Faber

What I found by digging Ayufan build script and comparing Rockchip Wiki, is that Ayufan doesn't place the u-boot-itb at sector 0x4000, but at sector 0x200, probably to avoid waste of space ...
I'm about to do final commit in Armbian script, you will then have to simply do a build of the image.
 
My commit will use "flow #2", but maybe the glitch in "flow #1" is maybe related to sector location too ...
 
EDIT : Here is the commit https://github.com/armbian/build/commit/c3e46a5d863ebc4d00d666b3a19eed00e3d0c17d
 
EDIT2 : I've tested the "nand-sata-install" on eMMC, and it is working fine too ...

ooo, It's alive  Will add images ASAP.

I think I got it working ... But doing it manually, not within Armbian build scripts ...
I will check if I can integrate that into them ...

Great. So you got the 'you can run FreedomBox on any computer that you can install Debian on'. Now you just need to know what Armbian is (Ubuntu or Debian userland with optimized kernel and optimized settings), then as long as you are able to accept running an Armbian Debian flavor is in some way comparable to 'running Debian' you can start. If Armbian is not for you for whatever reason simply wait a few months or years until upstream support for recent/decent ARM hardware arrived in Debian.
 
In case you choose Armbian you need to ensure to freeze kernel and u-boot upgrades since otherwise you use a stable distro on an unstable basis (it seems stuff like this needs to happen from time to time for reasons unknown to me).

Stock Debian can install and boot on Firefly RK3399, however these new RK3399 boards' dts files are not mainlined yet, so it requires kernel/bootloader package modifications, and adding a board entry to flash-install db, or flash-install will fail.
 
BTW: Stock Debian does not contain any of the armbian optimizations, so nothing will be as smooth as armbian runs.