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Installing the operating system

Preparation​

  • ROCK 5B motherboard

  • High-capacity memory card (either one or the other):

    • microSD, greater than 8GB (for booting from SD)
    • eMMC Module, greater than 8GB, Radxa eMMC Module recommended (for booting from eMMC Module) Radxa eMMC Module.

  • Card Reader (either one or the other)

    • microSD card reader (for booting from SD)
    • eMMC card reader (for booting from eMMC Module).

  • Power Supply

    • The ROCK 5B is powered by a Type-C connector with a wide range of input voltages from 5V to 21V.
    • ROCK 5B supports USB Type-C PD 2.0 with 9V/2A, 12V/2A, 15V/2A and 20V/2A.
    • The Type-C cable you use needs to support data communication. We call it USB Type-C charging data cable.
    • We recommend using the official Radxa Power PD 30W 。Radxa Power PD 30W

  • USB Keyboard and Mouse

    • The ROCK 5B features four USB-A ports for a full-size keyboard and mouse.

  • Monitor and HDMI Cable

    • The ROCK 5B is equipped with a full-size HDMI connector. HDMI-enabled monitors are recommended.
    • HDMI EDID is used to determine the optimal display resolution. On monitors and TVs that support 1080p (or 4K/8K), this resolution will be selected. If 1080p is not supported, EDID will find the next available resolution. This selected mode applies to most monitors/TVs, but not all.

  • USB to TTL Serial Cable

    • The ROCK 5B outputs a dedicated serial console for the CPU to access low-level debug messages.
    • Recommended Radxa USB to TTL Cable USB to TTL Cable.

Image Download​

Please go to Resource Download Summary to download the corresponding image file.(Official Images Recommended)

Install the system​

Balena Etcher is a cross-platform and user friendly image file burning tool that we recommend you use.

  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

    rock5b

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

    rock5b

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

    rock5b

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

    rock5b

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

    rock5b

**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.
sd slot

Booting the system​

  • After successfully burning the microSD card/eMMC as described above, insert the microSD card/eMMC into the microSD/eMMC slot of the ROCK 5B.
  • The power connector of ROCK 5B is USB 2.0 OTG Type C port, please use a Type-C cable to connect the power supply port and the adapter.
tip

The ROCK 5B supports USB Type-C PD 2.0 with 9V/2A, 12V/2A, 15V/2A and 20V/2A. Radxa recommends using the Radxa Power PD30W. :::.

Login​

There are two default users for official system.

  1. username: radxa password: radxa

  2. username: rock password: rock

More info please refer to RadxaOS

Reference Documentation​