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Next week we'll be in Santa Fe, Argentina, for DebConf 2026! Catch our 2 talks covering the latest Apertis developments and toolkits in Debian. View the full article

This week's updates center on expanded board support, Rockchip and Qualcomm platform maturation, and build system refinements. New hardware coverage grew across multiple SoC families, with the Lubancat 5IO (RK3588), KickPi K3B, Mellow Fly C5 3D printer board, and community support for the Orange Pi Zero 3W (Allwinner A733). The Arduino UNO Q advanced to mainline 7.1 on the edge kernel and gained desktop hardware acceleration via Mesa pinned to Trixie backports, while the BeagleY-AI received ISP, IMX219, and VPAC patches. Companion fixes addressed NVMe/SD boot conflicts on the NanoPi M6, Ethernet on the BigTreeTech CB1, and AIC8800 UART Bluetooth on Orange Pi A733 hardware. Rockchip work concentrated on the YY3588 and CM3588-NAS platforms, with device tree cleanups, a corrected HDMI-RX detect GPIO, and quieter DRM logging for dw-hdmi-qp and dw-dp bridges. Newer bl31, bl32, and DDR blobs landed for RK3576, and stale U-Boot was refreshed fleet-wide to resolve a SWIG build break. On the Qualcomm side, SC8280XP was refactored from a board to a family configuration, and the Radxa Dragon Q8B gained UFS image provisioning, QDL flashing support via the imager, and a mainline 7.1 edge target for the Q6A variant. Build and tooling improvements included a new show-extensions CLI command, a switch from the adduser suite to useradd/groupadd during first login, non-interactive Dpkg conffile handling in chroot, and clang compatibility fixes for carried Rockchip64 patches and SpacemiT RTL8852BS builds. The mainline kernel target advanced to 7.2-rc2, and MGLRU was enabled across sunxi, sunxi64, and sun60iw2 kernel configurations. #Armbian #EmbeddedLinux #Rockchip #Qualcomm #SBC ChangesAdd board: Lubancat 5IO (RK3588). by @lch08 in armbian/build#10029Add kickpi-k3b board and KICKPI vendor image. by @retro98boy in armbian/armbian.github.io#355Arduino UNO Q: bump edge kernel to mainline 7.1. by @SuperKali in armbian/build#10171arduino-uno-q: add BOARD_MAINTAINER, INTRODUCED, KERNEL_TEST_TARGET. by @igorpecovnik in armbian/build#10161arduino-uno-q: enable desktop hardware acceleration in Debian Trixie by pinning Mesa to trixie-backports. by @sdeleeuw in armbian/build#10160arm64: dts: rockchip: fix dynamic dclk for CM3588-NAS. by @rpardini in armbian/linux-rockchip#502arm64: dts: rockchip: overlay: yy3588: disable eDP overlay temporarily. by @SuperKali in armbian/linux-rockchip#509arm64: dts: rockchip: yy3588: drop non-existent SPI NOR flash. by @SuperKali in armbian/linux-rockchip#512arm64: dts: rockchip: yy3588: drop unused wifi_disable regulator. by @SuperKali in armbian/linux-rockchip#510BeagleY-AI Add Patches for ISP + IMX219 & VPAC. by @Grippy98 in armbian/build#10129Bigtreetech CB2: bump u-boot to 2026.04. by @JohnTheCoolingFan in armbian/build#10144boards/youyeetoo-yy3588: name audio outputs on pipewire too. by @SuperKali in armbian/build#10146cli: add show-extensions command to list extension hook points. by @iav in armbian/build#10023config: build and expose q8b UFS images on the debian:trixie base. by @SuperKali in armbian/os#478config: drop radxa-dragon-q6a from apps and community trixie base. by @SuperKali in armbian/os#479desktops: add libspa-0.2-bluetooth for OOB Bluetooth headphone audio. by @igorpecovnik in armbian/configng#948drm/bridge: dw-hdmi-qp: limit DDC i2c retries on NACK. by @SuperKali in armbian/linux-rockchip#513drm/rockchip: dw-dp: ratelimit AUX timeout logging. by @SuperKali in armbian/linux-rockchip#514feat(qdl): serve the board registry from the API. by @SuperKali in armbian/imager#163Feat: Add support for the Mellow Fly C5 3D Printer board. by @deece in armbian/build#9584feat: flash locally-built UFS images over QDL. by @SuperKali in armbian/imager#164firstlogin: use useradd/groupadd instead of the adduser suite. by @igorpecovnik in armbian/build#10127Fix ethernet on BigTreeTech CB1. by @JohnTheCoolingFan in armbian/build#10155fix(chroot): add Dpkg conffile options to prevent interactive prompts. by @Grippy98 in armbian/build#10134fix: stop setting LC_ALL in armbian-lang.sh. by @saschabuehrle in armbian/build#10132generate-build-lists: only gate manual runs on team membership. by @igorpecovnik in armbian/armbian.github.io#353jethome: fix jethub-burn extension: add BETA=yes support. by @adeepn in armbian/build#10152k3-beagle: fix malformed csi0-imx219 overlay patch (bad hunk count). by @igorpecovnik in armbian/build#10136kde-neon: switch to resolute base, then disable (broken). by @igorpecovnik in armbian/configng#949kickpik2b: Change vendor from SoC-level to board-level (KICKPI). by @retro98boy in armbian/build#10143mainline: bump to 7.2-rc2. by @EvilOlaf in armbian/build#10150Makena: add SC8280XP firehose and Radxa Dragon Q8B UFS provisioning. by @SuperKali in armbian/qcombin#3media: rockchip: hdmirx: quiet signal-not-lock polling spam. by @SuperKali in armbian/linux-rockchip#515Meson64: Update Waveshare CM4-IO-BASE-B DTS and add emc2305 fixups for driver to BLEEDINGEDGE branch. by @pyavitz in armbian/build#10169nanopi-m6: fix nvme prevents sd card from booting. by @efectn in armbian/build#10170orangepizero3w: Add community support for Orange Pi Zero 3W (Allwinner A733). by @shkolnik in armbian/build#10103Radxa Dragon Q6A: add mainline 7.1 edge kernel target. by @SuperKali in armbian/build#10162release-targets: add radxa-dragon-q8b with ufs extension. by @SuperKali in armbian/armbian.github.io#354rk3576: newer blobs bl31/bl32/ddr. by @rpardini in armbian/rkbin#49rockchip64: fix clang -Wincompatible-pointer-types-discards-qualifiers in carried patches. by @iav in armbian/build#10140rockchip64: yy3588: fix HDMI-RX detect GPIO to GPIO1_D5. by @SuperKali in armbian/build#10151rockchip: bump stale u-boot to fix the SWIG build break (fleet). by @igorpecovnik in armbian/build#10107SC8280XP: Initial refactor from board to family config. by @HeyMeco in armbian/build#9818SpacemiT: Add a current branch to the K3 and update K1 current kernel source URL. by @pyavitz in armbian/build#10138spacemit: rtl8852bs: guard GCC-only warning flags for clang builds. by @iav in armbian/build#10139sun60iw2: bring up AIC8800 UART Bluetooth on the Orange Pi A733 boards. by @shkolnik in armbian/build#10149sunxi, sunxi64, sun60iw2: enable MGLRU in kernel config. by @ValdikSS in armbian/build#10133sunxi: mellowflyc5: port U-Boot to v2026.07 & enable network boot. by @deece in armbian/build#10165Use relative symbolic links for some BSP files. by @retro98boy in armbian/build#10145View the full article

This week's updates center on expanded board support, Rockchip and Qualcomm platform maturation, and build system refinements. New hardware coverage grew across multiple SoC families, with the Lubancat 5IO (RK3588), KickPi K3B, Mellow Fly C5 3D printer board, and community support for the Orange Pi Zero 3W (Allwinner A733). The Arduino UNO Q advanced to mainline 7.1 on the edge kernel and gained desktop hardware acceleration via Mesa pinned to Trixie backports, while the BeagleY-AI received ISP, IMX219, and VPAC patches. Companion fixes addressed NVMe/SD boot conflicts on the NanoPi M6, Ethernet on the BigTreeTech CB1, and AIC8800 UART Bluetooth on Orange Pi A733 hardware. Rockchip work concentrated on the YY3588 and CM3588-NAS platforms, with device tree cleanups, a corrected HDMI-RX detect GPIO, and quieter DRM logging for dw-hdmi-qp and dw-dp bridges. Newer bl31, bl32, and DDR blobs landed for RK3576, and stale U-Boot was refreshed fleet-wide to resolve a SWIG build break. On the Qualcomm side, SC8280XP was refactored from a board to a family configuration, and the Radxa Dragon Q8B gained UFS image provisioning, QDL flashing support via the imager, and a mainline 7.1 edge target for the Q6A variant. Build and tooling improvements included a new show-extensions CLI command, a switch from the adduser suite to useradd/groupadd during first login, non-interactive Dpkg conffile handling in chroot, and clang compatibility fixes for carried Rockchip64 patches and SpacemiT RTL8852BS builds. The mainline kernel target advanced to 7.2-rc2, and MGLRU was enabled across sunxi, sunxi64, and sun60iw2 kernel configurations. #Armbian #EmbeddedLinux #Rockchip #Qualcomm #SBC ChangesAdd board: Lubancat 5IO (RK3588). by @lch08 in armbian/build#10029Add kickpi-k3b board and KICKPI vendor image. by @retro98boy in armbian/armbian.github.io#355Arduino UNO Q: bump edge kernel to mainline 7.1. by @SuperKali in armbian/build#10171arduino-uno-q: add BOARD_MAINTAINER, INTRODUCED, KERNEL_TEST_TARGET. by @igorpecovnik in armbian/build#10161arduino-uno-q: enable desktop hardware acceleration in Debian Trixie by pinning Mesa to trixie-backports. by @sdeleeuw in armbian/build#10160arm64: dts: rockchip: fix dynamic dclk for CM3588-NAS. by @rpardini in armbian/linux-rockchip#502arm64: dts: rockchip: overlay: yy3588: disable eDP overlay temporarily. by @SuperKali in armbian/linux-rockchip#509arm64: dts: rockchip: yy3588: drop non-existent SPI NOR flash. by @SuperKali in armbian/linux-rockchip#512arm64: dts: rockchip: yy3588: drop unused wifi_disable regulator. by @SuperKali in armbian/linux-rockchip#510BeagleY-AI Add Patches for ISP + IMX219 & VPAC. by @Grippy98 in armbian/build#10129Bigtreetech CB2: bump u-boot to 2026.04. by @JohnTheCoolingFan in armbian/build#10144boards/youyeetoo-yy3588: name audio outputs on pipewire too. by @SuperKali in armbian/build#10146cli: add show-extensions command to list extension hook points. by @iav in armbian/build#10023config: build and expose q8b UFS images on the debian:trixie base. by @SuperKali in armbian/os#478config: drop radxa-dragon-q6a from apps and community trixie base. by @SuperKali in armbian/os#479desktops: add libspa-0.2-bluetooth for OOB Bluetooth headphone audio. by @igorpecovnik in armbian/configng#948drm/bridge: dw-hdmi-qp: limit DDC i2c retries on NACK. by @SuperKali in armbian/linux-rockchip#513drm/rockchip: dw-dp: ratelimit AUX timeout logging. by @SuperKali in armbian/linux-rockchip#514feat(qdl): serve the board registry from the API. by @SuperKali in armbian/imager#163Feat: Add support for the Mellow Fly C5 3D Printer board. by @deece in armbian/build#9584feat: flash locally-built UFS images over QDL. by @SuperKali in armbian/imager#164firstlogin: use useradd/groupadd instead of the adduser suite. by @igorpecovnik in armbian/build#10127Fix ethernet on BigTreeTech CB1. by @JohnTheCoolingFan in armbian/build#10155fix(chroot): add Dpkg conffile options to prevent interactive prompts. by @Grippy98 in armbian/build#10134fix: stop setting LC_ALL in armbian-lang.sh. by @saschabuehrle in armbian/build#10132generate-build-lists: only gate manual runs on team membership. by @igorpecovnik in armbian/armbian.github.io#353jethome: fix jethub-burn extension: add BETA=yes support. by @adeepn in armbian/build#10152k3-beagle: fix malformed csi0-imx219 overlay patch (bad hunk count). by @igorpecovnik in armbian/build#10136kde-neon: switch to resolute base, then disable (broken). by @igorpecovnik in armbian/configng#949kickpik2b: Change vendor from SoC-level to board-level (KICKPI). by @retro98boy in armbian/build#10143mainline: bump to 7.2-rc2. by @EvilOlaf in armbian/build#10150Makena: add SC8280XP firehose and Radxa Dragon Q8B UFS provisioning. by @SuperKali in armbian/qcombin#3media: rockchip: hdmirx: quiet signal-not-lock polling spam. by @SuperKali in armbian/linux-rockchip#515Meson64: Update Waveshare CM4-IO-BASE-B DTS and add emc2305 fixups for driver to BLEEDINGEDGE branch. by @pyavitz in armbian/build#10169nanopi-m6: fix nvme prevents sd card from booting. by @efectn in armbian/build#10170orangepizero3w: Add community support for Orange Pi Zero 3W (Allwinner A733). by @shkolnik in armbian/build#10103Radxa Dragon Q6A: add mainline 7.1 edge kernel target. by @SuperKali in armbian/build#10162release-targets: add radxa-dragon-q8b with ufs extension. by @SuperKali in armbian/armbian.github.io#354rk3576: newer blobs bl31/bl32/ddr. by @rpardini in armbian/rkbin#49rockchip64: fix clang -Wincompatible-pointer-types-discards-qualifiers in carried patches. by @iav in armbian/build#10140rockchip64: yy3588: fix HDMI-RX detect GPIO to GPIO1_D5. by @SuperKali in armbian/build#10151rockchip: bump stale u-boot to fix the SWIG build break (fleet). by @igorpecovnik in armbian/build#10107SC8280XP: Initial refactor from board to family config. by @HeyMeco in armbian/build#9818SpacemiT: Add a current branch to the K3 and update K1 current kernel source URL. by @pyavitz in armbian/build#10138spacemit: rtl8852bs: guard GCC-only warning flags for clang builds. by @iav in armbian/build#10139sun60iw2: bring up AIC8800 UART Bluetooth on the Orange Pi A733 boards. by @shkolnik in armbian/build#10149sunxi, sunxi64, sun60iw2: enable MGLRU in kernel config. by @ValdikSS in armbian/build#10133sunxi: mellowflyc5: port U-Boot to v2026.07 & enable network boot. by @deece in armbian/build#10165Use relative symbolic links for some BSP files. by @retro98boy in armbian/build#10145View the full article

Link Star H68K is, according to multiple sources, exactly the same as Hinlink H68K. But that's not the problem (yet). I'd been using an old version of RKDevTool (2.84 IIRC) which was unable to load the .img file from the Armbian site, but uninformative as to the nature of the problem. Updating to RKDevTool 3.37 at least yielded an error message when attempting to load the image: Googling this suggests a corrupted download (not the problem here, the SHA sum matches) or a raw .img format rather than the packed .img format expected by RKDevTool. So I compiled an image according to the Armbian Build Framework instructions. Same error message. More Googling suggests that a couple of Linux CLI utilities, upgrade_tool or rkdeveloptool, may be able to flash a raw image to the board's EMMC. More later...

Enable wifi PR: https://github.com/armbian/build/pull/10177 Board logs: https://paste.armbian.com/nebubeyeru Boot logs: https://paste.armbian.eu/eduserusev After boot, check systemctl status easy-eai-nano-bcmdhd.service --no-pager journalctl -u easy-eai-nano-bcmdhd.service -b --no-pager ls -l /lib/firmware/fw_bcm43455c0_ag.bin /lib/firmware/nvram_ap6255.txt dmesg | grep -Ei 'bcmdhd|dhd|4345|ap6255|firmware|nvram|wlan|sdio' iw dev rfkill list tr -d '\0' </proc/device-tree/wireless-wlan/wifi_chip_type; echo dmesg | grep -Ei 'rfkill_wlan|bcmdhd|dhd|4345|ap6255|firmware|nvram|wlan' lsmod | grep -E 'bcmdhd|dhd_static|rfkill' iw dev rfkill list modinfo bcmdhd_sdio cat /etc/modprobe.d/bcmdhd-easy-eai-nano.conf dmesg | grep -Ei 'bcmdhd|dhd|43430|43438|ap6212|firmware|nvram|wlan' iw dev rfkill list

With the aid of Claude.Ai .. v26.5.1 for Rock 5A running Armbian Linux 6.18.35-current-rockchip64 Starting Point is the Radxa DTS needed to add an include ... #include <dt-bindings/soc/rockchip,vop2.h> Modified this section. Changed the compatible string, added the power-supply key and fixed the active area (width and height) dsi0_panel: panel@0 { status = "okay"; compatible = "panel-dsi-simple"; reg = <0>; backlight = <&dsi0_backlight>; power-supply = <&vcc_lcd_mipi0>; vdd-supply = <&vcc_lcd_mipi0>; vccio-supply = <&vcc_1v8_s0>; reset-gpios = <&gpio3 RK_PC1 GPIO_ACTIVE_HIGH>; pinctrl-names = "default"; pinctrl-0 = <&dsi0_lcd_rst_gpio>; prepare-delay-ms = <120>; reset-delay-ms = <120>; init-delay-ms = <120>; enable-delay-ms = <100>; disable-delay-ms = <120>; unprepare-delay-ms = <120>; width-mm = <135>; height-mm = <217>; Modified this section (renamed the endpoint) &mipi_dcphy0 { status = "okay"; }; &route_dsi0 { status = "okay"; connect = <&vp3_out_dsi0>; }; &dsi0_in_vp2 { status = "disabled"; }; &dsi0_in_vp3 { status = "okay"; }; to simply &mipidcphy0 { status = "okay"; }; Added this section / endpoint &vp3 { #address-cells = <1>; #size-cells = <0>; vp3_out_dsi0: endpoint@ROCKCHIP_VOP2_EP_MIPI0 { reg = <ROCKCHIP_VOP2_EP_MIPI0>; remote-endpoint = <&dsi0_in_vp3>; }; }; And then completely redid the i2c touch controller section to be &i2c5 { status = "okay"; pinctrl-names = "default"; pinctrl-0 = <&i2c5m2_xfer>; clock-frequency = <400000>; #address-cells = <1>; #size-cells = <0>; gt9xx: gt9271@14 { status = "okay"; compatible = "goodix,gt9271"; reg = <0x14>; pinctrl-names = "default"; pinctrl-0 = <&gt9xx_gpio>; interrupt-parent = <&gpio3>; interrupts = <RK_PC6 IRQ_TYPE_EDGE_FALLING>; irq-gpios = <&gpio3 RK_PC6 GPIO_ACTIVE_HIGH>; reset-gpios = <&gpio3 RK_PC5 GPIO_ACTIVE_HIGH>; touchscreen-size-x = <1200>; touchscreen-size-y = <1920>; AVDD28-supply = <&vcc_tp>; VDDIO-supply = <&vcc_tp>; }; Final DTS is attached. Worked for 6.18.53. I had Claude write a bash script to pull everything and make the required changes and compile the device tree and can make it available, if needed. rock-5a-radxa-display-10fhd.dts

@Guido Giuntoli You are a candidate to test the new feature. https://github.com/armbian/build/pull/10113

I successfully got the Radxa Display10FHD display working this weekend on Armbian 26.5.1 (Gnome) after extensive Claude AI help in fixing default Radxa DTS. I'll do a separate post / topic for that but it involved refactoring some of the endpoints, adding a missing header and fixing the touchscreen driver name. I used Claude and it was really helpful.

Hi @Nick A — great work on these builds, I've been testing both your BSP (v0.6.4, kernel 6.6.98) and Mainline (V0.1, kernel 6.18.19) images on a Cubie A7Z with a custom carrier board. Both work well for general use. I've been trying to get a W5500 SPI-to-Ethernet chip working on SPI2 and ran into a consistent issue across both kernels that might be worth looking at. Issue: sunxi-spi-ng child device never gets probed The SPI2 controller itself initialises correctly on both kernels: sunxi-spi-ng 2542000.spi: probe success (Version 2.5.4) But the child device (spi2.0) never gets a driver bound to it. The w5100-spi driver is loaded, the modalias matches (spi:w5500), fw_devlink=off is set, yet: echo spi2.0 | tee /sys/bus/spi/drivers/w5100/bind → No such device echo spi2.0 | tee /sys/bus/spi/drivers_probe → accepted, no effect, zero dmesg output Dynamic debug enabled (module w5100 +p) → zero probe activity This reproduces on: Radxa BSP kernel 5.15.147-21-a733 (official r6 image) Your BSP build kernel 6.6.98 Your Mainline build kernel 6.18.19 All three use the same spi-sunxi-ng.ko / spi_sunxi_ng driver (same allwinner,sunxi-spi-v1.3 compatible string). Hardware confirmed good: the same W5500 chip on the same physical pins works perfectly when an ESP32-S3 is plugged in instead — DHCP, real network data, everything. Raw spidev access on the Radxa also reads correct W5500 registers. The bug is specifically in sunxi-spi-ng's child device registration preventing any driver from binding. Overlay used: dts /dts-v1/; /plugin/; &spi2 { status = "okay"; sunxi,spi-bus-mode = <1>; sunxi,spi-cs-mode = <0>; eth0: ethernet@0 { compatible = "wiznet,w5500"; reg = <0>; spi-max-frequency = <20000000>; }; }; Note: sunxi,spi-bus-mode = <0> is rejected at probe time with error -22 ("unsupport hw bus mode 0x0"), so <1> is the only accepted value. Has anyone else seen this? Is there a known workaround for getting SPI child devices to bind under sunxi-spi-ng on A733?

nevermind, it can infact run armbian, but only by booting using a usb stick(change root drive using bootargs) only. The fx6 still have an un-bypassable secure boot, so booting using usb stick is the only option here, also it works great with the banana pi m4's firmware

@erebus041 were you able to install Armbian on the TV box?

No. There is basically no open source resources going to the amlogic CPUs these days. Generally Amlogic doesn't support or help open source development, so most developers have moved on to other platforms (rockchip and allwinner) that are somewhat more supportive.

split into new topic for the reason above.

There is no proof it is the same problem. As I told you in topic: your Ultra does not have the same SoC as the original/normal OPi5. So this posting in the wrong group and is getting annoying. You should focus on RK3588, not the RK3588S Also the Ultra is community support only, so you are part of that. Make sure you understand installing latest kernels and U-Boot etc yourself manually and also building Armbian yourself. From latest other post here, I conclude that the 7.1 kernel at least can show some sign of life from NVME. Xunlong dumps HW on the market at a high rate, you cannot trust or build on that reliably. Check everything, even their 'official' image, where do the sources come from etc. My perception is that they just clone a certain old version of the Armbian build system, then make it work, likely only boot from SD-card and then they go on the next HW/marketing/vaporware.

Sorry Ryzer, I missed your last post. For the WiFi, I use morrow_nr drivers, it is a lengthy process to compile the driver, but it works. This is the wifi dongle, using RTL8812BU: https://www.amazon.com.au/Adapter-（AC1200-867Mbps-WPS，Support-10-6-10-15/dp/B09BNJPQYT What I also found is that a significant change has happened between kernel 5 and 6 with regards to OTG. I tried to lay with that a bit, but I am out of my depth and didn't get anywhere with it: &usbotg_hs { compatible = "st,stm32mp15-hsotg", "snps,dwc2"; dr_mode = "otg"; usb-role-switch; <------ this is the major change between kernel 5 and 6 wrt OTG /* Other DWC2 specific properties and PHY configuration / ... }; Then on the user side, setting up the gadget requires the following: To switch to device mode echo "device" > /sys/class/usb_role/.dwc2-role-switch/role To switch to host mode echo "host" > /sys/class/usb_role/*.dwc2-role-switch/role

The same problem on the Pi 5 Ultra, has anyone managed to solve this problem? Or is this a global bug for all Orange devices?

@y52 very cool!

Hello to regular contributors and everybody who are interested in this issue! I am late to the thread, as I had to decommission my production setup based on Espressobin V5 before trying everything out. Finally I've completed Physical-to-Virtual migration using QEMU and made board available for this new experience. @bschnei made a great job and his developments are community available. It was also worth for me making my findings accessible for general public thus improving Espressobin support. I forked @bschnei repo https://github.com/bschnei/ebu-bootloader to my Github https://github.com/quiseleve/espressobin-bootloader and made several changes to build bootloaders for Espressobin V5 and V7. Here are the final changes brought to @bschnei repo : root@nanopi-r5s:/mnt/nvmep2/espressobin/ebu-bootloader# git remote add upstream https://github.com/bschnei/ebu-bootloader.git root@nanopi-r5s:/mnt/nvmep2/espressobin/ebu-bootloader# git fetch upstream From https://github.com/bschnei/ebu-bootloader * [new branch] main -> upstream/main root@nanopi-r5s:/mnt/nvmep2/espressobin/ebu-bootloader# git diff --stat upstream/main...main .github/workflows/build.yml | 92 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++--------------------------------- Makefile | 2 ++ patches/0001-fix-tfa-fip-build-behavior.patch | 36 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 3 files changed, 90 insertions(+), 40 deletions(-) This allowed building bootload firmware directly in Github's Workflow and trying them out over UART 1st before flashing it to onboard SPi. ./mox-imager -D /dev/ttyUSB0 -b 3000000 -E flash-image-v5_2GB.CPU_1000_DDR_800.bin Although Workflow run builds both v5 and v7 variants, I tested 2Gb RAM v5 board, as my 1Gb v7 is currently in production, but there is a high confidence level, that v7 works as well. DDR_TOPOLOGY variable used for my specific v5 motherboard : Memory Type: DDR3 Total Capacity: 2 GB Bus Width: 16-bit Chip Selects (CS): 2 (Dual CS) It is worth saying that I built initially the 1.2GHz bootloader, but it appeared worthless, as my physical silicon turned out to be limited to 1GHz only. I found it by retrieving a 32-bit hex string for v5 board : => md 0xd0012604 1 d0012604: 19896301 .c.. => This hex string gives us the definitive answers we need. In the Marvell Armada 3720 architecture, this specific register reads from the factory OTP (One-Time Programmable) fuses. The lower bits define the chip's official Speed Bin Index: 0 = 800 MHz Maximum 1 = 1000 MHz (1.0 GHz) Maximum 2 = 1200 MHz (1.2 GHz) Maximum Because my board register ends in 01, my specific SoC is officially rated by the factory for a maximum clock speed of 1000 MHz (1.0 GHz). This completely explains why the WTMI secure firmware threw the invalid voltage error when I forced a 1.2 GHz build. The chip physically lacks the factory-fused voltage calibration profile for the 1.2 GHz tier because it wasn't born as a 1.2 GHz chip. Thus I decided changing the Build Target to 1.0 GHz. More discussions could be found here as well : I've also built Armbian-unofficial 26.5.2 sid image to assess overall compatibility. Here is an excerpt from initial boot logs directly from the bootloader initiation : TIM-1.0 mv_ddr-devel-g7bcb9dc DDR3 16b 2GB 2CS WTMI-devel-18.12.1-f423ac6 WTMI: system early-init SVC REV: 3, CPU VDD voltage: 1.155V Setting clocks: CPU 1000 MHz, DDR 800 MHz CZ.NIC's Armada 3720 Secure Firmware v2024.04.15 (Jul 9 2026 20:33:31) Running on ESPRESSObin NOTICE: Booting Trusted Firmware NOTICE: BL1: v2.14.0(release):sandbox/v2.14 NOTICE: BL1: Built : 20:33:33, Jul 9 2026 NOTICE: BL1: Booting BL2 NOTICE: BL2: v2.14.0(release):sandbox/v2.14 NOTICE: BL2: Built : 20:33:35, Jul 9 2026 NOTICE: BL1: Booting BL31 NOTICE: BL31: v2.14.0(release):sandbox/v2.14 NOTICE: BL31: Built : 20:33:36, Jul 9 2026 U-Boot 2026.04-dirty (Jul 09 2026 - 20:32:03 +0000) DRAM: 2 GiB Core: 48 devices, 24 uclasses, devicetree: separate WDT: Not starting watchdog@8300 Comphy chip #0: Comphy-0: USB3_HOST0 5 Gbps Comphy-1: PEX0 5 Gbps Comphy-2: SATA0 6 Gbps SATA link 0 timeout. AHCI 0001.0300 32 slots 1 ports 6 Gbps 0x1 impl SATA mode flags: ncq led only pmp fbss pio slum part sxs PCIe: Link down MMC: sdhci@d0000: 0, sdhci@d8000: 1 Loading Environment from SPIFlash... SF: Detected w25q32dw with page size 256 Bytes, erase size 4 KiB, total 4 MiB OK Model: Globalscale Marvell ESPRESSOBin Board Net: eth0: ethernet@30000 Hit any key to stop autoboot: 0 MMC Device 1 not found no mmc device at slot 1 switch to partitions #0, OK mmc0 is current device Scanning mmc 0:1... Found U-Boot script /boot/boot.scr 1664 bytes read in 25 ms (64.5 KiB/s) ## Executing script at 06d00000 144 bytes read in 19 ms (6.8 KiB/s) 28134196 bytes read in 1702 ms (15.8 MiB/s) Wrong Image Type for bootm command ERROR -91: can't get kernel image! 37059072 bytes read in 2231 ms (15.8 MiB/s) 18537158 bytes read in 1121 ms (15.8 MiB/s) 12062 bytes read in 35 ms (335.9 KiB/s) ## Loading init Ramdisk from Legacy Image at 0a000000 ... Image Name: uInitrd Image Type: AArch64 Linux RAMDisk Image (gzip compressed) Data Size: 18537094 Bytes = 17.7 MiB Load Address: 00000000 Entry Point: 00000000 Verifying Checksum ... OK ## Flattened Device Tree blob at 06f00000 Booting using the fdt blob at 0x6f00000 Working FDT set to 6f00000 Loading Ramdisk to 7d940000, end 7eaeda86 ... OK Loading Device Tree to 000000007d93a000, end 000000007d93ff1d ... OK Working FDT set to 7d93a000 Starting kernel ... Loading, please wait... Starting systemd-udevd version 261.1-2 Begin: Loading essential drivers ... done. Begin: Running /scripts/init-premount ... done. Begin: Mounting root file system ... Begin: Running /scripts/local-top ... done. Begin: Running /scripts/local-premount ... Scanning for Btrfs filesystems done. Begin: Will now check root file system ... fsck from util-linux 2.42.2 [/sbin/fsck.ext4 (1) -- /dev/mmcblk0p1] fsck.ext4 -a -C0 /dev/mmcblk0p1 armbi_root: clean, 28918/949664 files, 425190/3849216 blocks done. done. Begin: Running /scripts/local-bottom ... done. Begin: Running /scripts/init-bottom ... done. Welcome to Armbian-unofficial 26.5.2 sid! [ OK ] Created slice system-getty.slice - Slice /system/getty. [ OK ] Created slice system-modprobe.slice - Slice /system/modprobe. [ OK ] Created slice system-serial\x2dgetty.slice - Slice /system/serial-getty. [ OK ] Created slice user.slice - User and Session Slice. [ OK ] Started systemd-ask-password-console.path - Dispatch Password Requests to Console Directory Watch. [ OK ] Started systemd-ask-password-wall.path - Forward Password Requests to Wall Directory Watch. [ OK ] Set up automount proc-sys-fs-binfmt_misc.automount - Arbitrary Executable File Formats File System Automount Point. Expecting device dev-ttyMV0.device - /dev/ttyMV0... [ OK ] Reached target imports.target - Image Downloads. [ OK ] Reached target remote-fs.target - Remote File Systems. [ OK ] Reached target slices.target - Slice Units. [ OK ] Reached target swap.target - Swaps. [ OK ] Listening on syslog.socket - Syslog Socket. [ OK ] Listening on systemd-ask-password.socket - Query the User Interactively for a Password. [ OK ] Listening on systemd-creds.socket - Credential Encryption/Decryption. [ OK ] Listening on systemd-factory-reset.socket - Factory Reset Management. [ OK ] Listening on systemd-hostnamed.socket - Hostname Service Socket. -- Boot 3e598d120dc346829e12f836344429a1 -- Jul 11 00:11:05 espressobin kernel: Booting Linux on physical CPU 0x0000000000 [0x410fd034] Jul 11 00:11:05 espressobin kernel: Linux version 6.12.95-current-mvebu64 (build@armbian) (aarch64-linux-gnu-gcc (Ubuntu 13.3.0> Jul 11 00:11:05 espressobin kernel: 5:185m5:185mKASLR disabled due to lack of seed Jul 11 00:11:05 espressobin kernel: Machine model: Globalscale Marvell ESPRESSOBin Board Jul 11 00:11:05 espressobin kernel: efi: UEFI not found. .. Jul 11 00:11:05 espressobin kernel: armada_37xx_wdt d0008300.watchdog: Initial timeout 120 sec Jul 11 00:11:05 espressobin kernel: advk-pcie d0070000.pcie: host bridge /soc/pcie@d0070000 ranges: Jul 11 00:11:05 espressobin kernel: advk-pcie d0070000.pcie: MEM 0x00e8000000..0x00efefffff -> 0x00e8000000 Jul 11 00:11:05 espressobin kernel: advk-pcie d0070000.pcie: IO 0x00efff0000..0x00efffffff -> 0x0000000000 Jul 11 00:11:05 espressobin kernel: advk-pcie d0070000.pcie: issuing PERST via reset GPIO for 10ms Jul 11 00:11:05 espressobin kernel: mvneta d0030000.ethernet end0: renamed from eth0 .... This bootloader seems to deliver many if not all of its promises to name few of them: cpu frequency scaling is operational : root@espressobin:~# cpupower frequency-info analyzing CPU 1: driver: cpufreq-dt CPUs which run at the same hardware frequency: 0 1 CPUs which need to have their frequency coordinated by software: 0 1 maximum transition latency: 1000 us hardware limits: 200 MHz - 1000 MHz available frequency steps: 200 MHz, 250 MHz, 500 MHz, 1000 MHz available cpufreq governors: conservative ondemand userspace powersave performance schedutil current policy: frequency should be within 200 MHz and 1000 MHz. The governor "ondemand" may decide which speed to use within this range. current CPU frequency: 250 MHz (asserted by call to kernel) Entropy and random number generation (RNG) issue seems to have been resolved as bschnei's ebu-bootloader fork explicitly includes patches to fix this. The ebu-bootloader patches bypass the OS entirely and tackle the problem before Linux even starts. When Linux kernel boots, it immediately detects this perfect cryptographic seed provided by U-Boot and uses it to instantly initialize the OS-level Cryptographic Random Number Generator (CRNG). Here are my kernel ring buffer timestamps: root@espressobin:~# dmesg | grep -E "crng|random" [ 11.785705] systemd[1]: Starting systemd-random-seed.service - Load/Save OS Random Seed... [ 13.071384] random: crng init done [ 13.398576] systemd[1]: Finished systemd-random-seed.service - Load/Save OS Random Seed. The bootloader and kernel working together fixed the entropy pool in exactly 13.07 seconds from the moment the Linux kernel started executing. Because crng init done happened before the systemd service even finished writing to the disk, it proves the kernel didn't just rely on slow user-space disk jitter. The hardware security engine initialized almost immediately. Because the ebu-bootloader fork compiled correctly patches, the underlying Trusted Firmware-A (TF-A) and the secure processor (WTMI-devel), the hardware crypto mailboxes are wide open and working perfectly the moment Linux asks for them. You don't even need haveged or any software workarounds. Your hardware is resolving its own entropy natively in just over a second from user-space initialization! U-Boot UEFI Support is out of the box as well. I am booting seemlessly both legacy OS (from my old production setup) as well as a new OS build which I used for this testbed root@espressobin:~# cat /etc/debian_version forky/sid root@espressobin:~# uname -a Linux espressobinv5 6.12.95-current-mvebu64 #1 SMP PREEMPT Sat Jul 4 11:43:36 UTC 2026 aarch64 GNU/Linux

this post started 2023 & some engineers told that armbian does not support S905W2 . its 2026. ... did someone try ? for s905w2 does this rom well work? please tell me "YES" bc i need a armbian for S905w2 @SteeMan @Devmfc

Hey, thanks for the PSU suggestion! I actually tested the power theory by stripping all USB accessories (dongles, hubs, keyboard) and running just the board + HDMI, but it still drops to initramfs. I also know the PSU and hardware are 100% good because DietPi boots perfectly on this exact same setup. I dug around in the initramfs shell and ran blkid. Here is the output: /dev/mmcblk1: PTUUID="[uuid]" PTTYPE="gpt" The issue: The kernel sees the raw SD card, but it's completely blind to the partitions (p1, p2). It looks like this specific build might be missing the ext4 drivers in the initramfs, which is why it can't find the UUID to mount the rootfs. For the devs, here is the exact image causing the issue: Armbian_26.2.1_Radxa-zero3_trixie_vendor_6.1.115_minimal.img (Flashed via BalenaEtcher, verified successfully, and ignored all Windows format prompts). I'm switching over to the official Radxa Debian image for now so I can finally get my onboard AIC8800 Wi-Fi working, but I wanted to drop these debug notes here in case this is a regression in the recent build.

It's just an old armhf "armV7" kind of thing, but thanks to it will work for more Ai content.

It's and old Allwinner chip, ARMv7-based. GPU is PowerVR SGX544MP1, which is not supported in Mesa and will not work in Armbian. Wi-Fi is AP6212, a Broadcom/Synaptics SYN43436S chip, should work fine. Armbian build for M3 is community-supported, by @AaronNGray. Maybe they'll shed more light on this board.

The other usual thing is then PSU. So also maybe try a different one. Else I cannot really help you, not being able to find rootfs can have pure software cause, but is unlikely if other people can run it successfully. I wish I had bought this SBC a year ago, but I didn't and now they are sold out where I looked, so cannot see If I can reproduce the problem. You need to look in more detail yourself, like connecting serial debug console and setting loglevel to 7 in armbianEnv.txt. Also post which exact image is (sha256sum), so other people can try the same thing.

I also thought the same so i was using a sandisk 32 gb sd card so i switched to samsung 64 gb one but same issue in it also, i think the problem is something else.

If it worked once and now not anymore, it might be the SD-card that is the problem. It might be a as bad that it is a fake SD-card.