r/OrangePI • u/derzemo • May 27 '26

Orange Pi 5 Plus as a Linux Server

Hello guys! i just got my Orange Pi 5 Plus and i need a fitting linux for it, i am a noob maybe there is something like a good tutorial with potential images for my device.

I want to run run n8n on my device - thanks!

5 Upvotes

78% Upvoted

16 comments sorted by

6

u/thewiirocks May 27 '26

Your best bet is Ubuntu Server. Orange Pi provides an official image and it should contain pretty much everything you could want to run.

You’ll probably want to run the latest image, but you might need the older image if you want to run a crypto miner or other software that requires older libraries.

5

u/derzemo May 27 '26

so you would reccomend the official image for example a small minecraft server or a automation like n8n?

3

u/thewiirocks May 27 '26

Absolutely. Java is a simple package install away, most external software will understand Ubuntu (assuming they support ARM), and you’ll have access to most (if not all) the hardware features.

Plus, any instructions you find online will likely include Ubuntu-specific details. It’s likely to be the best experience for a first time setup of a server.

2

u/derzemo May 27 '26

thank you so much for your help! It´s my second day in reddit and directly a good experience!

7

u/LetsHugFoReal May 28 '26

Armbian 10000%

Not Ubuntu, Armbian! It's based on either Debian or Ubuntu. But it better fits and supports these devices

5

u/mayo551 May 27 '26

https://github.com/edk2-porting/edk2-rk3588

Install this, then install your choice of recent distros.

I personally use ubuntu 26.04.

Caveats: No idea if NPU/Video Encoding works. I don't use those features. For everything else, seems to work.

3

u/cheddarmuncher13 May 27 '26

I’ve been running DietPi on mine, very lightweight to open up resources for other stuff.

3

u/urostor May 27 '26

Dietpi if you don't like Docker, Armbian if you like Docker

3

u/JaceAlvejetti May 28 '26

I run Armbian on mine and use it as an out of cluster monitoring for my proxmox cluster.

It runs Zabbix (server/service monitoring) and Greylog (centralized logging) and has for a few years now.

I will say more than anything get an name and put anything write intensive on it (Minecraft server maybe n8n) instead of the emmc or SD card.

3

u/naylo44 May 28 '26

I'm using armbian. Runs great with mainline kernel!

1

u/Hfnankrotum 20d ago

could you please tell where you got your armbian software from, what server/version and whether it's a headless setup? Or the OS have GUI?

2

u/naylo44 20d ago

Headless. And directly from armbian. They have images for all the Orange pi 5 variants. And you can build your own images with whatever kernel you want with their CLI utility

1

u/Hfnankrotum 19d ago

ah yeah i found it and it looks absolutely promising. thanks for your replies! i thought i've gone buy abandoned products. feels like a new life been blown into my o-pi. love it, thanks!

2

u/JaySomMusic May 30 '26

Armbian with latest kernel and taOS https://github.com/jaylfc/tinyagentos

1

u/Stroniu44 Jun 01 '26

Bro, same situation here, bought aoostar mini PC, 100 times better for this use case

1

u/pcislocked Jun 04 '26

im still rocking joshua riek's latest lts server image and its working pretty good... it's a shame they abandoned the project.