SteeMan

@R Tech Moved your post to the correct thread.

Installing the uboot package shouldn't have any impact. In fact from my understanding installing the package just downloads the files. You need to run armbian-config to actually install the uboot files.

That looks correct for your current situation. What is the contents of your /boot directory? And the output from : apt list --installed | grep linux and apt list --installed | grep armbian (I.m used to using the apt command instead of the dpkg command)

What are the contents of your /etc/apt/sources.list.d/armbian.list? I have seen it happen that the upgrade will prompt you to delete obsolete packages and will consider the armbian packages obsolete and remove your kernel (which obviously is a problem)

Looks like you have the vendor kernel package installed. If you want mainline kernel, then you need to install the current kernel package. Run armbian-config and see what it tells you are the available kernels for you. Now realize that going from vendor to mainline kernel you might loose some functionality (there is an FAQ item on this), but you can always switch back to vendor kernel if it is important.

Here is the most recent thread on s805:

There are is no Armbian support for s805 based tv boxes (only s905 based boxes).

@A J I'm not sure which image you have burned, but most images do not have a separate boot partition, they just have one ext4 partition that contains everything. Images that have a separate /boot partition do that either because of limitations of the u-boot version being used, or because they want to provide easier access to the /boot via a non linux platform (i.e. windows) for accessing the contents of that partition.

Yes dd will work

Armbian doesn't support TV boxes. Of the three major cpu families alwinner has the least support (practically no activity on alwinner). You can look at other threads in this forum discussing the h616.

Moved to correct forum

Because there really is no maintainer for this code. There has been a plan to rewrite it from scratch for a couple of years that hasn't moved very far either. So it just languishes, works sometimes and not others.

The minimal builds are really minimal. They don't include armbian config by default. You need to apt install armbian-config if you want it.

You didn't answer my questions? What build did you use and what instructions?

What build/download do you have installed? What instructions were you following? No TV box instructions say to use armbian-install.

This board is not a supported board. Moved post to Community Maintained section and added the correct tag for the board.

@mc510 It is still there: https://www.armbian.com/orange-pi-zero/

You missed my point. You choose the edge kernel version of the trunk versions. There are also vendor kernel versions. The vendor kernel is going to be more stable than the edge kernel.

You are choosing to use the edge kernel, which is the 'bleeding edge" development work area, it is expected to be unstable. If you want fewer issues you shouldn't be using edge.

The world of open source is all about reverse engineering things where manufacturers don't want to invest in openness. That is why Armbian exists. But it takes a lot of effort. Here are a couple of threads that show how the process works and the time it takes to do what you want without support from the manufacturer: https://forum.armbian.com/topic/24091-efforts-to-develop-firmware-for-h96-max-v56-rk3566-4g32g https://forum.armbian.com/topic/28895-efforts-to-develop-firmware-for-h96-max-v56-rk3566-8g64g

Rkdevtool has nothing to do with building working code for your board. You need to think of this as a coding project. You need to build something that is installable and runnable for your board. Nothing that exists is going to work on it. Each board requires a custom code set to boot and run in the arm world today.

@Sig That procedure is a one time this thing. If you pressed the reset button correctly it will have reset the boot loader environment. So remove the SD card and try booting without and SD card (that should be android as normal), then try the Armbian. If it doesn't work, try the reset process again (there is no good way to know if you timed the pressing and holding of the reset button correctly, except through trial and error). ( I generally find holding the reset for about 5 seconds while power is applied is about right, but too long or too short and it won't work as intended)

If you can't determine what device you have, there is no way you are going to be able to install Armbian on it. The world of linux on ARM is very different than linux on x86. There are no real standards for a boot environment and on board device management. For this reason you need an individual build for each device. One that has a boot environment that can boot the device and also a device specific dtb (device tree) that tells the linux kernel what hardware the board has. Those components need to be developed for each board at often the expense of many man months as the board manufactures have no interest in supporting the process of having mainline linux work on their devices. If you have the skills and resources to invest a very significant amount of time into such an effort, it can be done (if you have schematics and support from the device manufacturer that helps a lot). But the first step would be to open the device to get as the motherboard and understand what components you are working with. Then get a usb-uart connector hooked up and start monitoring the boot process to figure out how the device is booting (off of what media so you know where you are going to need to install a new boot loader to) Since the board is running android (which is only enough like real linux to get in the way generally), what comes installed isn't going to be very helpful in your process.

You do not supply enough information about your issue. First off what SBC are you working with. Armbian builds are specific to each device. Second what build are you attempting to use?