Tomas Catone

Hey - thanks for Webmin. That looks pretty slick. Nice graphics. I am going to have to do a deeper dive against cockpit but very nice. I bet both work with Tailscale which makes for nice for remote access.

Nope . I will put that in my notes if I get there again. What kernel are you running

Wow - thanks for Webmin. I've never heard of that one but looks nifty. I'm going to have to take a look at that. Thanks

Baaaahhhhahahahahahahah.... Sorry buddy - you have me confused with someone that understands much at all!!! I am willing to help. I COULD NOT get ZFS to work and had a zfs pool. So I clicked and typed anything I could. I believe??? that what worked was multiple >sudo armbian-update followed by > sudo armbian-config Where I installed/uninstalled/reinstalled zfs file support. Also - I could not get it to work with the current armbian I am using Kernel Version: 6.12.34

Good to meet a fellow armbian android tv box fan. We need a logo or shorthand alias for fans 🤣. ZFS - was easy but not clear. Inside armbian-config under System/Storage is a script to install ZFS support. I did this and it didn't work... then undid it and then installed it a second time and it worked. Somewhere in there I also ran the standard commands for install: sudo apt install zfsutils-linux sudo apt install zfs-fuse Probably after the first uninstall... but the commands indicate failure. But then installing the second time seemed to work. Did that on both of these boxes I have working. Thanks for the ethtool command. Here's my results on box1 ports auto-negotiation: Yes Supported FEC modes: Not reported Advertised link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full 100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full 1000baseT/Full Advertised pause frame use: Symmetric Receive-only Advertised auto-negotiation: Yes Advertised FEC modes: Not reported Link partner advertised link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full 100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full 1000baseT/Full Link partner advertised pause frame use: Symmetric Receive-only Link partner advertised auto-negotiation: Yes Link partner advertised FEC modes: Not reported Speed: 1000Mb/s Duplex: Full Auto-negotiation: on master-slave cfg: preferred slave master-slave status: slave Port: Twisted Pair PHYAD: 0 Transceiver: external MDI-X: Unknown netlink error: Operation not permitted Current message level: 0x0000003f (63) drv probe link timer ifdown ifup Link detected: yes Not an expert and first time reading this command but looks like 1000 is the answer. Crazy thing - box 2 does not have the line "MDI-X: Unknown" shown towards the bottom and "Port: MII" instead of "Port: twisted pair" but is otherwise identical. Posting in case it helps anyone else - but these are beyond me. If you confirm that the above = 1000 I will update both my box running posts. By the way - Another favorite is Software/Management/Cockpit. Easy to see how the server is doing. Plus it has a built in terminal and file manager. Add that to Tailscale and you can check on the server or grab a file while out of the house. curl -fsSL https://tailscale.com/install.sh | sh Those are my favorites. What are yours?

Sorry - this is probably an easy one for those that know. But I am trying hard to copy my work and progress and build another NAS out of another T95z Plus box for my brother. All is going well - but on the second box - months after building the first - I installed the latest download. So I have Old box = Armbian Linux 6.12.32-current-meson64 - v25.5.1 New box = Armbian Linux 6.12.34-current-meson64 - v25.8 rolling - Support:for advanced users (rolling release) Both show - Ubuntu stable (noble) - which I think I changed on first boot with Armbian-config. Okay - so I don't think I am an advanced user so that warning has got me worried. So is there another version I should be using? I can't find the old file I downloaded so they would be identical. I have disabled unattended upgrades and things like that. Or am I worrying about nothing. Anyway - thanks as always. I still can't believe I have these cheap things pulled from my dust bin doing a real job again.

TV Box Name: Sunvell T95Z plus Octagon shaped box (I wrote it before – but Beware – apparently a lot of variants) CPU Amlogics S912 Armbian build file name: Armbian_community_25.8.0-trunk.277_Aml-s9xx-box_noble_current_6.12.34 DTB file used: meson-gxm-t95z-plus.dtb – (my other T95z uses meson-gxm-vega-s96.dtb) Kernel Version: 6.12.34 Distribution Installed (focal, buster, etc): Noble Working Ethernet (Yes/No): Yes Max Ethernet Speed that works (100/1000): Not sure how to determine... Does wifi work (Yes/No): No Does bluetooth work (Yes/No): Not tested Does HDMI audio work (Yes/No): Yes Additional Comments (provide any additional information you feel is important): This is my second T95z plus box build. Using as headless server and both seem solid. Confirming what others have said – the build is different inside. This has a different wifi card and eemc. I have a 3rd T95z plus that has the dreaded NAND chip too. Having fun and learning. Using as a simple NAS now with a ZFS pool and works just fine.

Hi @datatech451 - glad to hear I am not alone. Yep - I fiddled with SuperCeleron, ATVx and custom launchers a few years back. I have an old pc with LibreElec around here somewhere too. But today I am no longer trying to keep Android going on this one. I moved on to Firesticks since then and the remote control is a big factor on why we stay there. But for the S912 - I am focusing on the mediaserver side and thinking of adding photo backup of my phone. I am just in the tinkering and learning phase. I've had Plex working and have been trialing Jellyfin lately. It works well to stream locally to my firesticks. Big Buck Bunny of course and it seems pretty solid. But I am not doing 4k BBB or anything. But still testing and troubleshooting random issues and craziness. In fact - I put Portainer on board. Jellyfin in a Docker. Homarr in a Docker, Grafana in a Docker, Adguard in a Docker and Cockpit... But lots of things not working exactly right but I think because I overload it. Really trying to push it to the limits just to see and learn. Burning that all down today and doing a fresh build with just what I need - Jellyfin, Cockpit and Adguard. I'm gonna skip Docker this time and I bet I get it all working well enough to learn the next level. As for cooling - I bought some extra heat sinks but never made it further. I am a little worried about pulling the existing sink off - don't want to crack the cpu. Feels more solid than thermal paste - more like thermal glue. But yes - seems to get HOT in a hurry when it is busy. This box has a heat sink plus heat tape and a piece of sheet metal. I am betting that is no longer standard build. BTW - I fiddled with my watt meter and this thing just sips... Seems to idle around 3.6 to 4.1 watts. Did some measurements during 2 hours of streaming, and did some math it seems it would only use about 2.9 kWh per month if on all the time. My spinning HDD uses more than that - could justify that SSD upgrade in the future. I found another box with a S905 (I think) in my recycle bin - I might look at optimizing that for retro gaming. We will see what happens next. Do you have a favorite gaming ROM or experience? Anyway - best of luck and keep the faith!

Hey buddy - thanks so much for the support. I really appreciate all you do.

I have got my T95Z Plus with S912 booting 6.12.24-current-meson64 just fine now. Getting Jellyfin up and running with all my old DVDs and CDs. Seems very capable. When do I push the OS into the eMMC? Is there a downside? Are there only so many times I can do this safely? If I chose to try the Debian builds - don't I just boot from a SD card and try it out? If I like that one better - then don't I just repeat the process and push that onto the eMMC? I believe I have the Android Source - or more precisely - I have a rom called SuperCelleron that I installed almost 10 years ago... That still boots when I don't have an SD card in. Also - visual inspection of this board proves I have an eMMC. I have another box that is identical outside. But on the inside it clearly has a NAND chip. I am sure this is a silly question - but just thought I'd ask. Thanks all.

Take apart your tv box. Take pictures of all the components inside. Looking for your exact part number of your wifi module - mine was AP6330. Then I googled and found this person solved it on their tv box. But the procedure might work for other wifi chipsets. Just have a look in /lib/firmware/brcm and you will see plenty of them. Plus I believe that is the broadcom designs. Going up one level there are even more. WARNING - Not an expert... but this trick worked for me. Good Luck.

TV Box Name: Sunvell T95Z plus Octagon shaped box (Beware – apparently a lot of variants) CPU Amlogics S912 Armbian build file name: Armbian_community_25.5.0-trunk.370_Aml-s9xx-box_noble_current_6.12.23 DTB file used: meson-gxm-vega-s96.dtb (but several seem to work… none with wifi out of the box) Kernel Version: 6.12.24 Distribution Installed (focal, buster, etc): Noble Working Ethernet (Yes/No): Yes Max Ethernet Speed that works (100/1000): Not sure how to determine... Does wifi work (Yes/No): YES *** See Below Does bluetooth work (Yes/No): Not tested Does HDMI audio work (Yes/No): Yes Additional Comments (provide any additional information you feel is important): Tested many files. Ubuntu (noble) seemed much more usable than Debian (bookworm) Also tested Armbian_community_25.5.0-trunk.334_Aml-s9xx-box_bookworm_current_6.12.21 _gnome_desktop.img.xz Armbian_community_25.5.0-trunk.334_Aml-s9xx-box_noble_current_6.12.21 _gnome_desktop.img.xz Armbian_community_25.5.0-trunk.334_Aml-s9xx-box_oracular_edge_6.14.0 _gnome_desktop.img.xz Armbian_community_25.5.0-trunk.334_Aml-s9xx-box_oracular_edge_6.14.0.img.xz Since I am trying to learn server/media center/adguard or pihole stuff – chose the server headless install eventually. Learning has started. **** Thank you thank you to @ZuiMelanieForno and their post here: But basically looks like the easy way is to create a soft link of the ap6330 driver file as the brcm4330 file that must be loaded by default. sudo mv /lib/firmware/brcm/brcmfmac4330-sdio.txt /lib/firmware/brcm/brcmfmac4330-sdio.txt.old sudo ln -s /lib/firmware/brcm/brcmfmac-ap6330-sdio.txt /lib/firmware/brcm/brcmfmac4330-sdio.txt Not sure of this solution will survive update. (UPDATE: Confirmed - it does not survive update - but doing the commands again and a reboot seemed to work.) I have installed pihole and had it running. I had jellyfin running. Rebuilt from 0 again and am trying to do inside of docker containers. Dockers seems running but still some learning to go. If I write my sd to my eMMC – can reset to 0 again by booting from an sd card … and when ready burn that to eMMC? Or should I keep the writes to the eMMC as few as possible? I own two of these boxes – Identical on the outside but the newer one (bought probably 1 year later) does NOT have an eMMC. It has the dreaded NAND chip(BiWIN 16GB)… Also a different wifi module I think…. (LTM8830) Oh and – can I just say I love pulling this thing out of retirement and having a tiny low cost media server in the house. Thanks @balbes150 and @SteeMan and Everyone for their hard work! This is amazing... until I blow it up again...