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Install an operating system

tip

The default account/password for the official images is radxa/radxa

This tutorial applies to all official images of Radxa products. There are two main methods of installing the operating system

  1. Burning the system image to a microSD card, eMMC Module or SSD via an reader. (Recommended)
  2. Burning the system image directly to eMMC, Nand Flash via USB cable.

Method I​

Preparations​

  • Prepare a microSD card
  • Prepare a microSD card reader
  • Download corresponding product of the official system image
  • Insert the microSD card into the microSD card reader and plug it into the USB port of the computer

Writing OS image to microSD card​

We recommend using the open-source image flashing tool Etcher, developed by our partner Balena. Etcher has a user-friendly interface and powerful features, with support for Windows, Linux, and macOS systems. Next, we'll show you how to use Etcher to write an image to an SD card.

  1. Download Etcher and install it.

Please download balenaEtcher-Setup-1.18.11.exe After the download is complete, there is no need to perform any additional actions. After downloading, you can double click it to open it without any additional operation.

  1. Open Etcher

  2. Open Etcher and click Flash from file to select the image to write to.

  3. Click Select target to select the device, please select carefully.

  4. Click Flash! Start writing and wait for the write progress bar to complete.

  5. When writing the image successfully, Etcher will display Flash Complete!.

**If there is an error in flashing, please try again. **

  1. Starting the system
After successfully burning the microSD card according to the above steps,
insert the microSD card into the MicroSD slot of (as shown
below), power on the system with the  power adapter, and
then the system will start booting and HDMI will display the desktop.
tip

Recommended official 30W adapter Radxa PD 30W adapter.

sd slot
  1. Logging in to the system

After the system has started, log in using the radxa account with the password radxa.

Method II​

If your device uses a Rockchip chip, refer to the following tutorial:

My computer is Windows​

rkdevtool​

tip

This article is not about rkdeveloptool (for Linux / macOS).

RKDevTool is a USB flashing software developed by Rockchip for Windows platforms.

Installation of RKDevTool​

Please download and extract the following files to install RKDevTool:

Installation of drivers​

Download and unzip DriverAssistant, then execute DriverInstall.exe and click the Install Driver button to install the driver. If you have previously installed another version of driver, please click Uninstall Driver to uninstall the driver first and then reinstall it.

RK Driver

Write file to device​

Run RKDevTool​

RKDevTool

Connect the product and enter Maskrom mode​

tip

Please refer to the instructions of the product for operation. The way to enter Maskrom mode varies slightly from product to product.

If the operation is normal, RKDevTool will prompt Found One MASKROM Device:

RKDevTool maskrom

tip

Although RKDevTool supports the selection of Maskrom devices, writing to multiple devices at the same time will result in a write failure for the device being written to.

If you need to write to multiple devices at the same time, use upgrade_tool.

Configuring RKDevTool Write Parameters​

tip

RKDevTool does not automatically decompress compressed files when writing to them.

First extract the used files and specify the extracted files in the RKDevTool.

Click a blank cell to select the Loader and Image file to be used(see the File Download at the below):

RKDevTool choose

Select the target media in the Storage option:

tip

In general, if you just want to boot from sdcard or Emmc, no need flash SPINOR

RKDevTool storage

Select Write by Address and click run:

RKDevTool flashing

Wait for the write to complete, after which the device will reboot automatically:

RKDevTool complete

File Download​

SPI U-Boot and Loader:

tip

The SPI/U-boot/loader file is related to the SoC model, you can find it in the following list according to the corresponding SoC model of the product.

Image:

Reference to the current product's system os download page.

My computer is Linux / macOS​

Rkdeveloptool​

rkdeveloptool

tip

This article is not about RKDevTool (for Windows).

rkdeveloptool is a USB flashing software developed by Rockchip for Linux/macOS platforms.

rkdeveloptool can be thought of as upgrade_tool for open source version.

Installation for rkdeveloptool​

If your operating system does not provide rkdeveloptool, you will need to compile and install it from source.

The rkdeveloptool can be installed from AUR.

Usage for rkdeveloptool​

View connected Maskrom devices​

rkdeveloptool ld

Write file​

tip

rkdeveloptool does not automatically decompress compressed files when writing to them.

First extract the used files and specify the extracted files in rkdeveloptool.

tip

rkdeveloptool does not support the selection of Maskrom devices, nor can it select the storage media to be written to. Normally when using rkdeveloptool, only a device and a storage medium are connected in hardware. This step cannot be controlled by software.

If you need to write to multiple devices at the same time, use upgrade_tool.

sudo rkdeveloptool db <loader>
sudo rkdeveloptool wl 0 <image>

Download links for the required Loader and Image files can be found below.

SPI U-Boot and Loader​

tip

The SPI/U-boot/loader file is related to the SoC model, you can find it in the following list according to the corresponding SoC model of the product.

Reboot device​

sudo rkdeveloptool rd

upgrade-tool (Multiple devices can be burned at the same time)​

upgrade_tool is the software developed by Rockchip for USB flashing on Linux platform.

Installation for upgrade_tool​

Please download and extract the following file to install upgrade_tool:

Usage for upgrade_tool​

upgrade_tool is used in command line mode similar to rkdeveloptool.

tip

In command line mode, upgrade_tool does not support the selection of a Maskrom device, nor can it select the storage media to be written to.

If you need to select a specific one from multiple devices, use interactive mode.

View connected Maskrom devices​

./upgrade_tool ld

Write file​

tip

upgrade_tool does not automatically decompress compressed files when writing to them.

First extract the used files and specify the extracted files in upgrade_tool.

sudo ./upgrade_tool db <loader>
sudo ./upgrade_tool wl 0 <image>

Download links for the required Loader and Image files can be found below.

Reboot device​

sudo ./upgrade_tool rd

SPI U-Boot and Loader​

tip

The SPI/U-boot/loader file is related to the SoC model, you can find it in the following list according to the corresponding SoC model of the product.

Parallel Write​

Since upgrade_tool blocks the current terminal when writing to a device, if you need to write to multiple devices at the same time, you need to execute upgrade_tool multiple times to create multiple interactive mode sessions.