Popular Rockchip SBC distro in limbo after maintainer burns out

Recently Joshua Riek posted he's dropping off from GitHub . If you haven't heard of him, he's one of the few reasons working with Linux on Rockchip SBCs is so much easier today than it was just a few years ago.

His Ubuntu Rockchip distribution is built for Ubuntu 22 and 24, and they've been maybe the most popular and stable way to run Ubuntu on Rockchip devices.

So popular, in fact, that manufacturers who use Rockchip, like Turing Pi , build their

XKCD Dependencies

Why Raspberry Pi for an SBC guy

ArmSoM Sige7 purple enclosure

If anyone asks why I prefer to work with Raspberry Pis when I want to tinker on a random project, consider:

I just spent the past hour with a brand new ArmSoM Sige7 board ( see my debugging notes in my sbc-reviews repo ). This SBC has been on the market for months, with glowing reviews all the way back in May...

It took about 30 minutes before I could get it to boot (20 minutes to find an image that would flash and at least start


Home Assistant and CarPlay with the Pi Touch Display 2

After a decade, Raspberry Pi finally upgraded their official Touch Display from 480p to 720p, while keeping the price and overall aesthetic the same.

Raspberry Pi Touch Display 2 - Home Assistant Dashboard

I've had early access to the Touch Display 2, and have been testing it in a variety of scenarios. Generally, Linux touchscreen support isn't wonderful. And Pi OS, being a fairly customized UI focused on simple use cases, is not quite to a usable state if you go touchscreen-only, considering I had trouble getting


LTT's Precision Screwdriver - better than iFixit?

LTT Precision Screwdriver held by Jeff

Two years ago, Linus Sebastian released a general purpose ratcheting screwdriver tailored towards PC building and IT needs. I reviewed the LTT Screwdriver , and found it to be a good tool that did improve a couple things where it counted: the ratchet mechanism was useful for a broad range of lighter tasks, and the in-handle bit storage was a creative improvement over the patented MegaPro Automotive design the LTT Screwdriver was based on.

The price of the LTT Screwdriver was about $15-20 more than I think it


Finding a server's BMC / IPMI IP address with ipmitool

I test servers on a temporary basis a lot, and many enterprise servers don't have as user-friendly external port indications, or little OLED displays to provide useful information. They're no-frills because they don't need frills, you just deploy them and they run for years.

I often need to gain access to the server's IPMI/BMC interface to manage the server remotely, and it's not always obvious what IP address is assigned if you don't manually assign one


JetKVM: tiny IP KVM that's not an Apple Watch

JetKVM running

Despite what it looks like, this isn't a hot-rod Apple Watch. This is an IP KVM. What does that mean? It's basically a remote control rocket pack for any computer, from a giant tower PC, to a little mini PC you might run in your homelab.

It's called JetKVM , and the team behind it sent me two to test out.

BIG SCARY DISCLAIMER : The JetKVM is currently on Kickstarter . If you decide to back it, and they don't


Qualcomm cancels Snapdragon Dev Kit, refunds all orders

Snapdragon Developer Kit for Windows

This afternoon I received the following email from Arrow, regarding the Snapdragon Developer Kit for Windows :

Dear Valued Customer,

Please see this important message from Qualcomm:

”At Qualcomm, we are dedicated to pioneering leading technology and delivering premium experiences to our valued customers. The launch of 30+ Snapdragon X-series powered PC's is a testament to our ability to deliver leading technology and the PC industry's desire to move to our next-generation technology. However, the Developer Kit product comprehensively has


Realizing Meshtastic's Promise with the T-Deck

Meshtastic —a simple off-grid mesh network used to transfer short messages—is a neat bit of tech, but until recently, most development has focused on little nodes with or without tiny OLED displays, and a separate phone app or web UI to actually interact with the mesh.

The major use case I have for Meshtastic is backup comms—when cell networks and physical infrastructure may be unavailable. In those conditions, I don't want to run my full computer, or even

Lilygo T-Deck running experimental UI Meshtastic firmware

3rd Party PoE HATs for Pi 5 add NVMe, fit inside case

Today I published a video detailing my testing of three new Raspberry Pi HATs—these HATs all add on PoE+ power and an NVMe SSD slot, though the three go about it in different ways.

You can watch the video for the full story (embedded below), but in this post I'll go through my brief thoughts on all three, and link to a few other options coming on the market as well.

52Pi P33 GeeekPi PoE+ NVMe HAT for Pi 5

Use an External GPU on Raspberry Pi 5 for 4K Gaming

After I saw Pineboards 4K Pi 5 external GPU gaming demo at Maker Faire Hanover, I decided it was time to set up my GPU test rig and see how the Pi OS amdgpu Linux kernel patch is going.

GLmark2 running on Pi 5 with AMD RX 460 external GPU

I tested it out on a livestream over the weekend , but I thought I'd document the current state of the patch, how to apply it, and what else is left to do to get full external GPU support on the Raspberry Pi.

I also have a full video up with more demonstrations