jock

I am a bit ashamed of citing myself, but this is a small post I wrote some time ago with some explanations:
 
https://forum.armbian.com/topic/14752-device-tree-translation/?do=findComment&comment=106284
 

I am a bit ashamed of citing myself, but this is a small post I wrote some time ago with some explanations:
 
https://forum.armbian.com/topic/14752-device-tree-translation/?do=findComment&comment=106284
 

There is not really "translation" between android dts to linux dts. Android could be considered a Linux distribution like Ubuntu or Debian.
What you are referring as "android" dts is nothing more than a device tree wrote for a very old Linux kernel (probably 3.10 or 3.14).
As long as things change during time, so the device tree specifications become more standardized and well-defined. Device trees for old kernels (3.10 is very old nowadyas) are very messy and generally harder to read and understand.
 
Device trees describe the hardware equipment of  your board. On the x86 world there is something which was used to be called Plug&Play in the early days: Plug&Play let the devices expose themselves to the operating system, which is able to discover and configure them properly without the user intervention. On ARM side this mechanism does not yet exists (to be precise, something exists, but is not available on SBCs), so to let the hardware being discovered you have to tell the operating system. The device tree does exactly this.
 
All the properties and nodes in the device tree are read back by the kernel and kernel drivers. The "compatible" property tells the kernel which driver needs to be loaded, the driver then reads the node properties to know the resources associated with the device (memory regions, registers, interrupts, dma channels, gpio pins, etc...) and its specific characteristics (for example the clock frequency, FIFO queues, etc...), so it can proceed to initialize and make the device available to the system.
 
Being aware of this and getting back to the original question, there is no magic translation tool, you have to do the hard job of reading the old device tree and translate into the new. Experience and documentation are fundamental (you can find the documentation on the device tree bindings shipped with every linux kernel in Documentation/devicetree/bindings directory). Intuition and general knowledge of how electronic devices work are very helpful for such task.
 
 

For less than 100$ you can go with Odroid N2/N2+ which is plenty powerful, but as already suggested float around properly supported SBCs and find one that best suits your need.
 
Expensive tvboxes from known vendors usually are good quality, but I would not suggest to buy them to do server jobs.
IMHO SBCs are a couple of notches superior for build quality, support and warranty, tv boxes are for toying around mostly

Ok much better, but at the moment I have no idea this is happening.
The libreelec boot is somehow engaged because the behaviour changes if you leave the sdcard into, but the reason why it hangs is not clear to me yet.
I will try to replicate soon on a board of mine
 
edit: @jaum20 problem solved! Long story short: substitute the file rk3228a-box-mxq4kpro.dtb in the root of the libreelec sdcard with the one attached here. Important: if you're going to update/upgrade LibreELEC, you will need to replace again this file. This is a "problem" I will likely ask to @knaerzche if it can be solved somehow.
 
Detailed answer for experts: the device tree with the legacy kernel is missing the property arm,cpu-registers-not-fw-configured in the timer section. It is needed on armbian but it is not needed on Libreelec because armbian has OPTEE as trust os (which requires the property), instead Libreelec uses the proprietary u-boot and trust os (which does the timer initialization by itself).
rk3228a-box-mxq4kpro.dtb

I think the boot process is the same or very similar among rk322x and rk3318/rk3328. I had the time to study the rk322x boot and make some intresting experiments.
The standard firmware boot that uses proprietary rockchip binaries and sources usually do these steps:
the SoC ROM code reads the ddrbin at sector 0x40 and executes it to initialize DDR memory the SoC ROM then reads the code that follows the ddrbin and finds the miniloader (you can find various versions of miniloaders from the kwiboo repository I linked before) the miniloader takes control and checks for GPT partitions called "uboot" and "trustos", if partitions are found sets PTR_UBOOT and PTR_TRUSTOS pointers to the partitions sectors, otherwise sets the pointers to default values respectively of 0x2000 and 0x4000 the miniloader looks for the "LOADER" (that's exactly a string with uppercase characters) signature at PTR_UBOOT sector, if the signature is found loads u-boot in memory, otherwise increases the PTR_UBOOT pointer by 0x800 sectors and retries the miniloader looks for "TRUST" signature at PTR_TRUSTOS to do the same job the miniloader boots the trust os (that's a build of the ATF), which installs itself, and then boots u-boot u-boot finally loads the device tree and boots the kernel when you use prepare the u-boot and trust images with  loaderimage --pack command, is actually decorating uboot/trust image with a header (the LOADER/TRUST signatures, maybe other things like checksums and the memory location where the image should be loaded into).
Likewise you can extract u-boot and trust images from flash memory looking at those locations and obtain the originals using loaderimage --unpack command. @knaerzche extracted a working trustos from a rk3228 box image this way and now LibreELEC uses that blob as trustos for all rk322x images. I'm also using a trustos extracted this way to boot the multitool, and it works pretty well.
 
The other boot process that uses mainline u-boot and Opensource OPTEE (in place of ATF) is as follows:
The SoC ROM code reads the u-boot TPL at sector 0x40, this initializes DDR memory the SoC ROM code reads the u-boot SPL that immediately follows the TPL u-boot SPL executes the OPTEE trustos u-boot SPL executes the main u-boot u-boot loads device tree and boots the kernel For some extents, you can mix the two boot processes, for example in Armbian I use the second boot process, but at the step 1 I use the proprietary ddrbin because u-boot TPL does not support DDR2 memories.
 
My guess is that the rk3318/rk3328 boot process is very much the same
 

New Armbian 20.08 Ubuntu Focal Desktop image with kernel 5.8.1, on my box it works pretty fine, but feel free to test it on yours:
 
https://drive.google.com/file/d/14iUGANr_-Cr3LvAP6wm3K0kLJAveHPhF/view?usp=sharing

Quick update on ESP8089: with this module, it works every time 
 
Didn't do any speed tests as I'm somewhat far from the router (the box lost connection randomly, but my laptop does that too). General web browsing and system upgrades were on par with ethernet. Need to do final tests but I feel we're 95% there... a BIG thank you @jock!!

Never heard about rockchip 3028, it is quite sure you have a rk3328, or maybe the little rk3318 brother.
To be sure, you should read what's printed on the soc itself. There is also this table: https://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=56219933&postcount=2 that matches the USB vendor/device ids with the soc. I don't know if it is verified.
 
Once you got the SoC, you will need the usbplug binary for both the db and ul commands, but this will flash another rockchip proprietary loader, which I don't know it is what you want...
 
edit: I just read about @hexdump instructions, that's a good recipe on how to compile and install mainline u-boot as a bootloader, but I'm understand it correctly, there is some chain-loading between proprietary u-boot and mainline u-boot. You can customize the boot options and avoid being slave of the rockchip u-boot binaries, but requires manual intervention. I would point out some clarifications: as @fabiobassa once told me, the 0x2000 offset when using rl/wl commands of rkdeveloptool is due to maskrom or loader mode: in maskrom mode there is no offset, so you can write the entire eMMC/NAND. In loader mode the first 0x2000 sectors are hidden, hence the offset.
 

H3 is very well supported in armbian and linux mainline, but I don't know if there is a NAND driver actually.
The choice of the box vastly depends on what you need to do and how much horsepower you need with that one.
If you want to be sure you get what you actually want, buy a proper SBC with eMMC and a case.
Hardware of tv boxes, expecially cheap ones, is always a lottery, as you already experienced by yourself.

Applied the patch, left the rk3288 with 5 hours of this:
 
it worked without an itch, dmesg was clean.

Hi all,
 
as a small status update on the seafloor business, here are some pictures of the new Odroid C2 based instruments which will be deployed in September/October in the northers Pacific.
Ten modules with different functionality will be deployed, all based on a standard setup of Odroid C2, TRB3sc FPGA based TDC DAQ system, one PADIWA preamp, and a modded mdedia converter serving as a fully configurable mini switch.
 

 
One of the modules carries several Hamamatsu mini spectrometers, as well as a camera, to observe bioluminescence.

 
Another module is targeting at muon tracking with SiPM based readout:

 
I have some more picture of the more "fancy" PMT based modules, but don't want to flood this forum now with too many pictures.
 
To all of you: thanks for the support you gave us over the last year, and the discussions on specific topics!
 
Deployment pictures will follow once the modules are in place on the seafloor, 2600m deep in the Pacific (and operational, hopefully, this time we just have a GbE fiber, no serial port...)
 
See you, Michael
 
 

You can use the multitool to dd image files directly on the device: it has a fully functional bash shell to do such kind of maintenance tasks. Nonetheless you need to do know what you are doing.
Maybe you can burn the "bad" backup you made and then burn the rootfs from the image @fabiobassa provided. You need to do some juggling with the original image, but if you are able to do so you can try.
 
Your board is a new revision of the r329q family. In alternative you may have more luck tryingr other images for boards which are older r329q revisions (v2.0, v3.0, v7.0, ...)

Good news, expecially for @nokirunner and @DaviMesquita
 
Finally we managed to make the ssv6x5x driver work on the ssv6256p chipset and it turns out the it is also working pretty well. I removed most of the logging messages it was spamming on the dmesg log, now it is much more silent and it is ok this way. Teaming with @fabiobassa we optimized performances quite a bit, so expect ~60 Mbit/s at least on optimal setups. It works on both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz bands.
 
The driver will be included in the armbian images soon, but in the meantime anyone can test it.
Download ssv6x5x.koand put it into /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/drivers/net/wireless Download ssv6x5x-wifi.cfgand put it into /lib/firmware Download ssv6x5x-sw.bin and put it into /lib/firmware Run depmod -a Add blacklist ssv6051 in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-rk322x-box.conf (ssv6051 and ssv6x5x kernel modules clashes, we need to blacklist ssv6051 for the other to work) Reboot!  
Any testing report is appreciated!
 

@jock and @fabiobassa
 
You are awesome! I only had time to try the new wifi driver now, and it worked like magic, very smoothly!
 
I tried both 2.4G and 5G and both worked fine, with a nice speed!
 
Thank you very much again!

Good news, expecially for @nokirunner and @DaviMesquita
 
Finally we managed to make the ssv6x5x driver work on the ssv6256p chipset and it turns out the it is also working pretty well. I removed most of the logging messages it was spamming on the dmesg log, now it is much more silent and it is ok this way. Teaming with @fabiobassa we optimized performances quite a bit, so expect ~60 Mbit/s at least on optimal setups. It works on both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz bands.
 
The driver will be included in the armbian images soon, but in the meantime anyone can test it.
Download ssv6x5x.koand put it into /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/drivers/net/wireless Download ssv6x5x-wifi.cfgand put it into /lib/firmware Download ssv6x5x-sw.bin and put it into /lib/firmware Run depmod -a Add blacklist ssv6051 in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-rk322x-box.conf (ssv6051 and ssv6x5x kernel modules clashes, we need to blacklist ssv6051 for the other to work) Reboot!  
Any testing report is appreciated!
 

Ok much better, but at the moment I have no idea this is happening.
The libreelec boot is somehow engaged because the behaviour changes if you leave the sdcard into, but the reason why it hangs is not clear to me yet.
I will try to replicate soon on a board of mine
 
edit: @jaum20 problem solved! Long story short: substitute the file rk3228a-box-mxq4kpro.dtb in the root of the libreelec sdcard with the one attached here. Important: if you're going to update/upgrade LibreELEC, you will need to replace again this file. This is a "problem" I will likely ask to @knaerzche if it can be solved somehow.
 
Detailed answer for experts: the device tree with the legacy kernel is missing the property arm,cpu-registers-not-fw-configured in the timer section. It is needed on armbian but it is not needed on Libreelec because armbian has OPTEE as trust os (which requires the property), instead Libreelec uses the proprietary u-boot and trust os (which does the timer initialization by itself).
rk3228a-box-mxq4kpro.dtb

Good news, expecially for @nokirunner and @DaviMesquita
 
Finally we managed to make the ssv6x5x driver work on the ssv6256p chipset and it turns out the it is also working pretty well. I removed most of the logging messages it was spamming on the dmesg log, now it is much more silent and it is ok this way. Teaming with @fabiobassa we optimized performances quite a bit, so expect ~60 Mbit/s at least on optimal setups. It works on both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz bands.
 
The driver will be included in the armbian images soon, but in the meantime anyone can test it.
Download ssv6x5x.koand put it into /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/drivers/net/wireless Download ssv6x5x-wifi.cfgand put it into /lib/firmware Download ssv6x5x-sw.bin and put it into /lib/firmware Run depmod -a Add blacklist ssv6051 in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-rk322x-box.conf (ssv6051 and ssv6x5x kernel modules clashes, we need to blacklist ssv6051 for the other to work) Reboot!  
Any testing report is appreciated!
 

Applied the patch, left the rk3288 with 5 hours of this:
 
it worked without an itch, dmesg was clean.

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

Applied the patch, left the rk3288 with 5 hours of this:
 
it worked without an itch, dmesg was clean.

@victroniko
I see promising results, very well!
 
"queuing unknown CIS tuple" are not really errors, you can safely ignore them.
For what I know, p2p0 and wlan0 interfaces appears with most of these android-derived wifi drivers.
I have some boards with ssv6051 wifi chip and I have to connect using p2p0 interface because wlan0 always crashes kernel, don't know really why, I never spent time into.
 
About the autoloading of the esp8089 module at startup, you can create a file in /etc/modprobe.d/esp8089.conf and put this content into:
options esp8089 crystal_26M_en=2 so when the module is autoloaded, it is also given the appropriate module parameter.
 
As another hint, to test the firmwares and things avoid the Network Manager. It is slow and has latency, and does not always reacts immediately. Use the command line tools to scan the networks, for example (always use sudo, or do it as superadmin, otherwise you get cached data):
sudo iwlist wlan0 scan You may also scan the p2p0 interface and see what changes. Usually you won't get more than 10-12 access points in the list.
 
I could not find any evidence in the source code that the files should be placed in esp8089 subdirectory, so I'm not totally convinced about the firmware placement in /lib/firmware/esp8089. Double check that this is really what the kernel module wants: loading the kernel module and doing a successful scan should be enough. Every kernel module developer decides where the files are put, some wants their own subdirectory, some others don't. dmesg should tell you if the firmware was in the right position or not, always read its output very carefully!
 
Once you get sane and predictable results with iwlist, you may proceed to use the Network Manager to connect to a network. From the command line you can also use the handy nmtui tool
 
Always reboot between tests, even though I read that rmmod (prefer modprobe -r to unload a module, anyway) crashes the kernel and freezes the system, so there is no other chance
 
Good luck!
 

Last night I wiped NAND and installed Focal minimal-legacy image, also without a hitch . But armbian-config does not come by default. No biggie, just install manually and problem solved... Then I wanted to install a minimal desktop via armbian-config, and realized the option is not even there: It only offers to install full XFCE desktop+extras.
 
So what I did was to install LXDE by hand (plus few goodies: lxtask, pasystray, network-manager-gnome etc). Overall the system feels faster, and with @jock's media script/bundle  & @nokirunner 's tip about glamor, it's almost silky-smooth now. The only hitch was that lightdm refused to start at all, so I just installed lxdm, enabled autologin in the config and called it a day.
 
But that's just regular Armbian stuff... I'm at work now, when I return home i'll try my luck again with ESP8089.
 
 
 
Yep saw it, added to my arsenal of RK tools  thank you!
 
 
Okay, will do that.
 
 
Noted, thank you. I was vaguely suspecting NM's behaviour was strange, and also completely forgot about nmtui & iwlist. Spoiled by the GUI haha... I'll do this later too.
 
 
 
I was also confused, but it just worked  need to test again on this fresh install though. Also the esp8089.ko driver you compiled for me doesn't print anything to the kernel log at all. So it's difficult to debug if it loaded correctly, or complains about firmware error/mismatch/etc...
 
Thanks again!

We have moved the forums to a new host with higher availability.  Caches may need to be cleared.  Hopefully performance will be better as well.   Please reply here to report any forum-related issues.

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