CIX Category - Page 2 of 2 - CNX Software

August 23, 2025August 23, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 16 Comments

TrueNAS is now (unofficially) available for 64-bit Arm platforms with UEFI support

TrueNAS Scale NAS platform was designed to work on x86-64 computers only, but there’s now an unofficial port for 64-bit Arm (Aarch64) targets running a UEFI bootloader, including the Raspberry Pi 4/5 SBCs and other higher-end Arm boards. Previously known as FreeNAS, the community edition, FreeBSD-based TrueNAS Core was phased out in 2022 and replaced with the Linux-based TrueNAS Scale. iXsystems also provides TrueNAS Enterprise, a paid version with more advanced features, but all versions only work on 64-bit x86 machines. TrueNAS forum user Joel0 decided to change that and patched TrueNAS Scale to run on ARM (aarch64). The main requirements are having a 64-bit Arm target, at least 8GB RAM, 16GB boot storage, and a working UEFI bootloader. The image has been tested with a QEMU virtual machine, and it should also work on a Raspberry Pi 4 or 5 with UEFI, but it has not been tested. One […]

April 30, 2025April 30, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Radxa Orion O6 mini-ITX motherboard gets Arm SystemReady SR v2.5 certification

Radxa Orion O6 mini-ITX motherboard powered by a CIX P1 12-core Cortex-A720/A520 SoC has just obtained Arm SystemReady SR (ServerReady) v2.5 certification, meaning it’s been shown to run unmodified several OS images such as Windows and Ubuntu. I’ve already tested a Debian 12 image modified by Radxa on the Orion O6, but one of the goals of the platform was to provide a universal UEFI + ACPI firmware to boot any Arm ISO released by OS vendors, for instance, the Ubuntu Desktop ISO for Arm 64-bit architecture downloaded directly from the Ubuntu website. The Arm SystemReady SR certification is a step in the right direction, as it means the Orion O6 has passed a number of tests showing it can boot several off-the-shelf OS images. We’ll find Radxa’s Orion O6 listed on the Arm SystemReady Compliance page among boards from other manufacturers, as well as the Radxa ROCK Pi 4B+, […]

March 30, 2025March 31, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 20 Comments

Radxa Orion O6 Preview – Part 2: Debian 12 – What works, what doesn’t

I went through an unboxing and Debian 12 installation on the Radxa Orion O6 at the end of January, but decided to work on other reviews since software support still needed to be worked on. Since then, there’s been some work done, but no new image released. After waiting for almost two months, I’ve decided to carry on with the review by testing the Debian 12 image in a way similar to the Rock 5B SBC preview I did with Debian 11 in 2022 to check what works and what doesn’t on the Orion O6 at the time of the review. That will involve testing all ports, including 5GbE networking and the PCIe slot with an (old) NVIDIA graphics card, running some benchmarks, and also trying the Debian 12 image with a self-built Linux 6.13 kernel using ACPI instead of UEFI for the default image. Orion O6 SBC benchmarks on […]

March 3, 2025December 13, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 13 Comments

Software progress and source code release for CIX P1 Armv9 SoC and Orion O6 motherboard

When the Orion O6 mini-ITX motherboard with a CIX P1 12-core Armv9 SoC was announced in December 2024, we were told binary releases would start on January 15, 2025, and the source code would be released later in Q1 2025. Tom Cubie further explained that upstreaming of the CIX kernel would start in Q2 of 2025, and Linux 6.1 with Device Tree plus Linux 6.6 with ACPI would be supported in the meantime. I’ve been able to quickly check the Debian 12 binary release on the Orion O6 motherboard at the end of January, but as I was looking for an updated image for the second part of the review, I noticed there weren’t any new Debian 12 images so far. That does not mean there haven’t been any work done, as the forums are somewhat active and I’ve been told Radxa is even more active on Discord, although I […]

January 29, 2025March 30, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 36 Comments

Radxa Orion O6 Review – Part 1: Unboxing, Debian 12 installation, and first benchmarks

Radxa sent me a sample of the Orion O6 mini-ITX motherboard for review. The system is powered by an CIX P1 (CD8180) 12-core Armv9 processor, equipped with 16GB RAM, and offers features like 5GbE, HDMI and DisplayPort, a PCIe Gen4 x16 slot, and more. It’s one of the most anticipated boards of the first part of 2025 since it’s powerful, offers a good performance/value ratio, and eventually promises to boot any ISO Arm64 image through an open-source BIOS / EDKII bootloader. I’ll start this review with an unboxing, NVMe SSD and WiFi module installation, and a short tutorial showing how to install Debian 12 operating systems before getting some system information and running a few benchmarks. In a few weeks, I’ll publish a more detailed review with features testing and more benchmarks to see what works and what doesn’t at this very early stage. Radxa Orion O6 unboxing I received […]

December 18, 2024October 16, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 57 Comments

Radxa Orion O6 mini-ITX motherboard is powered by Cix P1 12-core Armv9 SoC with a 30 TOPS AI accelerator

Radxa Orion 06 Armv9 mini ITX motherboard

Radxa Orion O6 is an Arm mini-ITX motherboard with performance similar to Apple M1 and Qualcomm 8cx Gen3 platform thanks to the Cix P1 12-core Armv9 processor with four Cortex-A720 cores clocked at 2.8 GHz, four Cortex-A720 cores at 2.4GHz, and four low-power Cortex-A520 cores clocked at 1.8 GHz. The Cix P1 SoC also features an Arm Immortalis-G720 GPU for graphics and AI computing, a 30 TOPS AI accelerator for a combined 45 TOPS of AI inference performance, an 8Kp60 video decoder, and an 8Kp30 video encoder. The Orion O6 SBC ships with up to 64GB LPDDR5, features a 4Kp60 HDMI 2.0 port, a 4Kp120 DP 1.4 connector, two 5Gbps Ethernet ports, M.2 socket for storage and wireless, a PCIe x16 slot, and more. Radxa Orion O6 specifications: SoC – Cix P1 (Codename: CD8180, not the CP8180 variant for AI PCs) 12-core DynamIQ processor 4x Cortex‑A720 big cores @ up […]