Running Linux 6.19‑rc1 Mainline on Rockchip 3588 Radxa Rock5B+ – A Step‑by‑Step Guide

Preparation

Flash the latest Armbian Ubuntu 24.04 image (kernel 6.18) for the Rock5B+ onto a micro‑SD card using balenaEtcher. Image source: https://www.armbian.com/rock-5b-plus/. Quick‑start guide: https://docs.radxa.com/en/rock5/rock5b/getting-started/quick-start?versions=ROCK+5B%2B. After flashing, the board boots Ubuntu 24.04 with kernel 6.18 and Ethernet works out of the box.

Install build dependencies

sudo apt install -y \
    git curl wget \
    gcc g++ make bc bison flex \
    libssl-dev libelf-dev \
    python3 python3-pip rsync \
    unzip device-tree-compiler pkg-config dwarves

Clone Armbian build system

git clone https://github.com/armbian/build

Modify kernel version

Edit config/sources/families/include/rockchip64_common.inc to replace the line declaring KERNEL_MAJOR_MINOR="6.18" with KERNEL_MAJOR_MINOR="6.19".

diff --git a/config/sources/families/include/rockchip64_common.inc b/config/sources/families/include/rockchip64_common.inc
index 108e07149..144221d8c 100644
--- a/config/sources/families/include/rockchip64_common.inc
+++ b/config/sources/families/include/rockchip64_common.inc
@@ -33,7 +33,7 @@ case $BRANCH in
         edge)
-            declare -g KERNEL_MAJOR_MINOR="6.18"
+            declare -g KERNEL_MAJOR_MINOR="6.19"
             declare -g LINUXFAMILY=rockchip64
             declare -g LINUXCONFIG='linux-rockchip64-'$BRANCH
             ;;

Compile mainline kernel

Run the compile script with explicit kernel source and branch.

./compile.sh BOARD=rock-5b-plus BRANCH=edge \
    KERNELSOURCE='https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/' \
    KERNELBRANCH='branch:master' kernel

The script produces several .deb packages (screenshots shown).

Install and reboot

sudo dpkg -i *.deb
sudo reboot

After reboot the board boots Linux 6.19‑rc1. Firefox plays 4K video smoothly, confirming that the mainline kernel runs correctly on the Rockchip 3588 board.

Disable AppArmor (development convenience)

sudo systemctl stop apparmor
sudo systemctl disable apparmor

Performance note

Compilation on the board is slower than on a Huawei Kunpeng 920 server, where a native build can finish in about one minute, but the experiment demonstrates that the latest Linus Torvalds kernel can be run directly on a locally sourced Chinese chip and board.