Ubuntu/Debian Usage

This document describes common operations on Firefly Ubuntu/Debian firmware.

The default login account is:

User: firefly
Password: firefly

On Ubuntu Desktop firmware, the system usually logs in to the firefly desktop user automatically. Use sudo when administrator permission is required:

sudo <command>

If you need to set a root password, run:

sudo passwd root

Show Firmware Version

Firefly firmware provides the ffgo command to show firmware information. When reporting issues, include the output of ffgo version.

ffgo
ffgo update
ffgo version

Example output:

OS:      Ubuntu 18.04.5 LTS
MODEL:   Firefly RK3566-ROC-PC HDMI(Linux)
FIREFLY: v2.04-1-g618089a
DATE:    20210316-1035
KERNEL:  Linux version 4.19.172 ...

Performance Mode

To keep each module running at its highest frequency as much as possible, switch to the root user and run:

sudo su
echo performance | tee $(find /sys/ -name '*governor')

Some nodes may report errors such as Permission denied or Invalid argument. This means those governor nodes do not support user-space writes or do not support the performance value. The errors do not affect other nodes that were updated and can be ignored.

Performance mode switches supported CPU, devfreq, and similar modules to the performance governor, but if the system temperature becomes too high, the thermal mechanism will still force frequency throttling to protect the hardware.

Show SoC Module Temperatures

SoC module temperatures can be read from thermal nodes. First, show the type of each thermal zone:

cat /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone*/type

Example output:

soc-thermal
bigcore0-thermal
bigcore1-thermal
littlecore-thermal
center-thermal
gpu-thermal
npu-thermal

Then show the temperature of the corresponding thermal zones:

cat /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone*/temp

Example output:

The unit is millidegrees Celsius. Divide the value by 1000 to get degrees Celsius. For example, 38846 means about 38.846°C. The number and names of thermal zones may vary between SoCs and firmware versions. Use the actual node output as the reference.

Disable the Graphical Interface

Some use cases do not require a desktop environment. You can change the default boot target to multi-user.target. After the next reboot, the system will boot to command-line mode and will not start the graphical interface automatically:

sudo systemctl set-default multi-user.target
sudo reboot

To restore graphical startup by default, run:

sudo systemctl set-default graphical.target
sudo reboot

Network Configuration

Confirm the actual interface name before editing network settings:

ip link
nmcli device status

Common Ethernet interface names are eth0, enP..., or end...; common Wi-Fi interface names are wlan0 or wlP....

Configure with nmcli

Show devices and connections:

nmcli device status
nmcli connection show

Replace "Wired connection 1" with the actual connection name. If no Ethernet connection exists, create one first:

sudo nmcli connection add con-name "eth0-static" ifname eth0 type ethernet

Use DHCP on Ethernet:

sudo nmcli connection modify "Wired connection 1" ipv4.method auto
sudo nmcli connection up "Wired connection 1"

Set a static Ethernet address:

sudo nmcli connection modify "Wired connection 1" \
  ipv4.method manual \
  ipv4.addresses 192.168.1.100/24 \
  ipv4.gateway 192.168.1.1 \
  ipv4.dns "8.8.8.8 114.114.114.114"
sudo nmcli connection up "Wired connection 1"

Connect to Wi-Fi with DHCP:

sudo nmcli radio wifi on
nmcli device wifi list
sudo nmcli device wifi connect "SSID" password "PASSWORD"

Set a static address for an existing Wi-Fi connection:

sudo nmcli connection modify "SSID" \
  ipv4.method manual \
  ipv4.addresses 192.168.1.101/24 \
  ipv4.gateway 192.168.1.1 \
  ipv4.dns "8.8.8.8 114.114.114.114"
sudo nmcli connection up "SSID"

Configure with netplan

Netplan reads YAML files from /etc/netplan/. Use either NetworkManager or systemd-networkd as the renderer according to the image. The examples below use networkd; change it to NetworkManager if the image does not use networkd. Do not manage the same interface with both nmcli and netplan at the same time.

DHCP Ethernet example:

# /etc/netplan/01-firefly.yaml
network:
  version: 2
  renderer: networkd
  ethernets:
    eth0:
      dhcp4: true

Static Ethernet example:

# /etc/netplan/01-firefly.yaml
network:
  version: 2
  renderer: networkd
  ethernets:
    eth0:
      dhcp4: false
      addresses:
        - 192.168.1.100/24
      nameservers:
        addresses:
          - 8.8.8.8
          - 114.114.114.114
      routes:
        - to: 0.0.0.0/0
          via: 192.168.1.1

Wi-Fi DHCP example:

# /etc/netplan/01-firefly.yaml
network:
  version: 2
  renderer: networkd
  wifis:
    wlan0:
      dhcp4: true
      access-points:
        "SSID":
          password: "PASSWORD"

Apply the configuration:

sudo netplan generate
sudo netplan apply

If remote access depends on the interface being changed, keep a serial console or local display available in case the network configuration is incorrect.

Configure Application Autostart

Desktop Autostart

Place the .desktop file in the user autostart directory. The system starts the program after that user logs in to the desktop:

mkdir -p ~/.config/autostart
vim ~/.config/autostart/myapp.desktop

Write the following content and change Exec to the actual application path:

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Name=My App
Exec=/home/firefly/myapp/myapp
Terminal=false

To start the same program for all desktop users, place the .desktop file in the system directory:

sudo cp ~/.config/autostart/myapp.desktop /etc/xdg/autostart/

systemd Service Autostart

For applications that should run as a background service, create a systemd unit.

Create /etc/systemd/system/myapp.service:

[Unit]
Description=My Application
After=network-online.target
Wants=network-online.target

[Service]
Type=simple
User=firefly
WorkingDirectory=/home/firefly/myapp
ExecStart=/home/firefly/myapp/myapp
Restart=always
RestartSec=3

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Enable and start the service:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable --now myapp.service
sudo systemctl status myapp.service

View logs:

journalctl -u myapp.service -f

If the service starts a GUI program, set the required display environment and permissions, for example:

Environment=DISPLAY=:0
Environment=XAUTHORITY=/home/firefly/.Xauthority

Restore Factory Settings

Firefly Ubuntu/Debian firmware that includes the recovery tool supports restoring factory settings. This means restoring the device to the initial state after the last firmware upgrade. Back up important data before running the command.

Show recovery usage:

recovery

The recovery tool includes the following reset option:

factory | reset:
        reset to factory

Restore factory settings:

sudo recovery reset

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