flash, one MicroSD card reader and a M.2 2242 connector for NVMe SSD devices.

  
RK3588S block diagram and Orange Pi 5 rear view (right)(click images to enlarge)

As seen in the image below, the Orange Pi 5 provides one Gigabit ethernet port (YT88531C). The product page describes that it also supports Wi-Fi/BT connectivity via an on-board AP6275P, but the Wi-Fi chip doesn’t seem present in the board layout image.

Orange Pi 5 side view(click image to enlarge)

The display interface combines one HDMI 2.1 port with 8K@60fps support and USB 3.0 Type-C port (DisplayPort 1.4 muxed) with 8K@30Hz support and two 4-lane MIPI DSI supporting 4K @60Hz. The SBC also features two MIPI DSI 4-lane and one MIPI CSI 4-lane for embedded cameras.

The Orange Pi 5 measures about 62 x 100mm and it also includes up to x26 multiplexed pins via expansion header supporting protocols as 3x UARTs, 2x I2C, 1x SPI, 2x CAN in addition to 6x PWM and up to 17 GPIOS.

Orange Pi 5 pinouts (click image to enlarge)

Other peripherals found on this SBC include one 3.5mm audio jack, a recovery key, one MaskROM Key, UART debugging pins, LED indicators, two USB 2.0 ports and one USB 3.0 port.

Orange Pi 5 peripherals(click image to enlarge)

The OSes that the Orange Pi 5 can support are Orange Pi OS (Droid), Orange Pi (Arch), Ubuntu, Debian and Android 12. The Wiki can be found here, but it doesn’t include information for the Orange Pi 5 as of publication date.

Further information

The Orange Pi 5 is available on AliExpress.com and Amazon.com. The 4GB variant is listed on Amazon for $68.99 while the 8GB variant costs $84.99. There is a 5V/A power adapter listed for an extra $10.00. Similarly, AliExpress has the SBC listed at $60 for the 4GB variant and $75 for the 8GB variant. Shipping is expected to occur around early December 2022. Refer to the announcement page for more details.

Clonezilla Live 3.0.2 Disk Cloning/Imaging Utility Released with Linux Kernel 6.0

Steven Shiau announced today the release and general availability of Clonezilla Live 3.0.2 as the latest stable version of this Debian-based live system for disk imaging/cloning tasks based on the powerful Clonezilla software.

Based and synced with the Debian Sid (Unstable) software repository as of November 3rd, 2022, the Clonezilla Live 3.0.2 release is here four and a half months after Clonezilla Live 3.0.1 and it’s powered by the latest and greatest Linux 6.0 kernel series. Linux kernel 6.0.6 is included by default for better hardware support.

In addition to Linux kernel 6.0, this release also adds the UFW firewall in the live system, adds the -sfs option in the dialog menu, along with the corresponding language files, and enables the -k0 and -k1 options in ocs-onthefly’s restoring action for the beginner mode.

Other than that, the devs disabled the glances service in the live system and fixed an issue in /etc/default/espeakup by modifying default_voice instead of VOICE. Various language translations have been updated, including German, Spanish, Greek, French, Polish, Japanese, Turkish, and Slovak.

As you can see, this is a small update to the Clonezilla Live 3.0 series, which was released in May 2022 with APFS and LUKS support, as well as various other new features and improvements.

Clonezilla Live 3.0.2 is here just to offer those of you who want to clone/backup your disk drives improved hardware support through Linux kernel 6.0 and a better overall disk imaging experience. Therefore, it is highly recommended to use this version over previous releases.

You can download the Clonezilla Live 3.0.2-21 release right now from the official website or by using the direct download link below. Clonezilla Live runs directly from a bootable USB flash drive and doesn’t require installation. Clonezilla Live ISOs are available for both 64-bit and 32-bit hardware architectures.