kentAVR

After several months of development, we finally bring desktop development to the daily driver state. Our desktop builds follow KISS philosophy. They are build around proven technology, we are not touching things that are done well. Just fixing things here and there and removing most / hopefully all bloatware that is added upstream. We are preparing a wide selection of desktop variants
 
 
while we will officially only support a few of them but anyone is welcome to join and tweak / support its desktop of choice. We will support you in best possible manner! And this way things starts the voyage to become officially supported one day. Only if you join. We can't take more load.
 
        

We support XFCE since early days and that will remain primary desktop since it represent a best combination between functionality, speed and beauty. Second desktop, which we are adding now is Gnome because its clean and most stable among advanced / bulky desktops. It can ran fairly smooth as low as on Allwinner H5 / 1Gb memory, while it runs very well on some RK3399 hardware. In both cases it uses open source 3D acceleration - Lima and Panfrost. New desktop option will be added gradually, but for now:

Orange pi 4: Budgie, Gnome, Cinnamon, Gnome, Mate
https://www.armbian.com/orange-pi-4/
 
Pinebook PRO: Gnome
https://www.armbian.com/pinebook-pro/
 
Nanopi T4: Budgie, Gnome, Cinnamon, Gnome, Mate
https://www.armbian.com/nanopc-t4/
 
Nanopi M4V2: Budgie, Gnome, Cinnamon, Gnome, Mate
https://www.armbian.com/nanopi-m4-v2/
 
What about others?

- ASAP. Those are semi manual builds, some are manually tested and it takes a lot of time. On top of that we are having some infrastructure troubles ATM ...
- we still need to fix few minor bugs, before we put on stamp as "supported" even those builds are IMO generally in a better shape then other images on the market
- you can help by testing and enabling specific builds by sending a PR to this file. https://github.com/armbian/build/blob/master/config/targets.conf It will help to get things up faster.

According to my small internal mini research, ideas were mixed - there were few thoughts:
 
- if BASH stays on minimal, no problem
- don't ask, just change it
- debian sucks. it even can't remember what i typed (arch and macos users)
 
If you don't want change - you can use BASH logic. Its backward compatibility ... but I am ZSH user. I am biased and will use it anyway ...  Let's see.

Armbian_20.02.0-rc1.030_Arm-64_bionic_current_5.5.0-rc6_desktop_20200129
 
amirul@rk3399:~$ cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/01-armbian-defaults.conf
...
    Option      "AccelMethod"    "glamor"     ### "glamor" to enable 3D acceleration, "none" to disable.
...
 
amirul@rk3399:~$ glxinfo |grep OpenGL
OpenGL vendor string: panfrost
OpenGL renderer string: panfrost
OpenGL version string: 2.1 Mesa 19.2.1
OpenGL shading language version string: 1.20
OpenGL extensions:
OpenGL ES profile version string: OpenGL ES 2.0 Mesa 19.2.1
OpenGL ES profile shading language version string: OpenGL ES GLSL ES 1.0.16
 
Seems usable, lets see what happens...
... online video in chromium slightly jerky with some weird clicking noise

Doing this should probably trigger it.  https://github.com/armbian/build/blob/master/lib/distributions.sh#L157

Also take a look at 

https://github.com/armbian/build/blob/master/lib/distributions.sh#L372-L379

 

Might be related to https://github.com/armbian/build/blob/master/packages/bsp/common/lib/systemd/system/armbian-firstrun-config.service#L9
 

Probably best to keep conversation here for now.  Mostly we use issues in GitHub for major bugs / problems

hi @kentAVR

Sorry I see that the confusion was now.  It was around user provided Kernel Configuration vs user provide Kernel Source Config.

here's an example of a kernel source config you could override.. https://github.com/armbian/build/blob/master/config/sources/families/rockchip64.conf

and yes, yourre correct, the pattern for providing a kernel build config in the top of the userpatches/ folder following the appropriate naming convention.

You will probably need to access u-boot via serial console if that doesn't work.

Using customize-image.sh to create an image.  Add to or replace script:
#!/bin/bash # remove new user prompt rm /root/.not_logged_in_yet # change to weak password echo "root:qwerty" | chpasswd If you are trying to do this from official images.  After writing image to sdcard, mount, chroot, and run above.  Or mount, remove .not_logged_in_yet, and manually create new password by using mkpasswd and insert into /etc/shadow.  For more info, check man pages for shadow, mkpasswd.
 
Edit: For official images; mount sdcard, create /boot/armbian_first_run.txt and copy code into the file.  It should exec them on first run.

I am building a legacy desktop image for Rock64 and there are a few things I am trying to customize at build time.  I modified userpatches/customize-image.sh, but I am not getting expected results.  Here are some things I am trying to modify:
 
1. I want to have the desktop come up in solid black color, no image.  I made the following changes to userpatches/customize-image.sh:
 
    gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.background picture-options 'none'
    gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.background primary-color '#000000'
 
But I am still seeing the Armbian image on my desktop.  What else do I have to modify?
 
2. I need to get rid of the prompt that asks for the root user password.  I added the following lines to userpatches/customize-image.sh:
 
rm -f /root/.not_logged_in_yet
echo -e "password\npassword" | (passwd root)
 
This got rid of the root password prompt, but now the image doesn't boot into the desktop GUI.  It stops at the Linux CLI prompt.  What else do I need to modify in customize-image.sh to make it boot into GUI?
 
3.  I need to create another user and I'd like to have my box automatically boot as this user.  I added the following lines to userpatches/customize-image.sh (in addition to stuff I added in #2 above):
 
    echo -e "$PW\n$PW\n\n" | (adduser new_user)
 
What else do I have to modify to make the box boot as this user?
 
4. I would like to get rid of Locale prompt and always choose en_US.UTF-8.  How would I do that?
 
5. I am trying to add a systemd startup script at build time.  I added the following lines to userpatches/customize-image.sh:
 
cp /tmp/overlay/*.service /lib/systemd/system
systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl enable myservice.service
 
I have myservice.service in userpatches/overlay directory.  But, the service doesn't start on my target.  
 
Thank you in advance for any help I can get!  Incidentally, it seems like I can only post to this forum once in a 24 hour period.  How can I get past this restriction?  My answers may be delayed due to this.

Really thanks for this. It gives me a lot more to go on.
I'll do more work in the next day or so, and be back with some updates - HOPEFULLY with some guidance to offer others, if successful!
 
The ""${SDCARD}"/root/.not_logged_in_yet" is a GREAT hint!
It's the opposite of touching a flag in the file system, so of course finding it in a configured system is impossible! I'd have taken a long time, before I got to it in the script sources.
 
— Jeremiah

I already explained in my 1st reply. copy https://github.com/armbian/build/blob/master/packages/bsp/common/usr/lib/armbian/armbian-firstlogin#L297-L304 exchange $realusername with your username and paste.

Yep...
 
edit /etc/default/nodm
 
Make sure these two lines are set correctly,,,

 
# Set NODM_ENABLED to something different than 'false' to enable nodm NODM_ENABLED=true # User to autologin for NODM_USER=your_user_name  

All boards have the same procedure for updating u-boot, but we are behind with updating documentation ...
 
armbian-config -> system -> install to eMMC/USB/... -> "Update U-boot"