jock

Hello, you may want to edit the device tree and turn off the mmc@... node where the sdio wifi chip is connected. You may find it easily looking for supports-sdio property, then switch status property do disabled

You're welcome in supporting the armbian project if you want and if you can. 😉

UPDATE!
 
Hello everyone, I'm glad to give a fresh update.
 
After a couple of weeks and more or hard work, I finished the complete overhaul of the repository. It is now handled in a much tidier way. 
The result of this is a much easier support for new distributions as soon as they are published!
 
I have just updated the instructions, since the old repository is no longer active; I suggest you to remove the old repository from you apt sources and install the new repository as described in first page.
 
Packages for Noble Numbat are already available!
 
Enjoy!💪

It won't work, openvfd is another driver and wants things a different way.
Not to blame the author, but unfortunately openvfd is badly designed. tm16xx driver instead is very well designed, and is the way to go. 👌

Perhaps @Seth can give some advice.

It won't work, openvfd is another driver and wants things a different way.
Not to blame the author, but unfortunately openvfd is badly designed. tm16xx driver instead is very well designed, and is the way to go. 👌

DISCLAIMERS (PLEASE READ):
Everything you can find in this thread (binaries, texts, code snippets, etc...) are provided AS-IS and are not part of official Armbian project. For this reason not people from Armbian project nor myself are responsible for misuse or loss of functionality of hardware. THIS POST explains very well the troubles with TV Boxes and why they are not suitable for everyone Please don't ask about support or assistance in other non-community forums nor in the official Armbian github repository, instead post your questions in this thread, in the TV Boxes forum section (hardware related) or in the Peer-to-peer support section (general linux/software related).  
Following the recent thread on LibreElec forum about an unofficial image for rk3229 devices, I would like to make public the work made by me and @fabiobassa about bringing rk322x support to armbian.
The project is now in -> mainline Armbian <- development fork -> here <-
 
This first page and the last 3 or 4 pages of the thread are enough to get up to date with recent developments.
Many useful experiences are scattered through the thread, but the most important things are collected here in the first page, so please read it carefully!
 
Mainline kernel is fully supported and will receive most support in the future. Legacy kernel 4.4 is deprecated, but is kept around only for special purposes.
 
What works:
Should boot and work flawlessy on all boards with RK3228a, RK3228b and RK3229, with either DDR2 and DDR3 memories. Mainline u-boot Proprietary OPTEE provided as Trusted Execution Environment (needed for DRAM frequency scaling) All 4 cores are working Ethernet Serial UART (configured at 115200 bps, not 1.5Mbps!) Thermals, CPU and DRAM frequency scaling OTG USB 2.0 port (also as boot device!) EHCI/OHCI USB 2.0 ports MMC subsystem (including eMMC, SD and sdio devices) Hardware video acceleration NAND is available only on legacy kernel. To fully boot from NAND, use the Multitool and its steP-nand installation (instructions are below) Various WIFI over SDIO are supported (SSV6051P, SSV6256P, ESP8089, Realtek chips, etc...), ssv6256p driver is available only on legacy kernel Full GPU acceleration U-boot boot order priority: first the sdcard, then the USB OTG port and eventually the internal eMMC; you can install u-boot (and the whole system) in the internal eMMC and u-boot will always check for images on external sdcard/USB first.  
Unbrick:
Technically, rockchip devices cannot be bricked. If the internal flash does not contain a bootable system, they will always boot from the sdcard. If, for a reason, the bootable system on the internal flash is corrupted or is unable to boot correctly, you can always force the maskrom mode shorting the eMMC clock pin on the PCB. Here there is the procedure, but you can also google around if you get stuck on a faulty bootloader, the technique is pretty simple and requires a simple screwdriver.
 
There are however some unfortunate cases (expecially newer boards) where shorting the eMMC clock pin is difficult or impossibile, like eMMC or eMCP BGA chips with no exposed pins. In those cases pay double attention when burning something on the internal eMMC/eMCP and always test first the image from the sdcard to be sure it works before burning anything on eMMC/eMCP.
 
Some useful links with pins, pads or procedures for some boards:
Generic procedure for boards with non-BGA eMMC MXQPRO_V71 - eMCP H20 - eMCP ZQ01 - eMCP  
NAND vs eMMC vs eMCP difference:
RK3228 and RK3229 tv boxes comes with three different flash memory chips: eMMC, NAND and eMCP.
It does not depend upon the market name of the tv box and neither the internal board; manufacturers put whatever they find cheaper when they buy the components.
 
NAND chip is just the non-volatile memory eMMC chip contains both the non-volatile memory plus a controller. eMCP chip contains the non-volatile memory, a controller for the non-volatile memory (like eMMC), but also contains a bank of DDR SDRAM memory on the same physical chip.  
The difference is very important, because eMMC and eMCP are far easier to support at various levels: the controller deals with the physical characteristics of the non-volatile memory, so the software has no to deal with.
NAND chips instead are harder to support, because the software is required to deal with the physical characteristics and non-standard things that depends upon the NAND manufacturer.
 
If you have a NAND chips you're unlucky because mainline kernel currently cannot access it, but also because you need special care and instructions explained later.
 
You can discover if you have a NAND, eMMC or eMCP chip looking on the board are reading the signature on the flash memory chip.
The Multitool (see later) also can detect which chip you have onboard: the program will warn you at startup if you have a NAND chip.
 
NAND bootloader upgrade:
IMPORTANT: don't do this is you have an eMMC or eMCP; skip this paragraph if you are unsure too!
For very expert people who are having issues when (re)booting images, there is the chance to upgrade the bootloader on NAND.
The NAND bootloader is nothing else than a regular idbloader (see official rockchip documentation) but contains some bits to correctly access the data on your flash memory.
Upgrading requires to erase the existing flash content, in the worst case will require you to follow the Unbrick procedure above or restore an older but more compatible bootloader.
If you are not mentally ready to overcome possible further issues, don't do this!
 
The detailed instructions and the binaries are available at this post
 
Multimedia:
Mainline kernel: 3D acceleration is provided by Lima driver and is already enabled. Hardware video decoding: https://forum.armbian.com/topic/19258-testing-hardware-video-decoding-rockchip-allwinner/ Deprecated legacy kernel: multimedia features, like OpenGL/OpenGL ES acceleration, hardware accelerated Kodi, ffmpeg and mpv you can take a look to this post An effective tutorial from @Hai Nguyen on how to configure a box as a hi-quality music player using an USB audio card, and controlling it via remote control is available in this post  
Brief explanation about kernel naming:
current kernel is the mainline LTS kernel version, most maintained and tested. This is the suggested version for production devices. If you don't know what to pick, pick this. legacy kernel (version 4.4) is provided by manufacturer; it is deprecated, unmaintained and not suggested. edge kernel is the development mainline kernel version, with experimental features and drivers; usually stable but perhaps suitable for production devices.  
You can switch from one kernel flavour to another using armbian-config or manually via apt.
 
Installation (via SD card):
Building:
You can build your own image follow the common steps to build armbian for other tv boxes devices: when you are in the moment to choose the target board, switch to CSC/TVB/EOL boards and select "rk322x-box" from the list.
 
Download prebuilt images from the following links:
Archive builds (GPG-signed) - https://imola.armbian.com/dl/rk322x-box/archive/ SUGGESTED - Nightly built from trunk each week by Armbian servers (GPG-signed) - https://github.com/armbian/community Old images provided by me (unsigned and outdated) - https://users.armbian.com/jock/rk322x/armbian/stable  
Archived/older images:
https://armbian.hosthatch.com/archive/rk322x-box/archive/
 
Multitool:
The Multitool is a small but powerful tool to do quick backup/restore of internal flash, but also burn images and general system rescue and maintenance via terminal or SSH.
Compressed images will be uncompressed on fly.
Multitool - A small but powerful image for RK322x TV Box maintenance (instructions to access via network here)  
Quick installation instructions on eMMC:
Build or download your preferred Armbian image and a copy of the Multitool; Burn the Multitool on an SD card; once done, place the Armbian image in images folder of the SD card NTFS partition; Plug the SD card in the TV box and plug in the power cord. After some seconds the blue led starts blinking and the Multitool appears; OPTIONAL: you can do a backup of the existing firmware with "Backup flash" menu option; Choose "Burn image to flash" from the menu, then select the destination device (usually mmcblk2) and the image to burn; Wait for the process to complete, then choose "Shutdown" from main menu; Unplug the power cord and the SD card, then replug the power cord; Wait for 10 seconds, then the led should start blinking and HDMI will turn on. The first time the boot process will take a couple of minutes or more because the filesystem is going to be resized, so be patient and wait for the login prompt. On first boot you will be asked for entering a password for root user of your choice and the name and password for a regular user Run sudo rk322x-config and select your board characteristics to enable leds, wifi chips, high-speed eMMC, etc... Run sudo armbian-config to configure timezone, locales and other personal options Congratulations, Armbian is now installed and configured!  
Despite the procedure above is simple and reliable, I always recommend to first test that your device boots Armbian images from SD Card.
Due to the really large hardware variety, there is the rare chance that the images proposed here may not boot. If a bad image is burned in eMMC, the box may not boot anymore forcing you to follow the unbrick section at the top of this post.
 
Quick installation instructions on NAND:
Build or download your preferred Armbian image and a copy of the Multitool; Burn the Multitool on an SD card; once done, place the Armbian legacy kernel image in images folder of the SD card NTFS partition; Plug the SD card in the TV box and plug in the power cord. After some seconds the blue led starts blinking and the Multitool appears; OPTIONAL: you can do a backup of the existing firmware with "Backup flash" menu option; Choose "Burn Armbian image via steP-nand" from the menu, then select the destination device (usually rknand0) and the image to burn; Wait for the process to complete, then choose "Shutdown" from main menu; Unplug the power cord and the SD card, then replug the power cord; Wait for 10 seconds, then the led should start blinking and HDMI will turn on. The first time the boot process will take a couple of minutes or more because the filesystem is going to be resized, so be patient and wait for the login prompt. On first boot you will be asked for entering a password for root user of your choice and the name and password for a regular user Run sudo rk322x-config and select your board characteristics to enable leds, wifi chips, etc... Run armbian-config to configure timezone, locales and other personal options Congratulations, Armbian is now installed!  
Alternative: you can install the bootloader in NAND and let it boot from SD Card or USB:
Download a copy of the Multitool and burn it on an SD card; Plug the SD card in the TV box and plug in the power cord. After some seconds the blue led starts blinking and the Multitool appears; RECOMMENDED: make a backup of the existing firmware with "Backup flash" menu option; Choose "Install Jump Start for Armbian" menu option: the Jump Start uses the internal NAND to boot from external SD Card or external USB Stick; Follow the general instructions to boot from SD Card below, skip the first erase eMMC step.  
Quick installation instructions to boot from SD Card:
If you are already running Armbian from eMMC, skip to the next step. Instead if you are running the original firmware you need to first erase the internal eMMC; to do so download the Multitool, burn it on an SD Card, plug the SD Card and power the TV Box. Use "Backup flash" if you want to do a backup of the existing firmware, then choose "Erase flash" menu option. Build or download your preferred Armbian image; Uncompress and burn the Armbian image on the SD Card; Plug the SD Card in the TV Box and power it on; Wait for 10 seconds, then the led should start blinking and HDMI will turn on. The first time the boot process will take a couple of minutes or more because the filesystem is going to be resized, so be patient and wait for the login prompt; On first boot you will be asked for entering a password for root user of your choice and the name and password for a regular user Run sudo rk322x-config and select your board characteristics to enable leds, wifi chips, high-speed eMMC or NAND, etc... Run armbian-config to configure timezone, locales and other personal options, or also to transfer the SD Card installation to internal eMMC; Congratulations, Armbian is running from SD Card!  
A note about boot device order:
With Armbian also comes mainline U-boot. If you install Armbian or just the bootloader in the eMMC or the Jump Start on internal NAND, the bootloader will look for valid bootable images in this order:
External SD Card External USB Stick in OTG Port Internal eMMC  
Installation (without SD card, board with eMMC)
If you have no sd card slot and your board has an eMMC, you can burn the armbian image directly on the internal eMMC using rkdeveloptool and a male-to-male USB cable:
 
Download your preferred Armbian image from Armbian download page and decompress it. Download the rk322x bootloader: rk322x_loader_v1.10.238_256.bin Download a copy of rkdeveloptool: a compiled binary is available in the official rockchip-linux rkbin github repository. Unplug the power cord from the tv box Plug an end of an USB Male-to-male cable into the OTG port (normally it is the lone USB port on the same side of the Ethernet, HDMI, analog AV connectors) while pressing the reset microbutton with a toothpick. You can find the reset microbutton in a hole in the back of the box, but sometimes it is hidden into the AV analog jack Plug the other end of the USB Male-to-male cable into an USB port of your computer If everything went well, run lsusb: you should see a device with ID 2207:320b Run sudo rkdeveloptool rd 3 (if this fails don't worry and proceed to next step) Run sudo rkdeveloptool db rk322x_loader_v1.10.238_256.bin Run sudo rkdeveloptool wl 0x0 image.img (change image.img this with the real Armbian image filename) Unplug the power cord Done!  
Installation (without SD card, board with NAND)
If you are in the unfortunate case you can't use an SD card for installation and your board has a NAND chip, you still have an option to use the quick Multitool installation steps via USB.
 
Obtain a copy of rkdeveloptool: a compiled binary is available in the official rockchip-linux rkbin github repository. Unplug the power cord from the tv box Plug an end of an USB Male-to-male cable into the OTG port (normally it is the lone USB port on the same side of the Ethernet, HDMI, analog AV connectors) while pressing the reset microbutton with a toothpick. You can find the reset microbutton in a hole in the back of the box, but sometimes it is hidden into the AV analog jack Plug the other end of the USB Male-to-male cable into an USB port of your computer If everyting went well, using lsusb you should see a device with ID 2207:320b Run sudo rkdeveloptool wl 0x4000 u-boot-main.img (download u-boot-main.img.xz , don't forget to decompress it!) Unplug the power cord  
Now you can follow the instructions on how to install on eMMC/NAND via SD card, just use instead an USB stick to do all the operations and plug it into the USB OTG port. Once you reboot, USB OTG port will be used as a boot device.
 
NOTE: NAND users without SD slot may be unhappy to know that it will be difficult to do extra maintenance with Multitool in case something breaks in the installed Armbian system: installing u-boot-main.img makes the installed system unbootable because it is missing the NAND driver.
 
 
Alternative backup, restore and erase flash for EXPERTS:
These backup, restore and erase flash procedures are for experts only. They are kept here mostly for reference, since the Multitool is perfectly able to do same from a very comfy interface and is the suggested way to do maintenance.
 
Backup:
Obtain a copy of rkdeveloptool: a compiled binary is available in the official rockchip-linux rkbin github repository. If you prefer, you can compile it yourself from the sources available at official rockchip repository Unplug the power cord from the tv box Plug an end of an USB Male-to-male cable into the OTG port (normally it is the lone USB port on the same side of the Ethernet, HDMI, analog AV connectors) while pressing the reset microbutton with a toothpick. You can find the reset microbutton in a hole in the back of the box, but sometimes it is hidden into the AV analog jack Plug the other end of the USB Male-to-male cable into an USB port of your computer If everyting went well, using lsusb you should see a device with ID 2207:320b change directory and move into rkbin/tools directory, run ./rkdeveloptool rfi then take note of the FLASH SIZE megabytes (my eMMC is 8Gb, rkdeveloptool reports 7393 megabytes) run ./rkdeveloptool rl 0x0 $((FLASH_SIZE * 2048)) backup.data (change FLASH_SIZE with the value you obtained the step before) once done, the internal eMMC is backed up to backup.data file  
Restore: first we have to restore the original bootloader, then restore the original firmware.
Running rkdeveloptool with these switches will accomplish both the jobs:
./rkdeveloptool db rk322x_loader_v1.10.238_256.bin Downloading bootloader succeeded. ./rkdeveloptool ul rk322x_loader_v1.10.238_256.bin Upgrading loader succeeded. ./rkdeveloptool wl 0x0 backup.data Write LBA from file (100%) Download here:
 
Erase the flash memory: clearing the internal eMMC/NAND memory makes the SoC look for external SD Card as first boot option.
If there isn't any suitable SD Card, the SoC enters maskrom mode, which can then be used for full eMMC/NAND access using rkdeveloptool. This is perfectly fine if your box has an eMMC flash memory.
NOTE: In case you have a NAND flash memory this option is however discouraged. The original bootloader contains some special parameters to correctly access the data. Clearing the flash memory will probably garbage the NAND data and restoring the bootloader may require some special instructions.
 
Obtain a copy of rkdeveloptool: a compiled binary is available in the official rockchip-linux rkbin github repository. If you prefer, you can compile it yourself from the sources available at official rockchip repository Unplug the power cord from the board Plug an end of an USB Male-to-male cable into the OTG port (normally it is the lone USB port on the same side of the Ethernet, HDMI, analog AV connectors) while pressing the reset microbutton with a toothpick. You can find the reset microbutton in a hole in the back of the box, but sometimes it is hidden into the AV analog jack Plug the other end of the USB Male-to-male cable into an USB port of your computer If everyting went well, using lsusb you should see a device with ID 2207:320b run ./rkdeveloptool ef and wait a few seconds once done, the internal eMMC is erased and the device will boot from the sdcard from now on  
Partecipation and debugging:
If you want to partecipate or need help debugging issues, do not hesitate to share your experience with the installation procedure of the boxes.
In case of issues and missed support, provide as many as possible of these things is very useful to try and bring support for an unsupported board:
 
some photos of both sides of the board. Details of the eMMC, DDR and Wifi chips are very useful! upload the device tree binary (dtb) of your device. We can understand a lot of things of the hardware from that small piece of data; and alternative is a link to the original firmware (you can do a full backup with the Multitool); dmesg and other logs (use armbianmonitor -u that automatically collects and uploads the logs online) attach a serial converter to the device and provide the output of the serial port;  
Critics, suggestions and contributions are welcome!
 
Credits:
@fabiobassa for his ideas, inspiration, great generosity in giving the boards for development and testing. The project of bringing rk322x into armbian would not have begun without his support! Justin Swartz, for his work and research to bring mainline linux on rk3229 (repository here) @knaerzche for his great contribution to libreelec support and mainline patches @Alex83 for his patience in testing the NAND bootloader upgrade procedure on his board @Jason Duhamell for his generous donation that allowed researching eMCP boards and esp8089 wifi chip

As stated in the post you referred to, technically Rockchip devices cannot be bricked.

Since you flashed a wrong image, it probably not right to say internal flash doesn't contain bootable system. Rather that system is wrong and cannot compete boot hanging somewhere, eg ddr init.

So I guess you have to go by the mask room path to recover (flash correct image or erase internal flash to enable SD card boot, which might be easier to experiment with).

Not to hijack the thread, but there is a much better alternative driver rather than OpenVFD, you can take a look here

Hi @gnusmag45, I'm sorry you are having issues with your board. I hope the multitool still boots after you erased the flash
Unfortunately your board has an eMCP, which is a chip that contains both the eMMC and the DDR memory. I never had the chance to test a board with such chip by myself, so it is totally guesswork.
 
The multitool has a dtb which is usually very compatible because it does not use any "advanced" features of the board, and also uses lower operating frequencies to maximize compatibility at the expense of performance. Something does not work for your board although.
 
I edited the device tree of the multitool to provide more current strength to the eMMC pins and also some other configuration that may be of some benefical effect for your board.
 
This is the dtb: rk322x-box-emcp.dtb.
Put it in the root directory of the multitool, then edit the the file extlinux/extlinux.conf and change the existing rk322x-box.dtb with this rk322x-box-emcp.dtb.
Save the conf file and try again to boot the multitool. Check if after some reboots the flash memory is detected consistently, maybe make a backup to "stress" it and see if the backup is completed correctly, but don't install any armbian image yet.
 
I suggest you to first try to burn an Armbian image directly on the sdcard and boot armbian from sdcard. This may let you upload a full set of logs (via armbianmonitor -u) to the internet and let us inspect them before proceeding to install the image on the eMMC.
Also check if the eMMC is correctly detected within Armbian after some reboots: it is important that the kernel detects it otherwise even if you install Armbian on eMMC it won't boot anyway.

Hi,
I got my recording from Headphone Mic fixed.
 
Here is what I make work for me:
a)
have pinctrl-0..2 set in the i2s0
b)
make sure the reg=0x11 for the i2c1-codec
c)
add the Mic Bias.
 
Tested with 6.12.12 which got a fix es8316 codec.
 
&i2s0 { status = "okay"; pinctrl-names = "mclk", "bclk_on", "bclk_off"; pinctrl-0 = <&i2s_8ch_mclk>; pinctrl-1 = <&i2s0_8ch_bus>; pinctrl-2 = <&i2s0_8ch_bus_bclk_off>; resets = <&cru SRST_I2S0_8CH>, <&cru SRST_H_I2S0_8CH>; reset-names = "reset-m", "reset-h"; rockchip,playback-channels = <2>; rockchip,capture-channels = <2>; #sound-dai-cells = <0>; }; &i2c1 { status = "okay"; i2c-scl-rising-time-ns = <300>; i2c-scl-falling-time-ns = <15>; clock-frequency = <200000>; es8316c_codec: audio-codec@11 { compatible = "everest,es8316"; reg = <0x11>; #sound-dai-cells = <0>; clocks = <&cru SCLK_I2S_8CH_OUT>; clock-names = "mclk"; status = "okay"; }; }; es8316c_card: es8316c-card { compatible = "simple-audio-card"; pinctrl-names = "default"; pinctrl-0 = <&hp_det>; simple-audio-card,format = "i2s"; simple-audio-card,name = "rockchip-es8316c"; simple-audio-card,mclk-fs = <256>; simple-audio-card,hp-det-gpio = <&gpio4 RK_PD4 GPIO_ACTIVE_HIGH>; simple-audio-card,widgets = "Microphone", "Mic Jack", "Headphone", "Headphones"; simple-audio-card,routing = "Mic Jack", "Mic Bias", "MIC1", "Mic Jack", "Headphones", "HPOL", "Headphones", "HPOR"; simple-audio-card,cpu { sound-dai = <&i2s0>; }; simple-audio-card,codec { sound-dai = <&es8316c_codec>; }; };  

hi @jock
 
I agree that changing the SMD 0201 parts is a real challenge - for this reason I used 0402's soldered them direct to the level shifter and run a tiny wire to the 5V source.
I'm thinking that an SoC side strong pull-up would do the trick eventually and remove R90611/12 entirely. But I haven't test this - but will do that with the next PCB I get on my table.
 
The Level-shifter is a Texas Instruments TX0102DCU with and with OE is high the internal 10K pull ups are enabled.  That might me not enough for the external monitor so the 6.8k has been applied.
Same for the SoC side, 10K only , so I support the internal SDA/SCL lines with the light diving strength of 2ma.
Datasheet:
8.3.5 Pullup or Pulldown Resistors on I/O Lines Each A-port I/O has an internal 10-kΩ pullup resistor to VCCA, and each B-port I/O has an internal 10-kΩ pullup resistor to VCCB. If a smaller value of pullup resistor is required, an external resistor must be added from the I/O to VCCA or VCCB (in parallel with the internal 10-kΩ resistors). Adding lower value pull-up resistors will effect VOL levels, however. The internal pull-ups of the TXS0102 are disabled when the OE pin is low.  
I would say it doesn't hurt to add the changes to the DTS for the i2c7_xfer pinctrl. But without fixing the Pull-up value on the 5V it will not improve anything.
 
Yes it is tiny tiny.

@Obmor
here it is a module for kernel 6.6.67 and rtl8189es. Put this module in /lib/modules/6.6.41-current-rockchip/kernel/drivers/net/wireless directory, then run sudo depmod -a and reboot.
If everything went ok, you should get 8189es driver loaded after boot; perhaps you may need a firmware to put somewhere in /lib/firmware. In case, the driver should complain about in dmesg that something is missing or wrong, and that may serve as hint to proceed further.
 
 
8189es.ko.gz

@Obmor
here it is a module for kernel 6.6.67 and rtl8189es. Put this module in /lib/modules/6.6.41-current-rockchip/kernel/drivers/net/wireless directory, then run sudo depmod -a and reboot.
If everything went ok, you should get 8189es driver loaded after boot; perhaps you may need a firmware to put somewhere in /lib/firmware. In case, the driver should complain about in dmesg that something is missing or wrong, and that may serve as hint to proceed further.
 
 
8189es.ko.gz

Everything is here: https://github.com/armbian/build/

@zzc @galenzhao @Obmor tvboxes have a huge amount of wireless chip on board and supporting all of them is very difficult and time consuming taks which I can't afford anymore; the APxxxx series is usually supported because they are basically broadcom chips and the driver is there, but their functionality also depends upon the board wiring, the firmware, the nvram, etc... as you see there are several pieces in the puzzle and it is not easy to fit them without some effort.
 
The best advice I could give you if you need basic wireless connectivity, is to buy a mediatek-based (mt7601) USB dongle; the next best advice is to buy SBCs with standard or premium support (not CSC) by armbian

@hmmm the board boots properly if the leds are blinking, but you need to run rk322x-config via SSH and select the proper led-config for R29 boards: these boards are known to turn off HDMI unless a specific GPIO is switched on.

You already have best possible desktop on this hardware. Simple and fast XFCE. Changing desktop environment won't make any vivid difference. 
https://docs.armbian.com/#key-advantages
 
XUbuntu is more or less identical to Armbian Ubuntu with XFCE subtracted for some Canonical proprietary stuff.

LXDE vs. XFCE ... not worth the troubles maintaining yet another desktop. Difference is too small. We only keep XFCE, Gnome, Cinnamon and KDE Neon in good shape. The rest waits for enthusiast https://github.com/armbian/build/tree/main/config/desktop and you can always start with a minimal CLI image and build on top any desktop you want.

­DISCLAIMER (PLEASE READ): everything you can find in this thread (binaries, texts, code snippets, etc...) are provided AS-IS and are not part of official Armbian project. For this reason not people from Armbian project nor myself are responsible for misuse or loss of functionality of hardware.

Please don't ask about support or assistance in other non-community forums nor in the official Armbian github repository, instead post your questions in this thread, in the TV Boxes forum section (hardware related) or in the Peer-to-peer support section (general linux/software related).

Thank you!
 
This thread is to give stable and mature long-term range support to rk3318/rk3328 found in many tv boxes in Armbian project as Community Supported Configuration (CSC).
The current work is mainlined into Armbian project, but your mileage may vary; most recent developments live on my personal fork on github -> here <-
 
Important notes: is just a personal opinion, but apparently widely supported, that rk3318 chip is not an official rockchip part. They probably are scrap rk3328 parts which have not passed conformance tests but are sold anyway to tv boxes manufacturers. They don’t reach the same operating frequency of the rk3328, have much higher leakage currents (and thus higher temperatures) and often the boards they are installed on are low quality with low quality components, in fact a very very common issue is the eMMC failure due to bad parts and bad soldering. So said, I personally suggest not to buy any rk3318 tv box, but instead find a properly supported SBC (Single Board Computer) if you need a reliable product. In the unfortunate case you already have such product, this thread may help you have some fun with them.
 
What works:
    • Works on RK3318 and RK3328 TV boxes with DDR3 memories
    • Mainline u-boot
    • Mainline ATF provided as Trusted Execution Environment
    • All 4 cores are working
    • Ethernet
    • Serial UART (configured at stock 1.5Mbps)
    • Thermals and frequency scaling
    • OTG USB 2.0 port (also as boot device!)
    • EHCI/OHCI USB 2.0 ports and XHCI USB 3.0 ports
    • MMC subsystem (including , SD and sdio devices)
    • Hardware video acceleration (fully supported via RKMPP on legacy kernel, support via hantro and rkvdec kernel driver on mainline)
    • Various WIFI over SDIO are supported
    • Full acceleration on legacy kernel and mainline kernel
    • U-boot boot order priority: first the sdcard, then the USB OTG port and eventually the internal ; you can install u-boot (and the whole system) in the internal and u-boot will always check for images on external sdcard/USB first.
 
Unbrick:
Technically, rockchip devices cannot be bricked. If the internal flash does not contain a bootable system, they will always boot from the sdcard. If, for a reason, the bootable system on the internal flash is corrupted or is unable to boot correctly, you can always force the maskrom mode shorting the clock pin on the PCB. The procedure is explained here for rk322x, but for rk3318/28 is the same.

In most of the rk3318/28 boards, shorting the clock pin is difficult or impossible because eMMC are BGA chips with no exposed pins. Pay double attention when burning something on the internal flash memory and always test first the image booting from the sdcard to be sure it works before burning anything in internal flash.
 
This is a list of posts where forum users have been able to spot the eMMC clock pin to trigger the maskrom mode:
H96 Max+ (board signature: RK3318_V1.4) by @Gausus X88 PRO 10 (board signature: X88_PRO_B) by @mathgaming HK1 Max (board signature YX_RK3318) by @Constantin Gatej Ninkbox N1 Max RK3318 by @enigmasphinx  
 
Partecipation and debugging:
If you want to partecipate or need help debugging issues, do not hesitate to share your experience with the installation procedure of the boxes.
In case of issues and missed support, provide as many as possible of these things is very useful to try and bring support for an unsupported board:
 
some photos of both sides of the board. Details of the eMMC, DDR and Wifi chips are very useful! upload the device tree binary (dtb) of your device. We can understand a lot of things of the hardware from that small piece of data; and alternative is a link to the original firmware (you can do a full backup with the Multitool); dmesg and other logs (use armbianmonitor -u that automatically collects and uploads the logs online) attach a serial converter to the device and provide the output of the serial port;  
Multimedia:
Mainline kernel: 3D acceleration is provided by Lima driver and is already enabled. Hardware video decoding: https://forum.armbian.com/topic/19258-testing-hardware-video-decoding-rockchip-allwinner/ Legacy kernel: If you need multimedia features, like OpenGL/OpenGL ES acceleration, hardware accelerated Kodi, ffmpeg and mpv you can take a look to this post  
Installation (via SD card):
Building:
You can build your own image follow the common steps to build armbian for other tv boxes devices: when you are in the moment to choose the target board, switch to /TVB/ boards and select "rk3318-box" from the list.
   
Prebuilt images:
Nightly stables - built from trunk by Armbian servers and GPG-signed: https://github.com/armbian/community  
Multitool:
Multitool - A small but powerful image for RK3318/RK3328 TV Box maintenance. Download it from here  
Quick installation instructions on eMMC:
Build or download your preferred Armbian image and a copy of the Multitool; Burn the Multitool on an SD card; once done, place the Armbian image in images folder of the SD card NTFS partition; Plug the SD card in the TV box and plug in the power cord. After some seconds the blue led starts blinking and the Multitool appears; OPTIONAL: you can do a backup of the existing firmware with "Backup flash" menu option; Choose "Burn image to flash" from the menu, then select the destination device (usually mmcblk2) and the image to burn; Wait for the process to complete, then choose "Shutdown" from main menu; Unplug the power cord and the SD card, then replug the power cord; Wait for 10 seconds, then the led should start blinking and HDMI will turn on. The first time the boot process will take a couple of minutes or more because the filesystem is going to be resized, so be patient and wait for the login prompt. On first boot you will be asked for entering a password for root user of your choice and the name and password for a regular user Run rk3318-config to configure the board specific options Run armbian-config to configure timezone, locales and other personal options Congratulations, Armbian is now installed!  
Despite the procedure above is simple and reliable, I always recommend to first test that your device boots Armbian images from SD Card.
Due to the really large hardware variety, there is the rare chance that the images proposed here may not boot. If a bad image is burned in , the box may not boot anymore forcing you to follow the unbrick section at the top of this post.
 
Quick installation instructions to boot from SD Card:
If you are already running Armbian from eMMC, skip to the next step. Instead if you are running the original firmware you need to first erase the internal flash; to do so download the Multitool, burn it on an SD Card, plug the SD Card and power the TV Box. Use "Backup flash" if you want to do a backup of the existing firmware, then choose "Erase flash" menu option. Build or download your preferred Armbian image; Uncompress and burn the Armbian image on the SD Card; Plug the SD Card in the TV Box and power it on; Wait for 10 seconds, then the led should start blinking and HDMI will turn on. The first time the boot process will take a couple of minutes or more because the filesystem is going to be resized, so be patient and wait for the login prompt; On first boot you will be asked for entering a password for root user of your choice and the name and password for a regular user Run rk3318-config to configure the board specific options Run armbian-config to configure timezone, locales and other personal options, or also to transfer the SD Card installation to internal ; Congratulations, Armbian is running from SD Card!  
Tutorial - How to install Armbian on your TV Box (by @awawa) :
https://www.hyperhdr.eu/2022/01/tv-box-mania-i-part-x88-pro-10.html
A note about boot device order:
With Armbian also comes mainline U-boot. If you install Armbian, the bootloader will look for valid bootable images in this order:
External SD Card External USB Stick in OTG Port Internal  
The Multitool does not boot / How to burn image directly on eMMC:
 
Some boards have the sdcard attached to an auxiliary (called also sdmmc_ext or external) controller which is not the common one.
Forum findings declare that those boards are not able to boot from sdcard with stock firmware and they neither do in maskrom mode: the stock firmware always boots even if you put the multitool on sdcard.
 
In such case, burning images directly on eMMC is the only way to have a working Armbian installation.
You can follow these instructions by @fabiobassa to burn images directly on eMMC:
 
https://forum.armbian.com/topic/17597-csc-armbian-for-rk3318rk3328-tv-box-boards/?do=findComment&comment=130453
 
Notes and special hardware:
Script to change DDR memory frequency here Wireless chip AP2734, SP2734, HY2734C and similars: they are clones of AmPAK AP6334 which is combo wifi + bluetooth of broadcom BCM4334/B0 chips. You may need a special nvram file, instructions by @paradigman are here  
Critics, suggestions and contributions are welcome!
 
Credits:
@fabiobassa for his ideas, inspiration, great generosity in giving the boards for development and testing. The project of bringing rk3318 into armbian would not have begun without his support! @hexdump for his precious support in early testing, ideas and suggestions
@MX10.AC2Nfor his patience in testing mxq-rk3328-d4 board support
All the rockhip64 maintainers at Armbian project who have done and do most of the work to support the platform
 
 

@Minoro Hamada Supposing you removed the sdcard from the slot, the only way to tell you what is happening is providing logs from the serial interface. You may have a broken/read only eMMC. Also you did not specify what image, what kernel, what board you have...

@Mr-TNTplease can you send some picture of board ,
 
there are 2 boards with problem first wherer the right LED-Config has to been set with ssh after flash per LAN , the secound has a close bootloader which need a diffirent OPTEE area wich need to be flash seperatly
 
overall normaly when sd-card boot work than  later it should also boot from that , yyou can also flash armbian direct to sdcard and also try to boot from sdcard maybe as short term solution

Hello @Vladimir Trondin, as @fabiobassa already pointed out, there is no driver for ssv6158. Doing some research, it seems that it may use the ssv6x5x driver, but it would require adaptation, plenty of time, plenty of patience and you would not be sure if it will finally work.
 
About the eMMC of your board, it would be handy to get the output of dmesg command, but in the meantime you could do some experimentation with the emmc parameters in rk322x-config withing this page:
 

 
In particular, try to enable emmc-pins and emmc-ddr-ph45 or emmc-ddr-ph180 or emmc-hs200 (these last three are alternative, only one should be enabled) and see if your emmc gets detected after a reboot.
 
Also your board r3229q is not listed within the led-conf options, but I see some similarities with r329q board (led-conf2) MXQPRO_V72 (led-conf6), so you may start trying with those ones, or stick with generic since your wifi is already detected despite being useless.
 

@Parth the soc is slow, it is one of the slowest socs around with a modest amount of memory on board , so don't expect stellar performance.
The image with debian bookworm is a minimal image: small and good for servers.
 
For all the other questions, you can consult the official armbian documentation  https://docs.armbian.com/ and related forums

Jock thank you for your work! Everything worked on my H96Max RK3318. The sequence was as follows:
1. switch to beta repository in armbian-config or by changing apt.armbian.com to beta.armbian.com in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/armbian.list
2. run apt update and upgrade at least the kernel, dtb and armbian-bsp-cli-rk3318 packages, then reboot, run armbian-config (Software->Hardware->and on  led-conf5)
3. apt install git make linux-headers-edge-rockchip64 -y
4. git clone https://github.com/jefflessard/tm16xx-display.git; cd tm16xx-display; ln -s /boot/System.map-`uname -r` /lib/modules/`uname -r`/build/System.map
5. make install
 
The clock is ticking, the indicators are working. After the Homeassistant docker.
 

It seems that your board is freezing after DDR initialization and before miniloader boot.
It could be an issue with the DRAM or an issue with flash memory, but since you said you swapped the sdcard and moved to eMMC, probably the problem may somewhere in the DRAM.
 
I'm more prone to suspect some power issue or interference issues though. I see from your dmesg that you have a faulty USB device attached: USB device could easily cause the board to misbehave, either by direct effect (faulty or shortcircuited USB device) or indirectly (interference coming from external equipment attached to the USB device).
 
I have seen once a faulty USB stick that was preventing a Raspberry Pi to boot at all; removing the stick allowed the board to boot fine.