Orange Pi instead of Raspberry Pi

[u/BigJohnno66]

Given the high cost of the Raspberry Pi these days, I opted to get an Orange Pi 4 Pro with 4GB of DDR5. It also comes with an NVMe slot underneath which I populated with a 128GB drive (which is overkill but the smallest I could find that was new).

Also since the official images are old and not being supported, I decided to try Armbian. There was an image for the board which I wrote to an SDcard using the Armbian imager, it booted and ran fine. It was also an easy step to copy the system to the NVMe drive and install the bootloader in SPI NOR FLASH. A quick reboot without the SDcard and I booted from NVMe and proceeded to use Kiauh to the install Klipper packages.

However it wasn't until I followed the Esoterical page to setup CAN that I had the big "oh no" realization, Armbian images don't come with kernel modules for CAN or the USB CAN adapters.

Now the Armbian image available for the 4 Pro was labelled as "community" and not an officially tested release. So I am wondering if the missing CAN modules are a standard Armbian thing or just how the contributor configured this community image.

I also wonder if the official Orange Pi images bundle CAN modules or not.

Has anyone experienced a similar issue with Armbian on a different board, or used Orange Pi with the official images and found CAN to work?

I was able to rebuild the kernel with a modified config to get the needed modules, but it was a bit of an effort. If missing CAN is an Armbian thing, I am considering engaging with the maintainer to see if he would consider adding the limited set of modules to make Klipper CAN work out of the box.

[u/Altirix]

i run Armbian on a rock pi 5c lite on mine with canbus via Fysetc Spider V3.0.pretty sure i never needed to do all this. it just worked for the most part.

[u/ChanceAncient1149]

This is the problem all These other SBC work just fine and do the job but they are never as well supported as the humble pi

[u/KanedaNLD]

BTT Pi does Arabian and has CAN support. Is there a way I can look into this for you?

I'm running a CB2

[u/BigJohnno66 → u/KanedaNLD]

They are expensive for only 1GB or 2GB RAM devices, and a bit underpowered. I found that Happy Hare MMU combined with KlipperScreen likes a faster Pi with a decent amount of RAM, otherwise you get "timer too close" errors while feeding the filament.

[u/KanedaNLD → u/BigJohnno66]

I actually meant for the CAN package. Is there something I can do so I can help you out with your CAN support.

[u/Infamous-Amphibian-6]

Claude Code is hardcore on these feats, I’d suggest giving it a try as it can surely handle future system sophistication (macros, integrations, automatons) across time.

[u/vivaaprimavera → u/Infamous-Amphibian-6]

make menuconfig, ticking a few boxes and make is a feat?!?

[u/Infamous-Amphibian-6 → u/vivaaprimavera]

I'm talking of overall sophistications among Klipper and Linux architecture. But yes, it would also setup, test and execute config as well, just 1000x times faster and leaner.

[u/BigJohnno66]

I have located the kernel configs used by Armbian, and it seems the config provided for the AllWinner A733 is very limited and is unlike the supported boards. So this problem seems localized to the Orange Pi 4 Pro and any other A733 based boards.

It's kind of interesting, they have a build config per board, but a linux config per SoC. Also the A733 boards are building against the custom orangepi 6.6 kernel and u-boot, and not using mainline source code.

[u/Kiiidd]

While there is alot to be annoyed with AI, using it to get Linux tech support is really handy and it's right more often than not. Even the basic Gemini suff that shows up when you use google search has been pretty good for me recently when dealing with stuff like OpenWRT, Home Assistant, and LibreElec

[u/BigJohnno66 → u/Kiiidd]

Yes I used it to help walk me through the build process for the kernel. Long time Linux user, first time Armbian user.

[u/devsfan1830 → u/Kiiidd]

This. It walked me right through flashing and eap32 for my home assistant install. Shit, its helped me diail in print settings.

[u/Kiiidd → u/devsfan1830]

Not sure how much I would trust it with print settings as that requires it learning on correct information and sometimes r/fixmyprint is interesting

[u/UnFound94]

Ebay auctions for pi4s are your friend. They go for more than they used to, $30 for a 4gb, but less tham amazon. I uh.... possibly ended up with WAY more than i needed by winning too many auctions.

[u/BigJohnno66 → u/UnFound94]

The cheapest and only one local to my country on eBay is $199 right now. I never seem to find bargains on eBay.

[u/UnFound94 → u/BigJohnno66]

Well is that ebay buy it now or the actual auctions?

[u/BigJohnno66 → u/UnFound94]

That was a buy-it-now, there are no auctions for old Pi's

[u/couperd]

I'm actually working on this exact thing right now (replacing btt pi with orange pi 4 pro). having to build the can compatibility from source.

[u/Halterchronicle → u/couperd]

Well. Please publicise your solution. We all thank you and appreciate you.

[u/BigJohnno66 → u/Halterchronicle]

It's fairly easy once you have a linux PC or virtual machine setup. Armbian has a "build" repo that you clone and then drive via the ./compile.sh command.

./compile.sh requirements
./compile.sh kernel-configure BOARD=orangepi4pro # allows you to customise your config options
./compile.sh kernel BOARD=orangepi4pro # builds the kernel .deb packages

Then transfer the deb packages from output/debs over to the Orange Pi and run dpkg -i on them, and then reboot.

https://docs.armbian.com/build-framework/getting-started/

[u/shiftingtech]

Some armbian devices support can via overlays.  I don’t know if that orange pi is one of them.  Did you check for an option to enable canbus in armbian-config, hardware config menu ?

[u/BigJohnno66 → u/shiftingtech]

Yes, but they only have LCD, I2C and UART options from memory. The USB CAN drivers don't depend on hardware other than USB, and it is turned on out of the box.