One of the first thing any advanced user should do after installing Android on their mini-pc is to install an SSH Server to enable remote-access from a computer for faster and easier tweaking, one can simply opt for an free SSH Server app from Google Play like SSHelper for a no frill, click-n-install SSH access to your Android box. However, if you prefer a GUI-less access with FULL-ROOT privileges from both WinSCP and Putty follow the tutorial shard ahead.

One of the biggest advantage of Radxa Rock the quad-core mini-pc over Raspberry Pi is that it supports dual-booting with support for both Linux and Google Android. In last tutorial we configured Samba file-sharing on Ubuntu based Linaro Linux image on the Rock, and today I am going to share an excellent custom Google Android 4.4.2 KitKat ROM for Radxa Rock which works well with everything working out of the box.

If you are thinking why Android when we have a full-desktop OS like Linaro (based on Ubuntu) running on some powerful hardware, then the answer is because Linux still lacks Hardware Acceleration support for Mali-400 GPU on RK3188 based devices like Rock. An experimental Ubuntu Desktop release with OpenGL ES acceleration for Radxa Rock is released but it is still experimental and XBMC still does not work with it. Radxa has also released a preview image of Android 4.4 KitKat but once again it is also half-baked and lacks Root support, luckily we do have an alternative custom Android 4.4 ROM for Radxa ROCK with features like - stock 4.4.0 recovery, CWM 6.0.3.1 recovery, system ext4 support, selinux kernel, ethernet support, init.d support, gameloft compatible, USB-Hub enabled, gamepad compatible (PS2, XBox, …), pre-built kernel modules (cifs, tun, lan, serial, audio), latest hosts, su, su-binary and busybox, Reboot Menu, sEFix, FX Sound, File Manager HD 0root), Google Now and Nova Launcher.

Radxa Rock - the cheap and powerful quad-core mini-computer has already receiving great success with majority of stock vanishing across all major online distributors. Luckily, I had received my Radxa Rock a while back and has now successfully taken over the job of my Wireless Network Attached Storage (NAS) from Raspberry Pi.

The process of setting up NAS on Radxa Rock is much more easier then Raspberry Pi as the external disk is automatically detected and mounted on every boot (Thanks to Ubuntu Desktop based Linaro image), but when using the folder sharing via Samba Share we need to add an extra line to smb.conf to make the data accessible over network.

Raspberry Pi - the hacker friendly, cheap mini-computer started a whole new niche of users tinkering with these easily accessible hardware and open-source software to create awesome projects. There are now a plethora of such ARM development boards from single-core, dual-core to quad-code varieties having all sorts of ARM CPU options like Rockchip, i.MX Freescale, Samsung Exynos etc. with various RAM, connectivity and falsh storage options.

Radxa Rock is the newest entry into this arena and seems to pack a solid punch of hardware and software power, powered by Quad core ARM Cortex-A9 processor the board manages to clock as high as 1.6Ghz and as low as 324Mhz, balancing between performance and power saving. The single-board computer uses RK3188 as the quad-core CPU and comes with 2GB DDR3 @ 800Mhz, 8GB Nand Flash, Micro-SD SDXC up to 128GB, Mali400-mp4@533Mhz GPU with OpenGL ES 2.0 support, video output via HDMI 1.4 up to 1080p@60hz, integrated Bluetooth 4.0, WiFi with external antenna, LAN, RTC, IR, USB OTG, S/PDIF, headphone jack, built-in microphone and 80 pins including GPIO, I2C, SPI, Line in, USB 2.0, PWM, ADC, LCD, etc. allowing users to easily connect rock with breadboard or other sensor boards.