remlei

while you can do a supervised install of Home Assistant on this box, I recommend getting a 2GB RAM variants specially if your going to run esphome to compile the firmware, 1GB RAM will literally crash the box during firmware compilation, all of that because of the very limited 1GB RAM. Else, if you can run HA without esphome, it works fine. Make sure to use a high endurance SD card as your storage for all the database logs, configurations. etc... just spare the eMMC for system use. Heck there are times that its actually much better to run armbian on SD card with home assistant because eMMC on these cheap boxes are really slow, specially the eMCP variants.

TV Box Status Information Template Version 1.0
TV Box Name: MXQ Pro 4k 5G (fake 16GB RAM/128GB ROM)
CPU: Allwinner H3
Armbian build file name: Armbian_21.08.1_Orangepipcplus_focal_current_5.10.60.img.xz / Armbian_21.08.1_Orangepipcplus_buster_current_5.10.60.img.xz (both works)
DTB file used: <none>
Kernel Version: 5.10.60
Distribution Installed: focal and buster
Working Ethernet (Yes/No): yes
Max Ethernet Speed that works (100/1000): 100M
Does wifi work (Yes/No): yes
Does bluetooth work (Yes/No): not available
Does HDMI audio work (Yes/No): yes
Additional Comments (provide any additional information you feel is important): all other functionalities for Orange Pi PC Plus is not available (eg OTG function of USB and no GPIO). You can also run "nand-sata-install" command to install armbian to emmc, works fine, no issues.

I successfully installed supervised install of HA using the images here https://users.armbian.com/jock/rk322x/armbian/stable/
 
what I did usually after armbian is installed is perform apt update and upgrade. after that I follow the most generic instruction how to install supervised install of HA, the only thing you need to watch out is install the right architecture for the os_agent.
 
after that its just a matter of how to fix that unsupported install to supported.
 
also a fair warning, do not install esphome on this box, the ram alone will make this box slow to crawl or worst crash the entire thing.

I successfully installed supervised install of HA using the images here https://users.armbian.com/jock/rk322x/armbian/stable/
 
what I did usually after armbian is installed is perform apt update and upgrade. after that I follow the most generic instruction how to install supervised install of HA, the only thing you need to watch out is install the right architecture for the os_agent.
 
after that its just a matter of how to fix that unsupported install to supported.
 
also a fair warning, do not install esphome on this box, the ram alone will make this box slow to crawl or worst crash the entire thing.

when you run the multitool, did it prompt you a message mentioning  that box your using is using NAND chip, if it does then you need to use legacy images which can be found here. You can only run later latest images via SD card or via USB with NAND bootloader upgrade.
 
and even if you try flashing non-legacy image on NAND system, it will just error out during early boot process mentioning it cant mount something.
 
to be honest if you have a NAND model, you might as well just use the SD card slot to run armbian.

These instructions are for Amlogic CPUs for TV Boxes. 
 
Note: If you have previously run other distributions on the box such as coreelec the below installation will not work.  You will need to restore the original android firmware before attempting the install.  coreelec changes the boot environment in ways that are incompatible with these Armbian builds.
 
Download links:
    Weekly Community Rolling Builds:  https://www.armbian.com/amlogic-s9xx-tv-box/
    or build your own image using the Armbian build framework
 
Once you download your chosen build, you need to burn the image to an SD card.  Generally balenaEtcher is recommended as it does a verification of the burn.  Also be sure to use high quality SD cards.
 
Once you have the SD card with your chosen build, then you need to edit the boot configuration file on the SD card.  In the BOOT partition of the SD card there will be a file /boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf, that you need to edit.  There will also be a extlinux.conf.template file to use as a reference.  You will need to add a line into the extlinux.conf file for the Device Tree (dtb) file you will be using for your box.  Place this line before the APPEND line as shown in the .template file.
 
Basically you need to have the correct dtb for your box.  You may need to attempt to use different dtb files until you find the one that works the best for your box's hardware (there are a bunch of dtb files in /boot/dtb/amlogic/... to try depending on your cpu architecture and hardware).  It is unlikely that there will be a matching dtb file for your TV box.  The idea is to find the one that works best for your box.  This may mean that you try booting with different dtb files until you fine one that works good enough for your needs.  By searching the forums you will find information about what dtbs other users have found work best for different boxes.  Because you are booting from an SD card, you can easily try different dtb files.  The dtd files are named by cpu family.  So for example dtb files for the s905x2 cpu are named meson-g12a-*.  Below there is a table that shows the identifiers for each familiy (g12a for s905x2 in this case).
 
Next you need to copy the correct uboot for your box.  This is needed for how these builds boot on amlogic boxes.  There are four different u-boot files located in the /boot directory:  u-boot-s905, u-boot-s905x-s912, u-boot-s905x2-s922, u-boot-s905x3
You need to copy (note copy not move) the u-boot file that matches your cpu to a new file named u-boot.ext in the /boot directory
So for example with a TX3 mini box that has an s905w cpu you would copy u-boot-s905x-s912 to u-boot.ext: cp u-boot-s905x-s912 u-boot.ext
(See table below for more details on which u-boot to use for which cpu)
 
Once you have your SD card prepared you need to enable multiboot on the box.  There are different ways documented to do this, but the most common is the "toothpick" method.  The "toothpick" method means to hold the reset button while applying power to the box.  The reset button is often hidden and located at the back of the audio/video jack connector.  By pressing that button with a toothpick or other such pointed device you can enable multiboot.  What you need to do is have the box unplugged, have your prepared sd card inserted, then press and hold the button while inserting the power connector.  Then after a bit of time you can release the button.  (I don't know exactly how long you need to hold the button after power is applied, but if it doesn't work the first time try again holding for longer or shorter times).
 
You should now be booting into armbian/linux.  Note that the first boot takes longer as it is enlarging the root filesystem to utilize the entire SD card.
 
After you are satisfied that your box is working correctly for your needs you can optionally copy the installation from the SD card to internal emmc storage (assuming your box has emmc). (Note: Installing to emmc has some risks of bricking your box.  Don't do this unless you feel you understand how to reinstall your box's android firmware)  You install armbian to emmc by running the shell script in the /root directory: install-aml.sh. Note: It is not possible to install into emmc on boxes with the s905 cpu (s905x, s905w, s905x2, etc however should all be supported).  It is recommended that you make a backup of emmc first.  Also be prepared if anything goes horribly wrong with your emmc install to reinstall the android firmware using the Amlogic USB Burning Tool to unbrick your device.  If you have or can find an original android firmware on the internet and you can generally (but not always) recover a bricked box using the Amlogic tool and the original firmware file.
 
 
Mapping from CPU to uboot and dtb:
 
u-boot-s905
s905 - gxbb
 
u-boot-s905x2-s912
S905X - gxl
S905W - gxl
S905D - gxl
S905L - gxl
S805X - gxl
S912 - gxm
A311D - gxm
 
u-boot-s905x2-s922
S905X2 - g12a
S922 - g12b
 
u-boot-s905x3
S905X3 - sm1
 
Not supported or not tested
S805 -
S905W2 -
S905X4 -
S805X2 - s4
A113D - axg
A113X - axg
 
 
 
Note: Followup posts in this thread should be limited to comments to improve or better understand these instructions.  Other issues should be posted as new questions in the Amlogic CPU Boxes sub-forum.

be warned guys that the nightly image have ethernet issues, you basically loose your wired network connection and flood the dmesg with rk_gmac-dwmac up 100mbit and shortly follow with rk_gmac-dwmac link down
 
reflashing it with older image doesnt fix it, even with the 5.15.25 images, the only solution to fix this is reflash the android image and reflash stable armbian_22.02 image.
 
they probably effed up something on the u-boot when i flashed the latest nightly.

I have uploaded the OpenWRT-22.03-rc6 image for rk322x on my google drive here's the link:
 
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MxEDd1COSNiQDrocZLgSscracWDXdVqT/view?usp=sharing


NOTES/INSTRUCTIONS:

The .dtb for booting is the GENERIC rk3229 from LibreELEC made by @ilmich.
Other .dtb files are in the FIRST PARTITION (fat32/boot) of the image. Copy & overwrite the one you prefer to rk322x-box.dtb. i.e.:

Once the box has booted, enter the console via an attached keyboard and:

mount /dev/mmcblk0p1 /mnt
cp /mnt/<name of the dtb you prefer>.dtb /mnt/rk322x-box.dtb
umount /mnt
reboot

The .dtb files are fom LIbreELEC 10 - check this post

https://forum.libreelec.tv/thread/25236-unofficial-rk3228-rk3229-libreelec-10-x-builds/

on "supported devices" for names/clock etc.

 ON FIRST BOOT the eth0 (br-lan) interface has default IP to 192.168.1.1

SOMETIMES ON FIRST BOOT - AND ONLY FIRST ONE - eth0 gets "stuck" and does not respond: to make it work just enter the console with an attached keyboard and do a

ping 192.168.1.xxx

with xxx as a "live" host on your network: after a couple of pings the interface responds. It happened to me a couple of times, just on FIRST BOOT. Once you configure the interface in OpenWRT everything is ok.

Point your browser to 192.168.1.1, configure OpenWRT.

P.S. obviously you have to configure br-lan with an appropriate gateway/dns to install/upgrade packages.

Check OpenWRT docs if in doubt.

WIFI is disabled by default: to enable it, do :

echo <name of wifi module> > /etc/modules.d/<name of wifi module>

example:

echo ssv6051 > /etc/modules.d/ssv6051

(do not enable ssv6051: for some reason it slows down everything)


Enjoy.
 

Announce:
 
Hello, I want to announce that Community Supported Configuration (CSC) board images are now built again by Armbian servers on a weekly basis!
This means that you can now download images for CSC boards (including rk322x-box) browsing from https://github.com/armbian/community
 
Images are built from trunk, GPG-signed and SHA-sum is provided.
 
Feel free to donate if you find this useful and wish to offer support to the Armbian developers and maintainers.
 
Enjoy!