Getting Started with the Phytium Pi 4G Single-Board Computer
Unboxing Contents
After opening the package, you will find the following items:
- A USB 3.0 card reader from UGREEN and a 32GB SanDisk microSD card (a nice bonus)
- The Phytium Pi 4G development board with a heatsink fan (the DDR marking indicates ChangXin memory, confirming the 4GB version)
- A 12V 3A power adapter
Board Overview
The mainboard features a Phytium-designed quad-core processor compatible with the ARM V8 instruction set. The chip contains 2 FTC664 cores (up to 1.8GHz) and 2 FTC310 cores (up to 1.5GHz). The board comes with 64-bit DDR4 memory available in 2GB and 4GB variants, and supports SD card or eMMC external storage. Built-in WiFi and Bluetooth with a ceramic antenna enable quick wireless connectivity. The board also includes extensive peripheral interfaces: dual gigabit Ethernet, USB, UART, CAN, HDMI, Audio, and a miniPCIe slot for AI accelerator cards or 4G/5G communication modules.
Flashing the Ubuntu XFCE Image
First, extract the system image from the provided archive to obtain the .img file. Then use a disk imaging tool like Win32 Disk Imager to flash the image to the microSD card. The Phytium Pi boots from the SD card by default. The available operating systems include OpenKylin, OpenHarmony, SylixOS, RT-Thread, and Debian besides Ubuntu XFCE.
Booting and Network Configuration
Insert the flashed microSD card into the slot and connect the power adapter.
CLI Boot
Connect a USB-to-TTL adapter to the RX, TX, and GND pins shown in the diagram, then open a serial terminal at 115200 baud.
Username: user
Password: user (root password is also user, same for the login screen)
Run: sudo nmtui to open the connection manager (sudo required for permissions)
GUI Boot
Connect an HDMI display, keyboard, and mouse. Enter password user to access the desktop, then click the network icon in the lower right corner to connect to WiFi.
SSH Configuration
apt update
apt install openssh-server
sudo vim /etc/ssh/sshd_config
Modify the following line:
PermitRootLogin yes
Then restart the service:
sudo systemctl restart sshd
