Welcome to the latest Armbian Newsletter: your source for the latest developments, community highlights, and behind-the-scenes updates from the world of open-source ARM and RISC-V computing. This week: the desktop installer in armbian-config has been rebuilt from the ground up tiered installs, clean uninstalls, and snap-free native browsers across all architectures. Armbian Imager 2.0 is out, rewritten interface and flashing engine, with boards that boot already configured (username, Wi-Fi, timezone) and byte-for-byte write verification. And the NanoPi M5 becomes the first RK3576 board to boot end-to-end from UFS on mainline U-Boot, with no proprietary image in the loop. SPONSORED Join us in making open source better! Every donation helps Armbian improve security, performance, and reliability — so everyone can enjoy a solid foundation for their devices. Github HighlightsThis week’s work centers on board portfolio expansion, kernel and U-Boot version bumps, and CI and infrastructure hardening across the build and documentation pipelines. Board support saw notable growth with the introduction of the SpacemiT K3 Pico-ITX and Luckfox Nova (RK3308B), alongside a new generic uefi-arm64-dt family and board intendedArmbian blogMichael RobinsonNative UFS boot lands on the NanoPi M5Armbian’s next release boots the FriendlyElec NanoPi M5 end-to-end from UFS on a mainline U-Boot, with no proprietary recovery image in the loop. It is the first RK3576 board in the catalogue to reach this state, and the integration pattern paves the way for the others. UFS, the storage classArmbian blogDaniele BriguglioMeet our new Armbian Imager 2.0We’re releasing Armbian Imager 2.0. We rebuilt the whole thing, the interface and the flashing engine underneath it. The part you’ll notice first: your board boots already set up. Username, password, Wi-Fi, timezone, language. You tell Imager once, it writes that into the image, and the board comes upArmbian blogDaniele BriguglioWe rewrote how Armbian installs desktops. Here’s what changedA friendlier, faster, snap-free desktop install in armbian-config If you’ve installed a desktop environment with armbian-config over the last few months, you may have noticed things feel different: there’s a tier you can pick, the browser actually works on every arch, uninstall doesn’t take half your system with it, andArmbian blogIgor PecovnikView the full article

@eselarm Good question, not yet sure what to do. First off, new stock Raspbian worked (for me) out of the box, at least for both V4L2 and libcamera. I'd have yelled at them if they didn't, as that's Raspberry hardware and software up and down the stack, so they have no excuses. I mostly want to use libcamera, but for me, libcamera and V4L2 were in total agreement on both Raspbian and Armbian. On Raspbian, both detected the IMX708, and on Armbian, neither did -- or, rather, /dev/video0 never got set up, despite the module loading fine and dmesg logging it in Armbian. To add, also, with the zram swap system in place, I can't actually compile libcamera (or the apps) on the Armbian Zero 2W, due to lack of memory (!). I ran out the will to work around that at the time. So I built the Debian libcamera packages (all of them) on a Pi 5 and copied them over. Only the trixie-backports modules actually ran through okay, but they did. That seemed to work fine -- and as I said, neither V4L2 nor libcamera set up an accessible camera device -- and they agree -- so I think the issue is kernel-side, not in userspace. I suspect it's in the device tree somewhere. My guess is if we get V4L2 happy, then libcamera will be. The main advantage of V4L2 is that the device list is a clear tell for camera detection on boot, one that doesn't need a much installation work. Also, I didn't yet get to the rpicam apps framework. I will, because I actually use it for the cow I want to deploy. But that's an extra layer beyond libcamera itself. the standard libcamera-tools package contains the cam binary which is enough to detect devices. If I can get V4L2 happy, or if cam can capture an image, then I know the kernel side is fine, and it's all my problem. I'll be happy to take it from that point. Your point about raspi-firmware is very helpful. That would fit some of what I've seen here. I'll dig in and check on that. I would not assume it's using a Raspberry vendor kernel. I didn't try that. And Broadcom shenanigans apart, I hope I don't need to. What's weird is the IMX708 kernel module is definitely loaded and active and detecting the hardware on the Armbian Debian trixie. Most of the Broadcom stuff is there -- all the hardware encoders show up. Just not the camera itself. Many thanks -- I'll dig in today and see if I can progress.

This week's work centers on board portfolio expansion, kernel and U-Boot version bumps, and CI and infrastructure hardening across the build and documentation pipelines. Board support saw notable growth with the introduction of the SpacemiT K3 Pico-ITX and Luckfox Nova (RK3308B), alongside a new generic uefi-arm64-dt family and board intended to standardize UEFI device-tree targets. Qualcomm enablement advanced through Radxa Dragon Q6A and Q8B work, including UFS provisioning for Kodiak, EDL-based UFS flashing in the imager, and audioreach topology firmware for sc8280xp. Catalog assets were extended for the MaaXBoard 8ULP, Mellow Fly C5, Xiaomi Sheng, and the new Radxa and SpacemiT boards. On the kernel and bootloader front, rockchip64, meson64, and rpi4b edge branches were promoted to the stable 7.1 series, with the rtl8192eu driver rebuilt and re-enabled against the new tree. U-Boot was refreshed on cm3588-nas, nanopik2-s905, and the Luckfox Nova, while updated DDR, BL31, and BL32 blobs landed for RK3528 and new SPL loaders were published for RV1103, RV1106, and RK3506. Targeted kernel-config work restored md/RAID modules on sunxi, enabled MIPI DBI panels on sunxi64, and added CPUFreq support for the SpacemiT K1. Infrastructure changes focused on resilience and resource control. The git-trees workflow gained bounded retries, escalating timeouts, and Google mirror fallbacks; Docker base-image pulls now retry transient GHCR failures and split host dependencies into per-group apt layers. Image compression caps xz memory and thread usage, the info-gatherer no longer exhausts file descriptors, and a new CI policy enforces transparent backgrounds and object-size limits for board and vendor logos, with offending assets re-cropped. #Armbian #EmbeddedLinux #UBoot #Qualcomm #Rockchip ChangesActions: Disable debugsym builds. by @vidplace7 in armbian/MorseMicro-DKMS#7Add Board & Vendor logo for the Mellow Fly C5. by @deece in armbian/armbian.github.io#324Add board SpacemiT K3 Pico-ITX. by @pyavitz in armbian/build#10001Add board: Luckfox Nova (RK3308B). by @crackerjacques in armbian/build#9985Add K3 Pico ITX. by @igorpecovnik in armbian/armbian.github.io#341Add Luckfox Nova board image. by @crackerjacques in armbian/armbian.github.io#332Add MaaXBoard 8ULP board image and Avnet vendor logo. by @govindsi in armbian/armbian.github.io#340Add Radxa Dragon Q8B board image. by @SuperKali in armbian/armbian.github.io#342Add spl_loader bins for RV1103, RV1106, RK3506. by @vidplace7 in armbian/rkbin#46Add Xiaomi Sheng board image. by @code002-2 in armbian/armbian.github.io#337armbian-install: fix boot on UEFI systems. by @EvilOlaf in armbian/build#9945armbian-upgrade: use apt-get to silence apt CLI-warning noise. by @igorpecovnik in armbian/build#9998artifact-uboot: opt-in cache-bust via UBOOT_HASH_EXTRA for prebuilt blobs. by @igorpecovnik in armbian/build#9995board assets: fix 10 board-image dimensions + square the Huawei logo. by @igorpecovnik in armbian/armbian.github.io#334ci: board-asset validation — transparent background + object-size + full monthly scan. by @igorpecovnik in armbian/armbian.github.io#333ci: bound each retry attempt with a 10-minute timeout. by @rpardini in armbian/shallow#8ci: double retry timeout each attempt; fetch from Google mirrors. by @rpardini in armbian/shallow#9ci: enforce MAX_OBJECT_PCT=50 + re-crop the two over-limit board images. by @igorpecovnik in armbian/armbian.github.io#335ci: make git-trees workflow resilient to network failures. by @rpardini in armbian/shallow#7ci: push image-info data branch direct to github (bypass git cache proxy). by @igorpecovnik in armbian/armbian.github.io#338ci: vendor logos must be transparent + ≤80% object fill (+ fix the 6 opaque ones). by @igorpecovnik in armbian/armbian.github.io#336cm3588-nas: u-boot: bump to v2026.07-rc3. by @rpardini in armbian/build#9975docker: retry transient ghcr base-image pulls; guard the auto-pull cronjob. by @igorpecovnik in armbian/build#10006docker: split host deps into per-group apt layers in generated Dockerfile. by @rpardini in armbian/build#9999Feature/sunxi mainline stmmac ac300. by @deece in armbian/build#9952fix(images): hide UFS images from the catalog. by @SuperKali in armbian/imager#157fix(profiles): keep the flash profile picker in sync with Settings. by @SuperKali in armbian/imager#156Flash UFS images to Qualcomm boards over EDL. by @SuperKali in armbian/imager#158image: cap xz compression memory and lower the thread cap. by @igorpecovnik in armbian/build#10005info-gatherer: fix 'Too many open files' from cpu*4 parallel workers. by @igorpecovnik in armbian/build#10014introduce new family uefidt and new board uefi-arm64-dt. by @amazingfate in armbian/build#9923Kodiak: add Radxa Dragon Q6A UFS provisioning XML. by @SuperKali in armbian/qcombin#2luckfox-rk3308b-nova: bump U-Boot to v2026.07-rc4. by @crackerjacques in armbian/build#10010meson64: bleedingedge: enable CONFIG_GPIO_CDEV_V1. by @adeepn in armbian/build#9979nanopik2-s905: bump u-boot to v2026.04. by @igorpecovnik in armbian/build#9989PocketBeagle 2 - Fix NCM Networking w/ACM for Serial. by @Grippy98 in armbian/build#10007qcom/qcs6490: replace Radxa Dragon Q6A adsp/cdsp with linux-firmware. by @SuperKali in armbian/firmware#129qcom/sc8280xp: add Radxa Dragon Q8B audioreach topology. by @SuperKali in armbian/firmware#128radxa-cubie-a5e: tidy BOARD_NAME to "Cubie A5E". by @igorpecovnik in armbian/build#9990remove bleedingedge from all boards. by @EvilOlaf in armbian/build#10016rk3528: updated rkbins ddr/bl31/bl32 for rk3528. by @rpardini in armbian/rkbin#47rockchip64 & meson64: bump edge to stable 7.1. by @EvilOlaf in armbian/build#9980rpi4b: bump edge to 7.1.y. by @EvilOlaf in armbian/build#9982rtl8192eu: fix build against 7.1 and re-enable. by @EvilOlaf in armbian/build#10009SpacemiT K1: Update CPUFreq support EDGE. by @pyavitz in armbian/build#9981sunxi64: Enable CONFIG_DRM_PANEL_MIPI_DBI=m for current and edge configs. by @d93921012 in armbian/build#9984sunxi: restore md modules (software raid modules). by @k-popov in armbian/build#9992Update MorseMicro suite to 1.17.9. by @vidplace7 in armbian/MorseMicro-DKMS#8Update odroidxu4-current to 6.6.143. by @belegdol in armbian/build#10018View the full article

This week's work centers on board portfolio expansion, kernel and U-Boot version bumps, and CI and infrastructure hardening across the build and documentation pipelines. Board support saw notable growth with the introduction of the SpacemiT K3 Pico-ITX and Luckfox Nova (RK3308B), alongside a new generic uefi-arm64-dt family and board intended to standardize UEFI device-tree targets. Qualcomm enablement advanced through Radxa Dragon Q6A and Q8B work, including UFS provisioning for Kodiak, EDL-based UFS flashing in the imager, and audioreach topology firmware for sc8280xp. Catalog assets were extended for the MaaXBoard 8ULP, Mellow Fly C5, Xiaomi Sheng, and the new Radxa and SpacemiT boards. On the kernel and bootloader front, rockchip64, meson64, and rpi4b edge branches were promoted to the stable 7.1 series, with the rtl8192eu driver rebuilt and re-enabled against the new tree. U-Boot was refreshed on cm3588-nas, nanopik2-s905, and the Luckfox Nova, while updated DDR, BL31, and BL32 blobs landed for RK3528 and new SPL loaders were published for RV1103, RV1106, and RK3506. Targeted kernel-config work restored md/RAID modules on sunxi, enabled MIPI DBI panels on sunxi64, and added CPUFreq support for the SpacemiT K1. Infrastructure changes focused on resilience and resource control. The git-trees workflow gained bounded retries, escalating timeouts, and Google mirror fallbacks; Docker base-image pulls now retry transient GHCR failures and split host dependencies into per-group apt layers. Image compression caps xz memory and thread usage, the info-gatherer no longer exhausts file descriptors, and a new CI policy enforces transparent backgrounds and object-size limits for board and vendor logos, with offending assets re-cropped. #Armbian #EmbeddedLinux #UBoot #Qualcomm #Rockchip ChangesActions: Disable debugsym builds. by @vidplace7 in armbian/MorseMicro-DKMS#7Add Board & Vendor logo for the Mellow Fly C5. by @deece in armbian/armbian.github.io#324Add board SpacemiT K3 Pico-ITX. by @pyavitz in armbian/build#10001Add board: Luckfox Nova (RK3308B). by @crackerjacques in armbian/build#9985Add K3 Pico ITX. by @igorpecovnik in armbian/armbian.github.io#341Add Luckfox Nova board image. by @crackerjacques in armbian/armbian.github.io#332Add MaaXBoard 8ULP board image and Avnet vendor logo. by @govindsi in armbian/armbian.github.io#340Add Radxa Dragon Q8B board image. by @SuperKali in armbian/armbian.github.io#342Add spl_loader bins for RV1103, RV1106, RK3506. by @vidplace7 in armbian/rkbin#46Add Xiaomi Sheng board image. by @code002-2 in armbian/armbian.github.io#337armbian-install: fix boot on UEFI systems. by @EvilOlaf in armbian/build#9945armbian-upgrade: use apt-get to silence apt CLI-warning noise. by @igorpecovnik in armbian/build#9998artifact-uboot: opt-in cache-bust via UBOOT_HASH_EXTRA for prebuilt blobs. by @igorpecovnik in armbian/build#9995board assets: fix 10 board-image dimensions + square the Huawei logo. by @igorpecovnik in armbian/armbian.github.io#334ci: board-asset validation — transparent background + object-size + full monthly scan. by @igorpecovnik in armbian/armbian.github.io#333ci: bound each retry attempt with a 10-minute timeout. by @rpardini in armbian/shallow#8ci: double retry timeout each attempt; fetch from Google mirrors. by @rpardini in armbian/shallow#9ci: enforce MAX_OBJECT_PCT=50 + re-crop the two over-limit board images. by @igorpecovnik in armbian/armbian.github.io#335ci: make git-trees workflow resilient to network failures. by @rpardini in armbian/shallow#7ci: push image-info data branch direct to github (bypass git cache proxy). by @igorpecovnik in armbian/armbian.github.io#338ci: vendor logos must be transparent + ≤80% object fill (+ fix the 6 opaque ones). by @igorpecovnik in armbian/armbian.github.io#336cm3588-nas: u-boot: bump to v2026.07-rc3. by @rpardini in armbian/build#9975docker: retry transient ghcr base-image pulls; guard the auto-pull cronjob. by @igorpecovnik in armbian/build#10006docker: split host deps into per-group apt layers in generated Dockerfile. by @rpardini in armbian/build#9999Feature/sunxi mainline stmmac ac300. by @deece in armbian/build#9952fix(images): hide UFS images from the catalog. by @SuperKali in armbian/imager#157fix(profiles): keep the flash profile picker in sync with Settings. by @SuperKali in armbian/imager#156Flash UFS images to Qualcomm boards over EDL. by @SuperKali in armbian/imager#158image: cap xz compression memory and lower the thread cap. by @igorpecovnik in armbian/build#10005info-gatherer: fix 'Too many open files' from cpu*4 parallel workers. by @igorpecovnik in armbian/build#10014introduce new family uefidt and new board uefi-arm64-dt. by @amazingfate in armbian/build#9923Kodiak: add Radxa Dragon Q6A UFS provisioning XML. by @SuperKali in armbian/qcombin#2luckfox-rk3308b-nova: bump U-Boot to v2026.07-rc4. by @crackerjacques in armbian/build#10010meson64: bleedingedge: enable CONFIG_GPIO_CDEV_V1. by @adeepn in armbian/build#9979nanopik2-s905: bump u-boot to v2026.04. by @igorpecovnik in armbian/build#9989PocketBeagle 2 - Fix NCM Networking w/ACM for Serial. by @Grippy98 in armbian/build#10007qcom/qcs6490: replace Radxa Dragon Q6A adsp/cdsp with linux-firmware. by @SuperKali in armbian/firmware#129qcom/sc8280xp: add Radxa Dragon Q8B audioreach topology. by @SuperKali in armbian/firmware#128radxa-cubie-a5e: tidy BOARD_NAME to "Cubie A5E". by @igorpecovnik in armbian/build#9990remove bleedingedge from all boards. by @EvilOlaf in armbian/build#10016rk3528: updated rkbins ddr/bl31/bl32 for rk3528. by @rpardini in armbian/rkbin#47rockchip64 & meson64: bump edge to stable 7.1. by @EvilOlaf in armbian/build#9980rpi4b: bump edge to 7.1.y. by @EvilOlaf in armbian/build#9982rtl8192eu: fix build against 7.1 and re-enable. by @EvilOlaf in armbian/build#10009SpacemiT K1: Update CPUFreq support EDGE. by @pyavitz in armbian/build#9981sunxi64: Enable CONFIG_DRM_PANEL_MIPI_DBI=m for current and edge configs. by @d93921012 in armbian/build#9984sunxi: restore md modules (software raid modules). by @k-popov in armbian/build#9992Update MorseMicro suite to 1.17.9. by @vidplace7 in armbian/MorseMicro-DKMS#8Update odroidxu4-current to 6.6.143. by @belegdol in armbian/build#10018View the full article

I am facing the same issue. Trying to solve it also. I have tried to manually point to the boot image in the bootloader but no success. I am wondering are we missing a patch or something for the build environment that is cauing the issue. I am no expert so only speculating