Mindaugas Idzelis

Maybe I should have said - will have to see what this little board is capable of... My main project/use-case is ... I need a surefire way to remote access/login to my in-laws router/network, in case it malfunctions. Problem is they are behind a CNAT, and do not have publicly routable ip addresses. I purchased this $25 (mainly because it was $25, had 2 ethernet interfaces + wifi, and a really nice metal case all included) so I could set up a vpn (wireguard or openvpn) that will reverse-connect to MY publicly routable home ip address. Then, all I have to do is set up some proper routing tables, and away I go. I'll be able to login and remotely manage their routers, even if everything else is failing. Makes my life a bit easier. Not too bad for $25. So far, I like armbian a lot --- perfect support for the nano-pi r1, including ethernet and wifi. Both official and dietpi images seemed less refined. I like that the console seems to scroll-off the screen when using picocom/screen, unlike the other images where the scrollback buffer is oldschool, erasing the buffer as it writes. The scrollback buffer alone is worth it. Using the external UART is nice, in that I can leave the cover of the SBC on. But, it was hard to discover -- not sure if possible to make the image have a console on both DBG UART and the UART1, but maybe at least add a note to the download page.

Actually, that worked. For the DietPi/Official images the "DBG UART" worked, but for this Armbian image, only the external UART "uart1" is working. Labeld according to this diagram: http://wiki.friendlyarm.com/wiki/images/4/43/NanoPi_R1-layout.jpg So, I'm all booted! Time to figure out what Armbian can do ;-)

Yeah, I'm connected to the debug UART. There is another UART connector, which is external. I'm going to try connecting to that instead. Its powered via a CanaKit 5V 2.5A microusb power supply.

Correct. I used the exact same card. After the failed armbian image boot, I went back to friendlyarm image, and it worked fine. Are there any debug parameters I can enable?

I'm trying to load Armbian on my NanoPi R1, but it doesn't boot. I've been able to boot it successfully with https://www.friendlyarm.com/ official image, and also various (unsupported) DietPi images. I tried Armbian_21.02.3_Nanopi-r1_focal_current_5.10.21.img.xz using Balena Etcher to copy it to the SDCard on a Macbook laptop. Instead of seeing the uboot startup, the terminal remains completely empty. No idea where to start on debugging this. Please help! Thanks!