Radxa Dragon Q6A

[geerlingguy]

Basic information

• Board URL (official): https://radxa.com/products/dragon/q6a/
• Board purchased from: AliExpress
• Board purchase date: October 27, 2025
• Board specs (as tested): 8GB RAM
• Board price (as tested): $141.39

Linux/system information

# output of `screenfetch`
                          ./+o+-       radxa@radxa-dragon-q6a
                  yyyyy- -yyyyyy+      OS: Ubuntu 24.04 noble
               ://+//////-yyyyyyo      Kernel: aarch64 Linux 6.17.1-3-qcom
           .++ .:/++++++/-.+sss/`      Uptime: 1m
         .:++o:  /++++++++/:--:/-      Packages: 1871
        o:+o+:++.`..```.-/oo+++++/     Shell: dash
       .:+o:+o/.          `+sssoo+/    Disk: 6.3G / 30G (23%)
  .++/+:+oo+o:`             /sssooo.   CPU: ARM Cortex-A55 Cortex-A78 @ 8x 1.9584GHz
 /+++//+:`oo+o               /::--:.   GPU: 
 \+/+o+++`o++o               ++////.   RAM: 683MiB / 7604MiB
  .++.o+++oo+:`             /dddhhh.  
       .+.o+oo:.          `oddhhhh+   
        \+.++o+o``-````.:ohdhhhhh+    
         `:o+++ `ohhhhhhhhyo++os:     
           .o:`.syhhhhhhh/.oo++o`     
               /osyyyyyyo++ooo+++/    
                   ````` +oo+++o\:    
                          `oo++.      

# output of `uname -a`
Linux radxa-dragon-q6a 6.17.1-3-qcom #3 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Wed Nov  5 14:13:05 UTC 2025 aarch64 aarch64 aarch64 GNU/Linux

System topology

Note: lstopo results may be missing some information on new and strange SoCs.

Benchmark results

CPU

• Geekbench 6: (1176 single / 3103 multi - https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/cpu/15371815)
• 48.408 Gflops at 10.1W for 4.79 Gflops/W (geerlingguy/top500-benchmark HPL result)

Power

• Idle power draw (at wall): 2.9 W
• Maximum simulated power draw (stress-ng --matrix 0): 9.3 W
• During Geekbench multicore benchmark: 9.5 W
• During top500 HPL benchmark: 10.1 W

Disk

Samsung Pro+ 32GB microSD

Benchmark	Result
iozone 4K random read	8.91 MB/s
iozone 4K random write	0.80 MB/s
iozone 1M random read	72.64 MB/s
iozone 1M random write	2.32 MB/s
iozone 1M sequential read	73.70 MB/s
iozone 1M sequential write	61.45 MB/s

Network

iperf3 results:

Built-in Ethernet (Realtek 1 Gbps)

• iperf3 -c $SERVER_IP: 943 Mbps
• iperf3 -c $SERVER_IP --reverse: 942 Mbps
• iperf3 -c $SERVER_IP --bidir: 920 Mbps up, 937 Mbps down

Built-in WiFi (AICSemi AIC 8800D80 WiFi 6)

• iperf3 -c $SERVER_IP: 187 Mbps
• iperf3 -c $SERVER_IP --reverse: 177 Mbps
• iperf3 -c $SERVER_IP --bidir: 113 Mbps up, 107 Mbps down

(Be sure to test all interfaces, noting any that are non-functional.)

GPU

glmark2

glmark2-es2 results:

ATTENTION: default value of option force_gl_vendor overridden by environment.
=======================================================
    glmark2 2023.01
=======================================================
    OpenGL Information
    GL_VENDOR:      notfreedreno
    GL_RENDERER:    FD643
    GL_VERSION:     4.6 (Compatibility Profile) Mesa 25.0.7-0ubuntu0.24.04.2
    Surface Config: buf=32 r=8 g=8 b=8 a=8 depth=24 stencil=0 samples=0
    Surface Size:   800x600 windowed
=======================================================
[build] use-vbo=false: FPS: 1884 FrameTime: 0.531 ms
[build] use-vbo=true: FPS: 2078 FrameTime: 0.481 ms
[texture] texture-filter=nearest: FPS: 1914 FrameTime: 0.523 ms
[texture] texture-filter=linear: FPS: 1827 FrameTime: 0.548 ms
[texture] texture-filter=mipmap: FPS: 1814 FrameTime: 0.551 ms
[shading] shading=gouraud: FPS: 1865 FrameTime: 0.536 ms
[shading] shading=blinn-phong-inf: FPS: 1856 FrameTime: 0.539 ms
[shading] shading=phong: FPS: 1832 FrameTime: 0.546 ms
[shading] shading=cel: FPS: 1810 FrameTime: 0.553 ms
[bump] bump-render=high-poly: FPS: 1392 FrameTime: 0.719 ms
[bump] bump-render=normals: FPS: 2008 FrameTime: 0.498 ms
[bump] bump-render=height: FPS: 1907 FrameTime: 0.525 ms
[effect2d] kernel=0,1,0;1,-4,1;0,1,0;: FPS: 1673 FrameTime: 0.598 ms
[effect2d] kernel=1,1,1,1,1;1,1,1,1,1;1,1,1,1,1;: FPS: 1249 FrameTime: 0.801 ms
[pulsar] light=false:quads=5:texture=false: FPS: 1901 FrameTime: 0.526 ms
[desktop] blur-radius=5:effect=blur:passes=1:separable=true:windows=4: FPS: 1194 FrameTime: 0.838 ms
[desktop] effect=shadow:windows=4: FPS: 1672 FrameTime: 0.598 ms
[buffer] columns=200:interleave=false:update-dispersion=0.9:update-fraction=0.5:update-method=map: FPS: 330 FrameTime: 3.033 ms
[buffer] columns=200:interleave=false:update-dispersion=0.9:update-fraction=0.5:update-method=subdata: FPS: 553 FrameTime: 1.811 ms
[buffer] columns=200:interleave=true:update-dispersion=0.9:update-fraction=0.5:update-method=map: FPS: 730 FrameTime: 1.370 ms
[ideas] speed=duration: FPS: 1269 FrameTime: 0.788 ms
[jellyfish] <default>: FPS: 1668 FrameTime: 0.600 ms
[terrain] <default>: FPS: 218 FrameTime: 4.592 ms
[shadow] <default>: FPS: 1304 FrameTime: 0.767 ms
[refract] <default>: FPS: 224 FrameTime: 4.472 ms
[conditionals] fragment-steps=0:vertex-steps=0: FPS: 1840 FrameTime: 0.544 ms
[conditionals] fragment-steps=5:vertex-steps=0: FPS: 1803 FrameTime: 0.555 ms
[conditionals] fragment-steps=0:vertex-steps=5: FPS: 1795 FrameTime: 0.557 ms
[function] fragment-complexity=low:fragment-steps=5: FPS: 1788 FrameTime: 0.559 ms
[function] fragment-complexity=medium:fragment-steps=5: FPS: 1777 FrameTime: 0.563 ms
[loop] fragment-loop=false:fragment-steps=5:vertex-steps=5: FPS: 1782 FrameTime: 0.561 ms
[loop] fragment-steps=5:fragment-uniform=false:vertex-steps=5: FPS: 1747 FrameTime: 0.573 ms
[loop] fragment-steps=5:fragment-uniform=true:vertex-steps=5: FPS: 1758 FrameTime: 0.569 ms
=======================================================
                                  glmark2 Score: 1528 
=======================================================

vkmark

vkmark results:

ERROR:             VkInstanceCreateInfo::pApplicationInfo::apiVersion has value of 0 which is not permitted. If apiVersion is not 0, then it must be greater than or equal to the value of VK_API_VERSION_1_0 [VUID-VkApplicationInfo-apiVersion]
ATTENTION: default value of option force_gl_vendor overridden by environment.
=======================================================
    vkmark 2017.08
=======================================================
    Vendor ID:      0x5143
    Device ID:      0x6030500
    Device Name:    Turnip Adreno (TM) 643
    Driver Version: 104857607
    Device UUID:    cc360f788b9de32391c52de0238d6409
=======================================================
[vertex] device-local=true: FPS: 3384 FrameTime: 0.296 ms
[vertex] device-local=false: FPS: 3572 FrameTime: 0.280 ms
[texture] anisotropy=0: FPS: 2996 FrameTime: 0.334 ms
[texture] anisotropy=16: FPS: 3010 FrameTime: 0.332 ms
[shading] shading=gouraud: FPS: 2196 FrameTime: 0.455 ms
[shading] shading=blinn-phong-inf: FPS: 2219 FrameTime: 0.451 ms
[shading] shading=phong: FPS: 2213 FrameTime: 0.452 ms
[shading] shading=cel: FPS: 2235 FrameTime: 0.447 ms
[effect2d] kernel=edge: FPS: 4825 FrameTime: 0.207 ms
[effect2d] kernel=blur: FPS: 2804 FrameTime: 0.357 ms
[desktop] <default>: FPS: 3122 FrameTime: 0.320 ms
[cube] <default>: FPS: 5063 FrameTime: 0.198 ms
[clear] <default>: FPS: 5321 FrameTime: 0.188 ms
=======================================================
                                   vkmark Score: 3304
=======================================================

GravityMark

GravityMark results:

M:      0 us: ../data.zip: 313 files
M:    350 us: Temporal antialiasing
M:    374 us: Render Statistics
M:  48.97 ms: Build Date: Jun 20 2025
M:  49.11 ms: Build Info: version=20250429; linux; arm64; release; vk=1; gl=45; gles=32; cu=1; fusion
M:  49.15 ms: Build Version: 1.89
M:  52.98 ms: Name: Radxa Dragon Q6A
M:  53.12 ms: System: Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS
M:  53.17 ms: Kernel: Linux 6.17.1-3-qcom aarch64
M:  53.21 ms: Memory: 7.43 GB
M:  53.27 ms: Uptime: 13 m 4 s
M:  53.30 ms: CPU: arm64
M:  62.04 ms: Desktop: 1920x1080 1.0
M:  65.64 ms: Screen 0: 1920x1080 0 0 HDMI-1
M:  65.87 ms: Creating 1600x900 OpenGL Window
M: 217.50 ms: Render Size: 1600x900
M: 217.65 ms: Using Fetch Mode
Segmentation fault
E:  24.376 s: Session::read(): can't exec "./GravityMark.arm64 -gl -ta 1 -a 200000 -fps 1 -info 1 -sensors 1 -name "geerlingguy" -benchmark 1" command

GravityMark wouldn't run with either Vulkan or OpenGL on the official image.

AI / LLM Inference

tinyllama-1.1b-1t-openorca.Q4_K_M.gguf

model	size	params	backend	threads	test	t/s
llama 1B Q4_K - Medium	636.18 MiB	1.10 B	CPU	8	pp512	25.25 ± 0.11
llama 1B Q4_K - Medium	636.18 MiB	1.10 B	CPU	8	pp4096	19.08 ± 0.02
llama 1B Q4_K - Medium	636.18 MiB	1.10 B	CPU	8	tg128	15.23 ± 0.33
llama 1B Q4_K - Medium	636.18 MiB	1.10 B	CPU	8	pp4096+tg128	18.22 ± 0.03

Power consumption: 7.8W

Llama-3.2-3B-Instruct-Q4_K_M.gguf

model	size	params	backend	threads	test	t/s
llama 3B Q4_K - Medium	1.87 GiB	3.21 B	CPU	8	pp512	8.76 ± 0.13
llama 3B Q4_K - Medium	1.87 GiB	3.21 B	CPU	8	pp4096	7.36 ± 0.03
llama 3B Q4_K - Medium	1.87 GiB	3.21 B	CPU	8	tg128	4.81 ± 0.14
llama 3B Q4_K - Medium	1.87 GiB	3.21 B	CPU	8	pp4096+tg128	7.00 ± 0.01

Power consumption: 7.9W

Memory

tinymembench results:

Click to expand memory benchmark result

tinymembench v0.4.10 (simple benchmark for memory throughput and latency)

==========================================================================
== Memory bandwidth tests                                               ==
==                                                                      ==
== Note 1: 1MB = 1000000 bytes                                          ==
== Note 2: Results for 'copy' tests show how many bytes can be          ==
==         copied per second (adding together read and writen           ==
==         bytes would have provided twice higher numbers)              ==
== Note 3: 2-pass copy means that we are using a small temporary buffer ==
==         to first fetch data into it, and only then write it to the   ==
==         destination (source -> L1 cache, L1 cache -> destination)    ==
== Note 4: If sample standard deviation exceeds 0.1%, it is shown in    ==
==         brackets                                                     ==
==========================================================================

 C copy backwards                                     :   8392.6 MB/s (0.3%)
 C copy backwards (32 byte blocks)                    :   8391.2 MB/s
 C copy backwards (64 byte blocks)                    :   8394.7 MB/s
 C copy                                               :   8392.8 MB/s (0.4%)
 C copy prefetched (32 bytes step)                    :   8390.4 MB/s
 C copy prefetched (64 bytes step)                    :   8391.6 MB/s
 C 2-pass copy                                        :   8463.9 MB/s
 C 2-pass copy prefetched (32 bytes step)             :   8423.7 MB/s
 C 2-pass copy prefetched (64 bytes step)             :   8443.1 MB/s (0.6%)
 C fill                                               :  19527.4 MB/s (0.3%)
 C fill (shuffle within 16 byte blocks)               :  19535.2 MB/s (0.3%)
 C fill (shuffle within 32 byte blocks)               :  19538.5 MB/s
 C fill (shuffle within 64 byte blocks)               :  19508.1 MB/s (0.2%)
 NEON 64x2 COPY                                       :   8393.2 MB/s
 NEON 64x2x4 COPY                                     :   8400.5 MB/s
 NEON 64x1x4_x2 COPY                                  :   8391.8 MB/s
 NEON 64x2 COPY prefetch x2                           :   8168.1 MB/s
 NEON 64x2x4 COPY prefetch x1                         :   8131.8 MB/s
 NEON 64x2 COPY prefetch x1                           :   8210.2 MB/s
 NEON 64x2x4 COPY prefetch x1                         :   8131.2 MB/s
 ---
 standard memcpy                                      :   8245.0 MB/s (0.6%)
 standard memset                                      :  19482.1 MB/s
 ---
 NEON LDP/STP copy                                    :   8413.0 MB/s
 NEON LDP/STP copy pldl2strm (32 bytes step)          :   8419.2 MB/s
 NEON LDP/STP copy pldl2strm (64 bytes step)          :   8412.2 MB/s
 NEON LDP/STP copy pldl1keep (32 bytes step)          :   8389.6 MB/s
 NEON LDP/STP copy pldl1keep (64 bytes step)          :   8393.5 MB/s
 NEON LD1/ST1 copy                                    :   8409.5 MB/s
 NEON STP fill                                        :  19529.1 MB/s (0.8%)
 NEON STNP fill                                       :  19544.8 MB/s (0.3%)
 ARM LDP/STP copy                                     :   8397.4 MB/s
 ARM STP fill                                         :  19553.9 MB/s
 ARM STNP fill                                        :  19529.9 MB/s

==========================================================================
== Framebuffer read tests.                                              ==
==                                                                      ==
== Many ARM devices use a part of the system memory as the framebuffer, ==
== typically mapped as uncached but with write-combining enabled.       ==
== Writes to such framebuffers are quite fast, but reads are much       ==
== slower and very sensitive to the alignment and the selection of      ==
== CPU instructions which are used for accessing memory.                ==
==                                                                      ==
== Many x86 systems allocate the framebuffer in the GPU memory,         ==
== accessible for the CPU via a relatively slow PCI-E bus. Moreover,    ==
== PCI-E is asymmetric and handles reads a lot worse than writes.       ==
==                                                                      ==
== If uncached framebuffer reads are reasonably fast (at least 100 MB/s ==
== or preferably >300 MB/s), then using the shadow framebuffer layer    ==
== is not necessary in Xorg DDX drivers, resulting in a nice overall    ==
== performance improvement. For example, the xf86-video-fbturbo DDX     ==
== uses this trick.                                                     ==
==========================================================================

 NEON LDP/STP copy (from framebuffer)                 :   1661.2 MB/s
 NEON LDP/STP 2-pass copy (from framebuffer)          :   1341.1 MB/s
 NEON LD1/ST1 copy (from framebuffer)                 :   1660.8 MB/s
 NEON LD1/ST1 2-pass copy (from framebuffer)          :   1340.9 MB/s
 ARM LDP/STP copy (from framebuffer)                  :    757.7 MB/s
 ARM LDP/STP 2-pass copy (from framebuffer)           :    745.0 MB/s

==========================================================================
== Memory latency test                                                  ==
==                                                                      ==
== Average time is measured for random memory accesses in the buffers   ==
== of different sizes. The larger is the buffer, the more significant   ==
== are relative contributions of TLB, L1/L2 cache misses and SDRAM      ==
== accesses. For extremely large buffer sizes we are expecting to see   ==
== page table walk with several requests to SDRAM for almost every      ==
== memory access (though 64MiB is not nearly large enough to experience ==
== this effect to its fullest).                                         ==
==                                                                      ==
== Note 1: All the numbers are representing extra time, which needs to  ==
==         be added to L1 cache latency. The cycle timings for L1 cache ==
==         latency can be usually found in the processor documentation. ==
== Note 2: Dual random read means that we are simultaneously performing ==
==         two independent memory accesses at a time. In the case if    ==
==         the memory subsystem can't handle multiple outstanding       ==
==         requests, dual random read has the same timings as two       ==
==         single reads performed one after another.                    ==
==========================================================================

block size : single random read / dual random read, [MADV_NOHUGEPAGE]
      1024 :    0.0 ns          /     0.0 ns 
      2048 :    0.0 ns          /     0.0 ns 
      4096 :    0.0 ns          /     0.0 ns 
      8192 :    0.0 ns          /     0.0 ns 
     16384 :    0.0 ns          /     0.0 ns 
     32768 :    0.0 ns          /     0.0 ns 
     65536 :    0.9 ns          /     1.3 ns 
    131072 :    1.5 ns          /     1.8 ns 
    262144 :    1.9 ns          /     2.2 ns 
    524288 :    8.4 ns          /    12.4 ns 
   1048576 :   12.6 ns          /    16.0 ns 
   2097152 :   14.9 ns          /    17.1 ns 
   4194304 :   59.4 ns          /    88.8 ns 
   8388608 :   99.1 ns          /   131.0 ns 
  16777216 :  121.0 ns          /   145.0 ns 
  33554432 :  138.5 ns          /   157.4 ns 
  67108864 :  151.5 ns          /   168.1 ns 

block size : single random read / dual random read, [MADV_HUGEPAGE]
      1024 :    0.0 ns          /     0.0 ns 
      2048 :    0.0 ns          /     0.0 ns 
      4096 :    0.0 ns          /     0.0 ns 
      8192 :    0.0 ns          /     0.0 ns 
     16384 :    0.0 ns          /     0.0 ns 
     32768 :    0.0 ns          /     0.0 ns 
     65536 :    1.2 ns          /     1.7 ns 
    131072 :    1.6 ns          /     2.0 ns 
    262144 :    1.9 ns          /     2.2 ns 
    524288 :    8.3 ns          /    11.8 ns 
   1048576 :   11.7 ns          /    14.8 ns 
   2097152 :   13.5 ns          /    15.7 ns 
   4194304 :   58.2 ns          /    87.2 ns 
   8388608 :   98.0 ns          /   129.3 ns 
  16777216 :  118.3 ns          /   142.3 ns 
  33554432 :  128.5 ns          /   146.8 ns 
  67108864 :  133.5 ns          /   148.5 ns 

Core to Core Memory Latency

sbc-bench results

Run sbc-bench and paste a link to the results here: https://github.com/ThomasKaiser/sbc-bench/blob/master/results/reviews/Radxa-Dragon-Q6A.md (linking to existing results, as my run was similar, and most numbers were within 1%)

Phoronix Test Suite

Results from pi-general-benchmark.sh:

• pts/encode-mp3: 10.467 sec
• pts/x264 4K: 3.63 fps
• pts/x264 1080p: 22.93 fps
• pts/phpbench: 543386
• pts/build-linux-kernel (defconfig): 3554.437 sec

[HeyMeco]

I had taken a look at the Q6A here https://sbcwiki.com/news/articles/radxa-dragon-q6a-unboxing-and-first-look/

In the meantime we brought up Armbian support with Mainline (as of writing at 6.18-rc2) and with 6.19 it will be available upstream without any patches needed. Exciting little board especially when used with UFS storage

[ThomasKaiser]

I had taken a look at the Q6A here https://sbcwiki.com/news/articles/radxa-dragon-q6a-unboxing-and-first-look/

@HeyMeco can you please confirm that Radxa repeated their old mistake and started a 'debug party' some weeks ago hidden behind Discord curtains?

Also let's not replicate marketing BS: the cores inside this SoC are off-the-shelves Cortex-A78/A55, just check /proc/cpuinfo or use this Geekbench nonsense: "ARM implementer 65 architecture 8 variant 1 part 3393 revision 1" translates to "Cortex-A78 r1p1 from ARM Ltd.". The 65/3393 decimal numbers are 0x41 (vendor) and 0xd41 (product). Would this be a Qualcomm design then vendor ID would be 0x51 and Geekbench would talk about "ARM implementer 81"...

Also worth noting that the difference between the two GB6 scores you published are not only 'active' vs. 'passive' cooling but different DRAM initialization (Radxa later on having slowed down RAM access for whatever reasons – maybe folks hanging around on Discord know the full story?)

[HeyMeco]

@ThomasKaiser

can you please confirm that Radxa repeated their old mistake and started a 'debug party' some weeks ago hidden behind Discord curtains?

No debug party this time around as radxa devs are doing upstreaming etc themselves. Here it was just me starting off things for armbian (on my own) & sbcwiki.com and other devs who got preview samples doing their own thing later on.

the cores inside this SoC are off-the-shelves Cortex-A78/A55

Yes, correct. I provided /proc/cpuinfo to hrw's SoCs table database

difference between two GB6 scores you published.

Right but the article above was just the first look as I am still working on the actual review that will address all of this.

Radxa later on having slowed down RAM access for whatever reasons

@strongtz is this a permanent change or will a faster RAM config be brought back in a later BIOS release?

[strongtz]

@strongtz is this a permanent change or will a faster RAM config be brought back in a later BIOS release?

AFAIK the memory chips being used are only rated for 5500 MT/s

[HeyMeco]

AFAIK the memory chips being used are only rated for 5500 MT/s

The 8GB variant I have on my Q6A is a CXMT APA418756300AH but I can't find any info about it online

[sidick]

Got my 12gb version through the post yesterday, just need to get time to try it now

[geerlingguy]

On the product page, in the Downloads section, there's only one 'Official' image listed, which links to here: https://github.com/radxa-build/radxa-dragon-q6a/releases

That page on GitHub currently lists releases named like t5, t4, t3, etc., and they all have a note:

This is a test build for internal development.
Only use when specifically instructed by Radxa support.

But... it's official, so that's what I'm going with for now. Armbian, Fedora, Deepin, and Arch are listed under '3rd party' OSes, and if the official OS (a few weeks post-shipping) doesn't work for some reason, I'll probably switch to Armbian.

[geerlingguy]

When I flashed their latest test image (t5), it wrote to the microSD card using Balena Etcher, but right at the very end of the verify stage it said there was an error. I tried it anyway, and besides blinding my eyeball with the bright green LED when plugged in, I just see a steady green and blue LED on the board, that stay lit.

No output over HDMI, and no lights on the Ethernet jack, though the lights on the network switch are lit up... I can't find the new device while scanning my network, so methinks the official image may be borked or not ready?

Switching to Armbian next.

Their download page lists the version I'm testing as Ubuntu 24.04 (Noble), but when I download the file, I see Armbian_25.11.1_Radxa-dragon-q6a_noble_edge_6.18.0-rc6_gnome_desktop.img.xz (I'm guessing 25.11.1 is based on Ubuntu 24.10, but it seems odd also because it's running kernel 6.18.0, which if you're a Linux nut already, it makes some sense seeing all these versions, but to anyone else they'd be confused seeing three different versions, none of them matching traditional "Ubuntu 24.10" (though non-Linux-nerds wouldn't know that Ubuntu 24.10 ships with kernel 6.11 either, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

Edit: it looks like there are some firmware updates required to get Armbian going? First just going to try flashing it and see what happens.

One user on the Radxa forum had a sadly funny comment:

I would be nice if everything works on launch day.

Indeed, I keep seeing Radxa's new hardware and getting excited... only to spend my first 2-4 hours with any given board trying to figure out if I can get it to boot, or if it goes back on the project shelf with a 50/50 chance of ever getting picked up again. Why do I put myself through the pain?!

[HeyMeco]

Switching to Armbian next.

FYI the images on our website are confirmed to work with SD & NVMe when you’re using the latest UEFI firmware (the one that it was shipped with has a bug).

Also if you’re trying to use an UFS disk you need to use the build script with some special arguments (still need to write more documentation about that).

[HeyMeco]

Their download page lists the version I'm testing as Ubuntu 24.04 (Noble), but when I download the file, I see Armbian_25.11.1_Radxa-dragon-q6a_noble_edge_6.18.0-rc6_gnome_desktop.img.xz (I'm guessing 25.11.1 is based on Ubuntu 24.10, but it seems odd also because it's running kernel 6.18.0, which if you're a Linux nut already, it makes some sense seeing all these versions, but to anyone else they'd be confused seeing three different versions, none of them matching traditional "Ubuntu 24.10" (though non-Linux-nerds wouldn't know that Ubuntu 24.10 ships with kernel 6.11 either, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

Edit: it looks like there are some firmware updates required to get Armbian going? First just going to try flashing it and see what happens.

25.11.1 is the Armbian release version unrelated to the Distro. It’s Ubuntu 24.04 (Noble) on Armbian 25.11.1 with Kernel 6.18 patched to support the device tree that’s going to be merged in 6.19 upstream

[geerlingguy]

Thanks for the clarification; it is difficult, as someone who doesn't regularly use Armbian, to decipher all that (and I'm guessing there are different versions of each for different boards, too, since upstreaming is not the same across all SoC vendors. Not a problem of your own making, but you have to deal with the fallout of it :(

Edit: Got the same error again:

I will try a different microSD card. This one is almost brand new, Samsung Pro Endurance 32GB... but I'll try something else.

[HeyMeco]

Balena Etcher is notorious for flashing problems. If I have to use it I make sure to extract the image first and then use the .img to flash to the sd/nvme. Even then with images >5gb it sometimes corrupts in a way that validation doesn’t catch it.

[strongtz]

Retail boards should have been shipped with the latest firmware (251013), could you check the UART output if possible?

Fedora, Deepin, and Arch images were also tested during internal QA.

[geerlingguy]

It looks like there's a separate image linked from the documentation wiki:

https://github.com/radxa-build/radxa-dragon-q6a/releases/download/rsdk-t4/radxa-dragon-q6a_noble_kde_t4.output_512.img.xz

Which is the t4 version, one behind the t5 version I downloaded.

Following @HeyMeco's advice, I have expanded the .img file prior to flashing, and am trying again, but with the t5 512 image.

Edit: Apparently that was the fix (pre-expanding the image, instead of flashing from the .xz file. I am now booting, and I see the blinding green light steady, with the blue LED giving a heartbeat blink. (I wish it were the other way around... that green LED is extremely bright!)