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Could you please be more explicit or point me to some tutorial? In the readme the only info I can see are how to build U-Boot for s905x in the version I already have, or newer but for different chips s905x2 and s905x3. Thanks again for your help

Hello! I am quite new to using Armbian, and I have been having some trouble trying to boot into Multitool. Before I explain my problem, I will describe what I have been using, which is an RK3328 X88 Pro 10. The image I tried using alongside Multitool was Armbian_23.11.1_RK3328-Box_jammy_current_6.1.63.img. First off the bat, Multitool was only 377 MB, even though the min SD I was using is 117 GB, which I am not sure if that was done on purpose, but I made it more difficult to find an image that fit. Next, when Mulitool booted in, I was greeted with the Terms of Software page, which would only let me scroll up and down. If I try any other keyboard keys (I do not have the remote; it has been lost for years). A black box from the bottom of the screen, opening some kind of terminal, saying "Line 17: command not found" when it opens, all I can do is type like a text editor where hitting enter does not get a response from the software. I don't know what to do at all, so I hope one of you guys could understand the predicament I'm in

If you're still able to boot from microsd (which should be prefered over emmc if Armbian uboot is used) you can chroot into the system on eMMC and downgrade packages, either manually (apt/dpkg) or with armbian-config.

No clue, sorry. Maybe the driver might be optimized to work best with wayland. Maybe there is a fix pending or already merged into newer Linux version.

Addendum: An Easy Way To Bypass Grub's Self-Centric Orientation & Eliminate The Need For OS-Prober 1. Assuming you already have your EFI partition set up, for any OS that's mounting the EFI partition, stop that. In the /etc/fstab file, comment out (with a #) the line where it's mounted (i.e. as /boot/efi/). 2. Install grub on each OS. You can keep the /boot/grub/ directory on the same partition as root. Each installed OS will just update its own grub.cfg whenever it's needed. # If the your OS doesn't have a /boot/efi/ directory, create one. mkdir /boot/efi # Install grub. This will force it to install even though it won't detect a genuine EFI. grub-install --efi-directory /boot/efi --force Remember if you need to disable os-prober (recommended), just comment-out its line in /etc/default/grub. 3. Optional: Eliminate the pesky EFI Firmware menu entry in each OS this way: cd /etc/grub.d mkdir skip.d mv 30_uefi-firmware skip.d/ 4. Update Grub with your current kernels update-grub 5. Create a small partition for grub. 64 MB will suffice. 6. Choose an OS's grub, and copy all files from /boot/grub/ to that small grub partition. 7. On that grub partition, create a new grub.cfg. Here is a sample: set timeout=10 # Load Modules insmod all_video insmod part_gpt insmod ext2 insmod png # Setup Background loadfont unicode terminal_output gfxterm background_image /grub-16x9.png set color_normal=white/black set color_highlight=black/white # Menu Entries menuentry 'Orange PI Bookworm' { search.fs_uuid df078711-12a0-4637-9264-bac72ee25e4c root set prefix=($root)'/boot/grub' configfile $prefix/grub.cfg } menuentry 'Debian Trixie' { search.fs_uuid 1b6add1b-05ac-4568-bf54-1f920a6f8e3e root set prefix=($root)'/boot/grub' configfile $prefix/grub.cfg } menuentry 'Armbian 25.8.1 Bookworm' { search.fs_uuid ecb0ae86-8f5c-477e-bcd0-bc77ee5ebee9 root set prefix=($root)'/boot/grub' configfile $prefix/grub.cfg } menuentry 'Armbian 25.8.1 Trixie' { search.fs_uuid 6f2d1972-8868-4fb2-bde4-e14325ea4d31 root set prefix=($root)'/boot/grub' configfile $prefix/grub.cfg } menuentry 'Armbian 25.8.1 Noble (Ubuntu 24.04)' { search.fs_uuid d974e989-b201-48c6-b74b-f9ab5dfdfdae root set prefix=($root)'/boot/grub' configfile $prefix/grub.cfg } Of course, change the menu entry titles and UUIDs to your own. 8. Copy the background image you'd like to use to your grub partition. On Debian, background images for grub are typically stored some place like this: /usr/share/desktop-base/emerald-theme/grub Note in the sample grub.cfg file, grub-16x9.png is the background image named. If you want to use a .jpg instead of a .png, change the insmod png to insmod jpeg. 9. In your EFI partition, modify the grub.cfg to be as follows: search.fs_uuid 3D53-E216 root set prefix=($root)'/' configfile $prefix/grub.cfg ...changing the UUID to that of your grub partition. Usage Select the OS you want. That will take you to the OS's own grub menu, which will likely show you two options, the main boot option and "Advanced" boot options. If you select an operating system and wish to change your mind, the ESCAPE key will return you to your previous menu. Problems I did this and everything worked well except the Armbian Noble (Ubuntu) entry. I coped Debian Bookworm's grub to my grub partition, and either Ubuntu's grub is buggy or apparently Ubuntu's grub used language in its grub.cfg that Debian's grub didn't like. It boots into Ubuntu automatically, but it doesn't show any boot menu. I set its timeout for 10 seconds, so it sits with a blank screen for 10 seconds before it boots. Update: I replaced the grub files on my grub partition with those from Debian Trixie. Same results with Armbian Noble (Ubuntu).

Thank you for replying so fast, really appreciate it. No factory reset will solve this? Best regards and thanks again

Read the instructions from this site. It will tell you that if you have ever booted another os like coreelec, you will have made your box incompatible with the Armbian build.

Hi everyone, I’m trying to run Armbian on my old Mecool BB2 Pro TV box but I can’t get it to boot at all – the device always goes straight into Android. Device specs: Model: Mecool BB2 Pro CPU: Amlogic S912 (octa-core Cortex-A53) GPU: ARM Mali-T820MP3 RAM: 3GB DDR3 eMMC: 16GB Connectivity: 2× USB, HDMI, AV, SPDIF, Ethernet Gigabit Wi-Fi/Bluetooth: (chip unknown, maybe AP6255) What I tried so far: Burned several Armbian images with Etcher and DD in Linux. Tried both SD card and USB stick. Tested multiple DTBs: gxm_q200_3g, gxm_q201_3g, p212_3g, and some generic ones. Formatted SD card partition as FAT16 as suggested in some guides. Flashed u-boot.bin manually using dd with byte skipping (e.g. bs=1 skip=444 seek=444 conv=fsync). CoreELEC partially boots, so the box can boot from external media. With Armbian, however, it never even attempts to boot – it just goes straight into Android. What I’m looking for: Confirmation if Armbian can run on this device at all. Which DTB (if any) is recommended for this specific model. Any tips for debugging why Armbian is skipped but CoreELEC boots. If anyone has managed to run Armbian on this box, I’d really appreciate your guidance. Thanks in advance!

Hi there, I ran octoprint and klipper on a orangepi zero (not at the same time). Octoprint from docker and klipper I cannot remember. Octoprint ran fine but it did have some issues when the CPU got overloaded with loading a new gcode file while printing for example. If you do things one by one it should be OKish. Btw i ran octoprint in a 512MB version, not on the 256MB one. Groetjes,

So I looked into this, and unfortunately, no dice. I am happy to investigate further, if you so wish, but I'm happy enough with the way it works currently (auto patching the dtb after a kernel update) so am unlikely to go exploring further on my own. To let you know what I did: copied the dtbo to /boot/dtb/amlogic/overlay/meson-gxl-s905w-tx3-mini-openvfd.dtbo Added to /boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf: fdtoverlays /dtb/amlogic/overlay/meson-gxl-s905w-tx3-mini-openvfd.dtbo (I also tried with /boot prepended to the path as well, but same issue) note: I assume FDTOVERLAYS is a typo from the armbianEnv.txt days, so I went with the lowercase as that is standard for extlinux The device would not come up on the network. I plugged in an HDMI monitor and found that it would hang at: ethernet end0: renamed from eth0 Which is.... odd. I suspect one of 2 things: My entry in extlinux.conf is incorrect (entirely plausible, I'm struggling to find documentation, I've just gone on what you've said, and also changed the capitalisation!) U-Boot overlays are applied differently than fdtoverlay in Linux. It’s possible U-Boot leaves something unaligned or adds an unexpected property, and the kernel hits a corner case. I realise that the above is noway near enough information, however, connecting directly to serial is not realistic at this stage, but I can attach a netconsole if needs be, as we are reaching the kernel, and provide further output. Like I say though, I will only do this if you think there is value in it. Whilst my method might not be the preferred way, it does work, at least.

@pochopsp You would need to use the information in that readme and patch and apply it to a newer u-boot (i.e port the patch to a newer u-boot) and build then a newer u-boot than the 2020.07 currently shipped.

Hi @SteeMan thanks for your reply. I'm not sure I understand your suggestion, however, I tried going in /boot/build-u-boot and the instructions (file readme.txt in the very same folder) suggest that the latest available u-boot for my device (s905x) is indeed the one that I already have (2020.07 from march 2023). The newer u-boot are for s905x2 or s905x3

Addendum: How To Include Devicetree Overlays Since Grub does not have devicetree overlay support, we need to merge the desired overlay(s) in with the main devicetree (.dtb) file we're using. Part of the device-tree-compiler package is this command: fdtoverlay An example from Armbian 25.8.1 Trixie running on the Orange Pi 5 Plus, to enable GPU acceleration in the Vendor (6.1) kernel. In sudo: cd /boot/dtb-6.1.115-vendor-rk35xx/rockchip fdtoverlay -i rk3588-orangepi-5-plus.dtb -o rk3588-orangepi-5-plus-panthor.dtb overlay/rockchip-rk3588-panthor-gpu.dtbo Of course, to have that load automatically from grub using the modification above, you'll need to rename (or move) the original .dtb to something else, then rename the one with the -panthor suffix to the original name to take its place.

I think it will run out or RAM... but try it anyway

@Werner, I merged the Panthor overlay with the Vendor devicetree using the fdtoverlay command (since I'm using efi/grub instead of u-boot), and now Vendor kernel with GPU is an option!! Thank you so much!! https://forum.armbian.com/topic/55266-add-devicetree-to-grub-automatically-heres-how/#findComment-226070 Question: I've noticed (at least in Debian on the Orange PI 5 Plus) that the Vendor kernel (with Panthor GPU overlay) works well under X and Wayland, but the Edge kernel only works well under Wayland. With the Edge kernel under X, the GPU is "there", but it doesn't seem to offer any kind of acceleration. I noticed this the first time I tried the Edge kernel several months ago, and it's still the case. Do you know of a fix for this as well?

@DiplDi I was doing some experiments on Armbian 25.8.1 Trixie, and I decided to do a quick try of installing the XFCE desktop (along with some others): sudo apt-get -o APT::Install-Recommends="true" install task-xfce-desktop It works under X, but not under Wayland. I found out that its Wayland support is experimental, and that if you install the labwc package, that will get it running (very very badly) under Wayland. But it does work well under X. It's possible a different wayland compositor (than labwc) will work better? I also tried with the Vendor kernel (with the Panthor GPU overlay), and the edge kernel. Edge GPU performs seemingly not at all under X, but vendor with Panthor overlay performs well in X. I initially logged in via the SDDM display manager, but I switched to LightDM, and that worked as well, although with a hiccup.

Hello, I just apt upgrade-ed my Armbian 25.5 from mid-August to 25.8.1 and it doesn't start after software reboot. It is usually headless, I plugged it into a monitor and all I get is a uboot logo in the top left corner. No message, nothing. The board is the Rockpi 4A. The system is on eMMC 😩 What do I do now to at least roll back ? At worst make a browsable copy of the eMMC ? Thanks! Antoine

That change is already merged into Armbian for the orange pi zero LTS. It was such a long time ago, I don't remember how to use it right now. https://github.com/armbian/build/blob/9ef5b99b220c5e77b55514136e025008c16ccbfd/patch/kernel/archive/sunxi-6.12/patches.armbian/enable-TV-Output-on-OrangePi-Zero-LTE.patch#L8 https://github.com/armbian/build/commit/41260ac309b487d241fec97ffbdeced730bc2d04 Partial progress log https://forum.armbian.com/topic/22226-orange-pi-zero-lts-tv-out-in-2022/#findComment-162035

Is it the 128x160 1.8" red screen? Combine the knowledge of https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=380704&hilit=ST7735S#p2275556 and https://forum.armbian.com/topic/47971-driving-the-ili9488-lcd-40-inch-cheap-chinese-clone/ To use the panel-mipi-dbi-spi driver, which is more universal for SPI screens Warning: you will not get the spidev, and the linux OS will handle all the rendering. Also, X11 may have a problem with Linux 6.14, unless someone fixes a bug

I'm not sure what this adds? I saw a user struggling to get it working, I managed to get it working, so thought I would give my steps that they may help other people. I apologize. I have not read what you wrote earlier. Please write whatever you see fit your work can be very useful. Success to you in your endeavor.

dmesg | grep -E 'hdmi|gpu|drm' ?

I'm not sure what this adds? I saw a user struggling to get it working, I managed to get it working, so thought I would give my steps that they may help other people. I am happy to improve my instructions based on feedback from users like @SteeMan above, but I was not specifically looking for help. If my tutorial and responses are in anyway not wanted here, then feel free to delete them.

Ok, this I was not aware of. When I get a second I will try it out. I'm not sure how long editing remains open on my post, but if it works, and if I can, I will go back and edit

What can be said about this (help)? Answer: nothing. Please show the output of the UART download, show the source code of the overlay you are using. By reading specific data, users will be able to give you advice.

Yeah that won't work as that code has no support for extlinux. The extlinux way would be to add a line FDTOVERLAYS /path/overlayfilename.dtbo to your extlinux.conf file. Again, I haven't tested this, (I've had no overlays that I've needed to use for anything), but theoretically this is supposed to work.