Setting up a OrangePi Zero Plus with Arch

mm0amw

A quick note on how I got started. Get the Arch image from the website and use dd to copy it to a micro-SD card. Put the card in the orangepi, connect ethernet cable and connect the micro USB socket to a 5V usb power adapter

Switch on power, and you should see a green LED, that then turns red. As long as there's a DHCP server on the ethernet, the OrangePi will take an address and register as 'orangepi' - if not you'll need to get the address from the dhcp server

Now connect via ssh:
> ssh orangepi@orangepi

password is orangepi. Once logged in you can su to become root - same password. Sudo is not install. Use pacman -Syu to update the image. Only think that isn't updated is the kernel - I'm working on building a 4.14 kernel for it

The serial debug port works, pin 1 nearest the edge is ground. You need a 3.3V serial adapter. You may need to swap pin 2 and 3 - on my adapter I have to connect rx to rx and tx to tx - which is backwards but works. Connection is 115200 8N1
Serial port gets you access to uboot and the early kernel messages if you need it.

This orangepi is destined to be an NTP time server, since unlike on the Pi the ethernet is NOT connected via USB. USB adds an average of 0.5ms of jitter to NTP, and this limits precision. I shall connect a ublox neo-6m clone to the 26 pin connector, and also 1PPS via a GPIO line. Will report later how this goes.

My first USB power adapter didn't power up the board, so you can also power via pins 1 and 2 on the 13 pin connector - most I saw was 0.35A at 5V