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G E T
S T A R T E D
W I T H
T H E
R O C K
3 A
&
D E B I A N
Get started with the ROCK 3A, and learn how to download and install Debian Bullseye (64-bit)
onto an SD card and perform the basic system setup. This handy guide will tell you everything
you need to know to get started with the ROCK 3A in a few easy steps.
Meet the ROCK 3A, a robust and flexible Single Board Computer (SBC) based on the reliable
Rockchip RK3568 SoC in a compact form factor packed with awesome features, including Quad core
Armv8.2-A Cortex®-A55 CPU, Arm Mali™ G52 GPU, near CD quality audio, HDMI 2.0 port supporting
displays up to 4K@60pfs resolution, and it's compatible with a wide range of software operating
systems.
The ROCK 3A can run several 64-bit Linux distributions, with Debian, Ubuntu Server and Android
11 being officially supported.
In this Getting Started guide we show how to install Debian Bullseye onto an SD card and
perform the system setup. This will give you a lightweight, dynamic and functional XFCE desktop
for general use on your ROCK 3A, from which you can add further Open Source applications to
your liking.
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Summary of Contents for Radxa ROCK 3A
- Page 1 In this Getting Started guide we show how to install Debian Bullseye onto an SD card and perform the system setup. This will give you a lightweight, dynamic and functional XFCE desktop for general use on your ROCK 3A, from which you can add further Open Source applications to your liking.
- Page 2 We show how to install the official Debian Bullseye which is a desktop OS suitable for general use. You can do this using either a Windows, Mac or Linux host PC or laptop. Visit the OKdo Software & Downloads Hub and click the Debian Bullseye link for the ROCK 3A...
- Page 3 Click the link to the Debian Bullseye image which is about 840MB • Download the file to you PC’s downloads directory – the file name will be similar to this • depending on the date of the latest release: rock-3a-debian-bullseye-xfce4-arm64- 20221101-0243-gpt.img.xz There is no need to expand the compressed file •...
- Page 4 Now the SD card is prepared, connect a keyboard, mouse and monitor to the board and attach the Ethernet cable. The ROCK 3A has a full size HDMI connector which supports up to 4K@60fps. The 3.5mm audio jack supports audio out / microphone in.
- Page 5 S T E P 4 : B O O T Check that everything is prepared as in the steps above, turn on your monitor and plug in the power supply to boot the ROCK. When the login dialogue appears, the default username is rock with password rock.
- Page 6 S T E P 5 : C H A N G E P A S S W O R D Using Terminal from the menu, change the default password to a more secure one: Open Applications -> Terminal Emulation or press Ctrl + Alt + T •...
- Page 7 DISTRO=bullseye-stable wget -O - apt.radxa.com/$DISTRO/public.key | sudo apt-key add - S T E P 7 : S E T D I S P L A Y ( O P T I O N A L ) Your monitor’s HDMI display settings should be recognised automatically, if you want to...
- Page 8 S T E P 8 : S E T K E Y B O A R D ( O P T I O N A L ) The default keyboard setting is US English. You can change it by editing the XKBLAYOUT value in /etc/default/keyboard using vi or nano, for example to change from US to UK keyboard layouts change the following line: XKBLAYOUT=”us”...
- Page 9 Display a list of available timezones (press F key to page forward): • timedatectl list-timezones Set your local timezone from the list using this command with the example for London, • sudo timedatectl set-timezone Europe/London Check the settings with the following command: •...
- Page 10 S T E P 1 1 : A D D I N G A P P L I C A T I O N S The Debian package repository (Debian Repo) contains over 50K Open Source software applications called Packages, most of which will work with the ROCK 3A. You can search or browse the Debian repo.
- Page 11 One really useful feature of the ROCK 3A is the power button. Located close to the GPIO header, it can be used to safely power the system on and off reducing the risk of damaging the SD / eMMC memory.
- Page 12 There are now thousands of Open Source software applications at your fingertips which can be added to your system, from programming environments, audio and video editing tools, office applications, scientific software and gaming, so start exploring!
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