SteeMan

Generally the best way to determine your hardware is to open the box and look at what chips are installed (but that sometimes in tv boxes isn't helpful as the manufacturers are known to use chips with fake markings). The other thing to do is to hook up to the serial console and review the uboot output and early kernel output. With arm based tv boxes and boards the hardware is made available to the kernel via the dtb file. So it is the dtb that maps the kernel to the on board hardware. So if you aren't using a dtb explicitly designed for your board/box you won't get working features as the linux kernel won't know what the correct hardware is. That is why with these tv boxes where there are only dtbs for a small handful of them that you are unlikely to get all features working on a box. This is why the suggestion is to try all the dtbs and find the one that is closest to your hardware (i.e. has the most things working).

@adrian0541 I want to point you to the following FAQ post to make sure your expectations are set correctly: https://forum.armbian.com/topic/16976-status-of-armbian-on-tv-boxes-please-read-first/

See my post directly above for more info on this.

As I mentioned earlier, there are issues with newer builds and the uboots currently shipped in the distributions (things 23.5 and later). So as others have noted if you have as s905x2 or x3 box you currently should use a 23.2 or earlier build. With 23.5 armbian introduced a new build system. So everything about the build process for armbian changed. There are two changes that I am aware of that are or may be impacting the amlogic tv box builds. The first change is that the FAT partition is created differently than the old build system. There are comments in this thread that indicate that may be an issue, but I haven't dug into this to know for sure. The second change is that the build system moved from kernel uImage files to kernel Image files. This is to standardize all the armbian builds onto the same file type. A uImage file is the kernel Image file processed by uboot tools to add some additional info to the executable. This used to be required for uboot to boot a linux kernel, however newer uboots can load plain kernel Image files directly. I think the issue with the u-boot-s905x2-s922 uboot is that that uboot doesn't have the support to load plain Image files built in. The u-boot-* files come from the work of balbes150 when he used to support amlogic tv boxes. So they are about 4 years old and need to be updated to follow changes in uboot. I started, but haven't had time to do this yet. If you have a current build (post 23.2) there should be a file in /boot/build-u-boot/readme.txt that talks about moving to newer uboots. This is based on the work by hexdump originally. If someone could pick up this work and submit PRs that would be very welcomed. It would be a good way for a developer to get their feet wet in understanding a key part of the support necessary to make these amlogic tv box builds possible.

Moved all of the content from the install instructions thread dealing with booting issues on new releases to this new thread.

@adrian0541 It would be helpful if you mentioned in this thread which box you have? (I realize that you may have originally posted that information but after moving things around it isn't in this thread). Also to your original question, in the extlinux file you should just reference the /dtb/ directory (not the kernel specific one). The install/upgrade to new kernels will potentially remove that kernel and replace it with a new one and then your box won't boot as that specific file will no longer exist. The files in the /dtb/ directory are a copy of those for the latest installed kernel, so by using that directory you are isolated from upgrades.

@adrian0541 In answer to your question on what uboots map to which cpus and dtbs, I just updated the FAQ instructions with such a mapping (based on your question and other posts in that thread).

Cleaned up the instructions thead, moved this content to its own thread.

Cleaning up the install instructions thread (that thread is meant for comments/corrections on the instructions, not general questions). Moved this to separate thread

What build are you using? What instructions are you following? What uboot are you using? What dtd?

This forum is for armbian. Since you are not running Armbian, you need to post your question elsewhere, someplace that supports your distribution.

Moved to correct forum. Please read: The standard way to load firmwares on amlogic boxes is to use the Amlogic usb_burning_tool along with a male usb to male usb cable (along with the correct firmware of course). There are many examples on the internet of how to use this tool to burn an android firmware on an Amlogic tv box.

@Jumperbillijumper I'm responding to your latest comment in the other thread. The short answer is no, no one seems to have gotten this box to work yet with armbian. And until someone provides the requested info jock is asking for from the beginning of this thread, there isn't going to be any progress.

@avigrinberg The source you are downloading from is not armbian. They are a fork of armbian that uses the armbian name without permission. They do not contribute to armbian development nor do they participate in these forums. You need to contact them for support of their software, we can't help you here.

That is not an Armbian image (no official images from this site have that name). You apparently are downloading from a non armbian source. What download are you using?

From your log: BUILD_REPOSITORY_URL=https://github.com/Mellow-3D/build 22.08.0-trunk You are using a fork of Armbian that is a year behind current armbian code. We can't help you in these forums as we support official armbian. You need to contact the maintainer of the fork you used for any questions.

Updated title and tags to reflect the board being used

That is the default for armbian. What sbc are you working with? And just to confirm that you pulled the build framework from the official armbian sources? (Not one of the forks that may have different defaults)

This thread is over a year old. Closing the thread.

@theslydog That image is not a release image and therefore isn't archived anywhere. This is known by the word "trunk" in the name. You can always get the latest development builds like that one from here: https://github.com/armbian/community or you can pull the build framework and build your own build from latest source. Release builds are located here: https://redirect.armbian.com/aml-s9xx-box/archive/

@n3o As a moderator of these forums, I have been watching your postings. You are abusing these forums and the people that contribute to them. (Everyone, especially @RaptorSDS and @jock have been very willing to invest a lot of time to help you) However, repeatedly you have been given specific information that you ignore, been given advise that you ignore and then you come back with more and more questions. There are very limited people resources working on Armbian (and even less with TV boxes). You alone are consuming way more developer time than any one individual has the right to receive. This is open source, and therefore users are needed to contribute as much as they consume in resources from the community in order for this to work. This is not a school where you can come to be taught how everything works, demanding the attention of everyone else to teach you. Your latest questions are now venturing into very deep and difficult areas of code (none of which is expected to work on these TV boxes as has been mentioned to you). If you want to continue down the path you are going, you first need to become an expert at these topics on known working platforms, then you can try to apply that expertise on TV boxes. You may not realize it, but the questions you are asking, are essentially asking for weeks if not months of developer help to get working, if it is at all possible.

There are a lot of tv boxes called hk1. What cpu does your box contain? And what build of armbian are you using?

@soned This is an armbian forum, why in your first post do you post a link to a non armbian build? What are you trying to accomplish in this thread?

@thielj its community supported, make the change to the build framework, and submit a PR

That topic is over 4 years old, is written for amlogic based boxes. Nothing there is relevant for a Rockchip based box.