Bozza

MT7668 is the wifi chipset if I am not mistaken and not the driver name I posted above.

Hello, beloved community members! I hope you're all doing well. I haven't looked at my A95X F3 Air for quite some time, and I've got a few questions about the TV box. I'm interested in installing Armbian on it and I'm wondering which version of Armbian and Linux kernel would be most suitable. Last time I attempted this, there were issues with the RTL8821CU driver, specifically for an older Android Linux kernel, around version 4.9. I've come across this URL (https://github.com/ophub/amlogic-s9xxx-armbian/issues/269), suggesting more recent kernel versions now support the wifi chip. Can anyone confirm this, or recommend a version where there are no longer issues? Additionally, I've heard conflicting information about Armbian being booted but not installable on the internal eMMC. Is this still a concern, or has it been resolved in more recent versions? Finally, I'm curious about the locked and encrypted state of the boot loader on the A95X F3 Air. Is there currently a way to decrypt the bootloader, perhaps to replace that less-than-appealing A95xF3 boot logo? Any insights or guidance on these matters would be greatly appreciated!

Is there a comprehensive list of changes made that are more of an interest to us arm users?

There is something important I should add. I am sure big corporations can easily contribute money to meet the demand goal, however this is a community project and it is therefore imperative that we as individuals contribute to the project. If only big corporations contribute they will probably want to have a say in what direction the project develops which could lead to only a small fraction of devices being developed for or it could lead to a situation where they ask that only their devices are prioritised. If you want that a wider range of devices are going to be worked on it is important that we also contribute, even if we just donate small amounts. At the end of the day there are a lot of us who have an interest in running armbian on our devices. Essentially we have to be fast and donate faster than the companies who only have a commercial interest! If you are not able to donate there are also other ways to contribute towards the project. Writing documentation, translating documentation, programming and even fan artwork is important (desktop background images, forum banners, forum signatures and other artwork). Do you love armbian as much as I do? Don't wait and contribute to the project now by any means you wish!

https://youtu.be/iYWzMvlj2RQ

I must add that I mostly use the rpi zero headless without a display. It is too weak to use as a desktop replacement. It is great when used together with a USB battery since the rpi zero has so little power draw. If you're after raw power there are many different better options.

Call to Action: Armbian donation round. Dear members of the community, Do you love the armbian OS? Are you frustrated by bugs or problems within armbian? Do you wish that armbian was even better with more releases? If the answer is yes keep reading because there may be a solution. As you know the dedicated team of developers here code this project in their spare time to develop an incredible Linux OS for our ARM devices. They do this for the love of this hobby and we all benefit from it because it is an open source project. One of the hurdles is the fast compiling of the armbian OS. To solve this issue the developers are looking to purchase or rent an 80 core ARM build server. This will improve compilation times and therefore the workflow of the developers. It will mean that they can develop at a much faster pace and more importantly diagnose problems, optimize code and iron out bugs a lot more effectively and efficiently. The developers are currently considering the Ampere Altra. https://www.anandtech.com/show/15949/ampere-altra-1p-server-pictured-gigabytes-2u-with-80-arm-n1-cores-pcie-40-and-ccix To make this a reality I, on behalf of the development team, am asking for everybody to chip in. If everybody donates just a little bit the developers will be able to get this server and develop the armbian software that we all love so much. What are you waiting for? Hit subscribe in the menu of the forum. Every major payment method is accepted.

My favourite sbc is the raspberry pi zero w

It is the bootloader.

Hello everybody is there a good tutorial to compile u-boot.ext? Or are there perhaps any quality sources that already have u-boot.ext files? Thank you

Enjoy

Balbes could you at least tag the last working version for amlogic without any time bomb so the code can be forked? I have noticed that with and after kernel version 5.7 the Sd card started getting corrupted. With the 5.9rc releases it became corrupted even faster. Is this a bug or feature?

Balbes has stopped supporting the s905x3. We will need to compile it ourselves. Who would like to compile it with me? Is anyone interested? Can I have a show of hands?

Well because you said that you have made a security mechanism that will break things on unsupported devices. That isn't normal. I understand that you don't want to support some devices, but including drm or malware that breaks devices on purpose is a different matter. Do you need any help? Is there anything that can be done?

Hello Balbes. Which version of your images are safe to use without the security mechanisms? Are you upset because of something? I am a bit scared to use the new 5.9 version that you have made. Does it have that security mechanism?

Balbes wrote "I will add various security mechanisms that will create serious problems, including hardware problems and hardware failure." You see I was very suspicious when my SD card kept getting corrupted after 5.7.x on s905x3. At first it would happen only when I hit" shutdown" it wouldn't boot after a restart. With 5.8 it would randomly happen while leaving the OS running. With 5.9 it happened on first boot. My sd card never corrupted in 4.9.... Now his statement explains a lot.

Balbes have you abandoned us? Are you going to make a 5.9 stable release?

Is anyone else experiencing a problem with the image where they're getting a green and pink vertical line on the left and right edges of the display? On some displays these lines are very visible. On others not so much.

I am not sure if it is just me or my box. But I have noticed that my sd card tends to corrupt itself. It usually happens when I use "shutdown". On 5.7.16. With 5.9rc* it happens on first boot. My box is a95x f3 air. Is it just me, the Sd card or my particular box becoming defective? Has anyone else had these issues?

My box was temporarily bricked because one of the USB slots became damaged. Neither the LED display nor the LEDs would come on. The pins inside the USB slot were touching causing a short-circuit on the pcb. If you have a multi meter you could check if there is a short anywhere on your pcb. The main two things that I can imagine that have happened to your board is either a short circuit caused by the USB or Sd slot if you were using those excessively or perhaps a chip or other component becoming undone and requiring a reballing. Good luck and keep us updated!

If everything else fails you can try the oven method. Please do pay special attention to the temperature and time.

The pins inside the USB port were shorting the usb hub/sd card out. I pulled the pins out completely from the usb 2 port. No more IO errors! There is only one usb 3 port left on this board now.

It is an exfat drive, which I have now found out that it doesn't support symlinks. Without formatting to ext is there a way to use simulated symlinks instead? Perhaps hard links? Edit: I am just going to use the SD card or eMMC

when I try to compile natively in a root ssh shell I get the following error: " [ o.k. ] Create example config file using template [ config-default.conf ] ln: failed to create symbolic link '/media/root/Seagate/armbianbuild/Build-Armbian/userpatches/config-default.conf': Operation not permitted "

So I have managed to partially pull out one of the usb sockets on my tv box. The little plastic piece that holds the 4 metal pins has come out while I was pulling out a slightly deformed usb cable. The box still worked while it was on. After a reboot it is not coming on. The LEDs and VFD don't come on. It doesn't boot into armbian or android. Is it safe to say that it is dead? I think I am going to have to try and lift those metal pins. Because they are touching the metal usb housing. Perhaps that is causing a short-circuit somewhere. If all else fails I will try to desolder the whole usb slot. Update: I have bent the pins with a pen in that broken USB port and the box boots now. This is officially my dev box now It looks like I am getting weird errors when using this box now. When even running "apt-get update" I am greeted with "Reading package lists... Error! E: Read error - read (5: Input/output error)" I guess it is because of some of the pins shorted together .. Could this be true? It isn't my day today by the looks of it.