Hardware video decode + a GNOME desktop. Kernel: mainline 6.18.38.
This release folds in the July kernel work and switches the desktop from KDE Plasma to GNOME on Wayland.
🎬 Hardware video decode (VPU) — the headline change
The cedar video engine now decodes in hardware: H.264 and H.265 play through the Allwinner userspace (libcedarc + gst-omx). YouTube plays with hardware decode in the browser — v0.2 could only decode in software. VP8/VP9 stay capped (that engine never raises its interrupt), so YouTube negotiates H.264 instead of a CPU-melting software VP9.
🖥️ GNOME desktop (replaces KDE Plasma)
Lighter than full Plasma, and Wayland is where the Mali-G57 (Panfrost) gives its best accelerated experience. Tuned to feel familiar out of the box: a taskbar (Dash to Panel), system-tray icons and minimise/maximise buttons, all on by default and removable. The CLI / headless image continues, now with the hardware-decode stack included too.
⚙️ Kernel & hardware
- GPU frequencies fixed. The A523 GPU clock is a cycle-masking divider, not a linear one — the old model silently overshot (the "150 MHz" point actually ran at 487 MHz, and throttling raised the clock). Now correct: 149 / 199 / 300 / 399 / 597 MHz, measured with the Mali cycle counter.
- PCIe / M.2 root port now probes and enumerates (verified with an empty slot; NVMe with a real drive still needs a tester).
- Display scanout wedge fix — no more frame getting stuck after some transitions.
- defconfig fixed — it had been missing analog audio, PCIe, VPU and gamepad (joydev) options; regenerated from the hardware-validated config.
- Gamepads — analog sticks now work in software that opens
/dev/input/jsN.
🧹 Image
- 1 GB zram swap on by default — keeps the 2 GB board responsive under a browser instead of freezing on the SD swap file.
- Power saving / suspend disabled on purpose — the mainline resume path on this SoC still needs polish (the system doesn't always come back after the screen powers off), so suspend and screen-blanking are off and the display stays on. Re-enable in Settings → Power if you want to test it.
- Slimmer images, a live welcome page (per-core MHz, GPU clock, temps, RAM), and the browser ships WebKit 2.52.5 (Debian's security update).
🛣️ Next
I've been going through the stable kernel changes since 6.18.38 and there's a fair amount worth having — general security/stability fixes plus A523-specific improvements (notably better GPIO-interrupt handling). I'm looking at rolling a security-and-improvements kernel refresh to 6.18.40 soon.
📦 Images
| File | Desktop | SHA-256 |
|---|---|---|
aurealnix-opi4a-debian13-gnome-v0.3.img.xz |
GNOME | e2e0b178cc09ad25241b6535fd01a8123f075f21595bf20cfe5975cc6754c59a |
aurealnix-opi4a-debian13-cli-v0.3.img.xz |
CLI / headless | e7ce9aa8eff474025571a1b5af4a59d986450d573cfa02a2fb9b6abdccd9c58e |
First boot resizes the rootfs and regenerates SSH host keys — give it a minute and don't pull the power. Default login user / user; change the password immediately. Full details, the 130-patch series and the FAQ are in the repo.
Thanks for keeping these boards alive. Now go have fun with your renewed Orange Pi 4A. 🎉