SSH on the Prime 4

I noticed that the Prime 4 is running linux and that SSH is active. Does anyone have the public key required to log into it? It might finally shed some light about whats under the hood of this puppy.

3 Likes

Hi @catraxx, welcome to the forum!

My answer would be: Nope and if I did, I wouldn’t give it. :smirk:

What’s under the hood can be viewed in public FCC documents.

Why wouldn’t you share it? And wouldn’t the FCC only be concerned with the communications part of it? I doubt they have anything beyond the wireless and networking module listed, both of which i already know what they are.

I frankly don’t understand the secrecy. I am already aware there are multiple ARM devices and a main unit that i heavily suspect is running and AMD processor with integrated VEGA grafics, very likely a low end mobile processor. I’d like confirmation though and accessing the shell would be the quickest way to do it, since Denon is obviously not revealing the information.

I could do it the hard way and open it up, but i would prefer not to.

Because it’s not my place to do so, even if it was known outside InMusic. I most certainly know staff won’t share any secure shell info and why would they? There is an SDK that can be used, like VDJ and Serato did, if you’d want to develop something.

You seem to do a lot of guessing and very little knowing. I’ll give you the ARM; one Rockchip 3288.

So I think it’s the “void warranty” hard way for you then? Let us know what you find and please share it here for other members, why keep it secret?

1 Like

You couldn’t be more wrong if you tried… Since when has AMD been known for their embedded hardware solutions? ARM is the only well-known design for embedded.

The better question is: Why wouldn’t they? It’s my device. And it makes no sense that’s the only processor in there. There must be a reason they mention the mesa3d license, unless they pull very specific things from it, but last i checked, Mesa3d is an open source AMD GPU driver stack. Why pull the license then?

As for the void warranty, is that mentioned anywhere in specific? The device has a lot of things on it that seem to be meant to be serviceable, like the faders, etc.

Also, when and where did i say i was going to keep anything a secret. If i do a teardown, there will be a full video of it obviously.

2 Likes

Are you and I reading the same thing?

Whilst AMD is a user of this library, it is not exclusive to AMD.

Mesa is also for this chip.

“Void warranty” was put between quotes for a reason.

I’m going to close this topic in a few moments. You started the topic about secure-shell access, which is by definition NOT owned by a customer. Like [MacOS, Windows, Android]… sorry iOS.

Looking forward to the in-depth analysis at a later date; and it’s not meant sarcastic btw!

Right, i had not considered it could be an intel solution, as they have kinda fallen off the bandwagon lately. It’s possible of course, though i don’t see a great advantage of it. Perhaps they got them cheap. I still doubt that the ARM is the only chip in there.

@Reese Why would you close the topic?

Why are you closing the topic @Reese? I paid for this device, what’s the problem if I want to access it via ssh?

3 Likes

I can access all of them via ssh

2 Likes

I have to agree here.

Yeah I know, bad examples… Had iOS first in my mind.

I’ll tag staff and who knows, but I think it’s a dead end.

2 Likes

It would be super cool of them if they would help. I don’t mind spending money on good stuff, but imagine the possibilities if we had direct access!

3 Likes

Oh please, even low powered AMD and Intel chips still require active cooling. There is no fan in the SC5000.

As for Vega graphics, Vega was released on desktop after the SC5000 release, mobile parts are released later than desktop, and again require active cooling. Nothing the prime devices do is that graphically or CPU intensive, consider the power of an average smartphone these days, all of which run on ARM chips.

Reese has told you it’s a Rockchip ARM chip. The actual model is RK3288, we know this from FCC filings.

ARM specialises in low cost designs and low power chips so for embedded hardware it is the most sensible option, which is why unsurprisingly it’s in the prime series.

I’ve just been looking at a PDF document with lots of photos of the Prime 4 internal PCBs…

Too blurry to make out chip numbers though.

Would you mind sharing that?

@JonnyXDA

Low power is actually a complete non-factor for a unit that is connected to the mains. And what you got from the FCC documents is the specific unit that runs the networking.

And an average smartphone neither runs a 10" display, nor does it run additional ones. It is possible of course, but the chip is quite old.

As Reese said, public FCC documents. Search and ye shall find.

Do a find search on the Denon DJ licenses page, you will see rk3288-mali, A.K.A Rockchip RK3288 with Mali graphics design - not sure how much clearer I can make it.

https://www.denondj.com/product-legal-sc5000-prime

As for the FCC doc, Google it.

Regarding the chip being old, have you heard of Raspberry Pi? Chips in those are older depending on the Pi version, but still very capable. The nvidia Tegra X1 is only 1 year newer than the RK3288 and powers the Nintendo Switch - old chip doesn’t necessarily mean bad chip :slight_smile:

Again I stress, nothing the prime series devices are doing is particularly intensive, either on CPU or GPU.

1 Like

The chip is quite capable. Mali even could do 4K

You’re in luck, I’m of to bed, so no closing yet. Moohaha.