First Boot of Armbian on Rock Pi 4B

This guide focuses on additional software setup and optimization for the Rock Pi 4B running Armbian. If you’re just starting, check out Optimizing your first Armbian setup guide to get your system ready before diving into advanced tweaks.

Installing Software for ROCK Pi 23W PoE HAT

To fully utilize the ROCK Pi 23W PoE HAT, you’ll need to install some additional software. Here’s how:

Install necessary packages to build the mraa library:

apt update && \
  apt -y install git build-essential swig4.0 python3-dev libnode-dev cmake libjson-c-dev

Download the “user overlay” from Radxa:

mkdir -p /boot/overlay-user
cd /boot/overlay-user
curl -sL https://rock.sh/rockpi-poe-dtbo -o rockpi-poe.dtbo

Update /boot/armbianEnv.txt:
Add the following line to enable the overlay:
```
user_overlays=rockpi-poe
```

Compile and install mraa packages:

cd ~
git clone https://github.com/eclipse/mraa
mkdir mraa/build
cd mraa/build
cmake .. \
  -DPYTHON3_INCLUDE_DIR=$(python3 -c "import sysconfig; print(sysconfig.get_path('include'))") \
  -DPYTHON3_LIBRARY=$(python3 -c "import sysconfig; print(sysconfig.get_config_var('LIBDIR'))")
make -j7 # Adjust based on available cores+1
make install
ldconfig

Install the PoE package from Radxa:

cd /tmp
wget https://cos.setq.me/rockpi/deb/rockpi-poe-0.13.deb
dpkg -i rockpi-poe-0.13.deb
systemctl enable rockpi-poe.service

Reboot the device:
```
reboot
```
After the reboot, the fan should spin rapidly and then slow down, indicating that it is working correctly.

Check the service status:

Run the following command to ensure the service is active:

systemctl status rockpi-poe.service

You should see an output similar to this:

● rockpi-poe.service - Rockpi PoE-FAN
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/rockpi-poe.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Sat 2024-06-22 21:24:47 +08; 3min 8s ago
   Main PID: 11117 (python3)
      Tasks: 1 (limit: 4447)
     Memory: 4.6M
        CPU: 182ms
     CGroup: /system.slice/rockpi-poe.service
             └─11117 /usr/bin/python3 /usr/bin/rockpi-poe.py start

Enable PCIe Gen2 mode to get max speed

By default, the PCIe on the Rock Pi 4B runs in Gen1 mode to ensure maximum compatibility. However, if you’ve confirmed that your NVMe drive is working well, you can enable PCIe Gen2 mode to significantly boost its speed, achieving read/write speeds of over 1000MB/s.

To enable PCIe gen2 mode, add the following lines to /boot/armbianEnv.txt:

overlays=rk3399-pcie-gen2

After saving the changes, reboot your Rock Pi 4B. This will apply the new configuration and you should see a noticeable increase in NVMe performance.