ghoul

This is a very good question.  I also have to decide whether I want a box with rk3318 or one with s905x2-s905x3.. What is better supported here and where is armbian more stable on?  Maybe an expert can say something about that 😁

Take note  that there is no guarantee that community-hacked Armbian versions will work on that hardware properly. TVboxes are like cancer on the SBC market. You can read more on that here: https://docs.armbian.com/User-Guide_FAQ/#i-have-a-tv-boxtablet-from-insert-random-vendor-can-i-use-armbian-on-it
 
 

from the mainline develop status view point,
Amlogic vdec is stopped, and Rockchip is still active developping.
 
Rockchip soc can use all upstream components, even uboot.
but Amlogic need vendor blob to create uboot.
 
Rockchip soc have Cursor plane, but amlogic doesn't. this is good for desktop use.
 
 

Armbian now has a community supported build target for amlogic TV Boxes (aml-s9xx-box).  You can now build your own builds directly with the Armbian build system.
 
This is now an opportunity for members of the community to move the support for amlogic TV boxes forward within the Armbian framework.  If you are not familiar with the Armbian build system check out the Armbian developer documentation.  If you have idea on how you would like to see things evolve/change please use this forum to share your thoughts and ideas and submit PRs for any code changes you would like to see.
 
I am currently testing this code against the four different amlogic based boxes I own, but would appreciate others testing as well.  Once I have completed my testing, I will be updating the FAQ amlogic install instructions with this information.

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.

There are a lot of cheap tv boxes with 8gb ram, so armbian will be very intersting. 

If somebody wants to waste time on it maybe. Nothing official however. Check https://docs.armbian.com/User-Guide_FAQ/#i-have-a-tv-box-from-insert-random-vendor-can-i-use-armbian-on-it

Personally, we still hope our hero @jock will take a look on rk3566 soon in near future. For now, I feel happy with my 3318 box.

HI! @SteeMan
 
I work with development for ARM-based products 
 
The Armbian community helped me a lot with my beginning in this area. That's why I want to help others as well 
 
So, I'm waiting for my order to arrive. It's two boxes with both Allwinner processors (H3 and H6)
 
And yeah! I accept the challenge
I'll have more material to share soon 
thank you!

H6 is newer an has a way better GPU on it, and also a higher clock. Between them, H6 wins 
 
And mine is a T95 Mini (TUREWELL). It didn't arrive yet. Soon I'll be able to give support to it 

The start system in Coreelec is not compatible with LibreELECE  Armbian  etc. If you run coreelec on your TV box, you will no longer be able to run LE and Armbian normally until the full recovery of the standard firmware via the USB Burn Tool and the new activation of the universal multi-boot, which is used in all new systems.
 
Questions that do not specify exact details (the exact image version, TV box model, detailed steps that were performed for DTB settings, and so on) will be ignored and deleted.
 
For all. I don't support s905x3. I don't have this equipment. All messages about this platform deleted. What works or doesn't work from this equipment - I don't know. I do not give any answers or comments on the s905x3 chip.
 
The build and publication of unified test images with a common core for the Rockchip Amlogic Allwinner platform begins.
 
Y-disk
https://yadi.sk/d/_rQgn_FosYuW0g
 
MEGA
https://mega.nz/#F!j9QSDQSQ!6WpasOlbZYIInfw6yo4phQ
 
Now you can download the latest versions of images and DEB packages from the official Armbian resource via the link. 
https://users.armbian.com/balbes150/
 
 
*********************************************************************************************************************************
Pay attention. Starting from version 20.08 (20200814), the configuration order for the used DTB changes.
 
Please note that the algorithm for initial configuration of the system for startup has changed. Instead of a file "uEnv.txt", the file "/extlinux/extlinux.conf " is now used. The rules for editing a file remain the same.
All Amlogic models now need the "u-boot.ext" file.
Before launching on Amlogic, you must copy or rename one of the existing files "u-boot-*" to "u-boot.ext".
 
For s905 (not X) - used u-boot-s905
For s905x and s912 - used u-boot-s905x-s912
For s905x2 and s922 - used u-boot-s905x2-s922
 
For g12a\g12b models, a single file is now used (files u-boot.sd and u-boot.usb now replaces one u-boot-s922 file).
For the Allwinner platform, you no longer need to rename the scripts "boot.scr".
All "boot.scr" scripts have been canceled and are not used.
 
*************************************************************************************************************************************
 
How to run these images on the Amlogic platform .
Now all images Armbian and LE has all the files for activate the multi-boot. Anything addition to download and copy to media is not required.
 
1. Download the image for your device
2. Unpack
3. Burn the image on the medium
4. Configure in the file (uEnv.txt) launch parameters for the desired platform and model (uncomment the desired lines and comment out or delete unused ones)
 
If universal multi-upload has not yet been activated on this device, you need to activate it once. There are several options for activating multi-loading.
 
option A
- Connect the prepared media to the device and turn on the power, boot into Android
- Open the app "Update&Backup"
- Click on "Select" local update and chose the file on the removable media aml_autoscript.zip
- Start "Update"
- System will reboot twice and start running the system from external media.
 
option B
-  try using the "toothpick method"
 
 
How to run these images on the Rockchip and Allwinner platform .
1. Download the image for your device
2. Unpack
3. Burn the image on the medium
4. Configure in the file (uEnv.txt) launch parameters for the desired platform and model (uncomment the desired lines and comment out or delete unused ones)
5. If your device does not support USB startup , you can only use SD cards and you need to add the correct u-boot to the SD card (for details on how to add it, see the text of this message)
6. Connect the prepared media to the device and turn on the power
 
Please note that the DTB configuration order has changed.
Now a single configuration method is used for all Rockchip Allwinner Amlogic platforms. The file (uEnv.txt) is used for configuration DTB all platforms. 
Now a single configuration method is used for all platforms, using the file (uEnv.txt). You need to edit this file to configure it. You need to uncomment the two lines that are responsible for your platform and specify the correct DTB for your model. If you use this image to run on the one platform, you can delete it from the settings file (uEnv.txt) strings from other platforms.
 
Need to pick up the option for the file system will run. Pay attention, after you add\change the dtb file, you need to try to run the system and waiting to run 7-10 minutes. If not happened, repeat with a different dtb file.
 
Pay attention.
The installation algorithm in eMMC has changed. My recommend that you perform a clean installation in eMMC. Be sure to make a full backup of eMMC before installing it in eMMC.
The system installation scripts in eMMC have changed accordingly. If you have a system with eMMC core 5 installed on RK33xx, it is advisable to perform a clean installation in eMMC to upgrade to the new version. 
 
For the aw H6 platform, all scripts are already in the image (which have the ending aw). You need to rename the files with the replacement (remove the ".aw" ending).
 
Fix for correct color to G12 (Amlogic S905X2 S922X)
For models based on g12 (s905x2 s922), which have a problem not the correct color , 
If you are starting the system from an SD card, you need to copy file  u-boot.sd to u-boot.ext,
If you are starting the system from an USB, you need to copy file  u-boot.usb to u-boot.ext
When installing in eMMC, you do not need to do anything with your hands, the installation script itself will perform the necessary system configuration and when running from eMMC, the system will work with the correct color.
 
Please note, this version for the transition to the release of a single image for the platform Rockchip + Amlogic + Allwinner. The new image after writing to external media and after configuring the used dtb (and if necessary adding the desired u-boot option to run from the SD card on the Rockchip and Allwinner) can be used simultaneously on AML (s9xxx), RK (rk3399 and rk3328) and AW (H6). If the TV boxes RK (rk3328 and rk3399) and AW (H6) in eMMC installed a new version of u-boot  with support for starting the system with USB, adding u-boot to SD card is not required, the system will automatically start on with USB.
 
Important change. With this version (>= 20200218), you can easily add the desired u-boot on any PC (including Windows) .
 
To do this, new versions of u-boot are downloaded on the site.
 
https://yadi.sk/d/lTbXkrmZN5Hf6g
 
Rules for using the new u-boot option. Download, Armbian image, unpack. Write image Armbian to the SD card. Download and write the desired version of the u-boot file to SD card. Configure the DTB and the launch string (APPEND) in (uEnv.txt) for the desired model\platform.
 
Pay attention. Now you don't need to write u-boot with complex commands, you write the u-boot image with the same program as you usually write an Armbian image. This allows you to configure the system to run (including writing a u-boot image) on any PC (including Windows).
 
Pay attention. The new version changed the size of the partitions that are obtained when writing an image (all images have a fixed size of 5GB).  This u-boot entry option only applies to the new version 20200218 and subsequent versions. Don't try this for old images. This will not work on older images.
 
OLD add u-boot
 
 
 
For RK33xx
if you have windows and can't use the add u-boot commands to the SD card, use the SD+USB combination , write only the new u-boot to the SD card, and write the Armbian image to a USB storage device. And connect them together to the TV box.
 
To turn on the sound on models AML
where it is not present after the initial start. To enable audio , run the script (sound.sh).  You need to run the script
 
sudo sound.sh
 
 
 
Odroid N2
When starting from an SD card on Odroid N2, you must, after recording the image, write uboot to the SD card, configure uEnv.txt, additionally rename the script (boot.scr.aw) in (boot.scr). To be able to start any system from any media (USB SD eMMC), i'm recommend using the updated version of u-boot-SPI. Details about u-boot-SPI for Odroid N2 can be found here.
 
 
 
 

In terms of mainline support this should be possible if the device tree is known since lots of stuff for rk3568 has been spotted in the Linux ARM mailing list.
However it seems like only initial support has been approved yet and is up to being released with 5.13.
 

A test version of the image Armbian for TV boxes on the basis of RK3328. Tested on MVR9
http://freaktab.com/forum/tv-player-support/rockchip-based-tv-players/rk3328-devices/653167-bqeel-mvr9-rk3328-quad-core-64bit-cortex-a53-android-7-2-16gb-2-4ghz-wifi-bt4
 
All basic functions work. For running. Download. Unpack. To record on the SD card. Connect the SD card to TV box, connect a keyboard and mouse. To turn the power on the TV box. The system should start within 2-3 minutes. You must perform the initial configuration of Armbian.

https://yadi.sk/d/DSO6euzB3ahemo
 
https://mega.nz/#F!zoZywCTQ!9sNfXIAB3m_DyLl5I8P94w
 
The system of choosing the correct dtb has changed.
Please note, now it should be done on a different principle (files do not need to be copied).
To select the desired dtb, you need to change the line in the text file "/extlinux/extlinux.conf". In the line "FDT" you need to change the name of the file that the system will use at startup. The list of available files (names to specify in the configuration) can be found in the "dtb"directory. If you do not know exactly what file you need , you can enter all available names in turn and check the operation of the system. In accordance with this, the system installation script in eMMC has been changed. The steps to install the system on the eMMC remain the same.
 
Added a utility to full backup and restore the entire eMMC "ddbr". Checked mode the backup MVR9. Now if you try to check the recovery mode.
 
The order of installation in eMMC.
 
1. Download, unzip and burn the image to SD card.
2. Start Armbian on the TV box and perform the initial setup of the system.
3. If the system works correctly and you are satisfied, run the utility "ddbr" and create a full backup of eMMC (this is a prerequisite).
4. Rename the file "/boot/mvr9-uboot.img" in "/boot/uboot.img".
5. Run as user "root" script "/boot/create-mbr-linux.sh"
6. To run the script "/root/install.sh"
 
Pay attention to the correct operation of the installation procedure need to comply strictly with the order of the steps.

New version ArmbianTV of images for RK3288 and RK3188.
 
 
rk3288 \ rk3188
 
https://mega.nz/#F!j9QSDQSQ!6WpasOlbZYIInfw6yo4phQ
 
rk3188
https://disk.yandex.ru/d/7wqSh5Z5bv9q1g?w=1
 
rk3288
https://disk.yandex.ru/d/fRZwre9HDgAKHw?w=1
 
 
 
 
This link contains images with Libreelec for rk3288 and  rk3188, testing these images can help with the development of media functions for rk3288 and rk3188.
 
https://disk.yandex.ru/d/8vNYuuxynz1L0w?w=1

EDIT: This how-to is slightly out-of-date, because now the complete images for RK3318 boxes are available here. Thanks to community, especially to @jock.
 
Hello all,
I would like to summarize the required steps to boot armbian on device with RK3318 chip.
I have a X88 Pro device already mentioned here.
I am quite skilled but information are spread in many posts and I spent lot of time to have a clear picture.
Note that instructions below are valid at this time when I am writing it - some things can change in the time...
And hope linux is your friend...
 
You need 4 files:
Armbian image (Links to download armbian image is in the first post of this thread) - thanks to @balbes150 U-boot image and DTB file for RK3318 from here - thanks to @hexdump trust.img file from here - thanks to @caruso  
 
 
As you see - actually Armbian 20.10 builds are in the file.
Select the image for installation according your needs:
   smaller files have no graphical desktop (only terminal/command line)    bigger (desktop) files are full Graphical desktop releases    buster and bullseye are the Debian releases    focal and bionic are Ubuntu releases  
I selected the Ubuntu desktop.
Uncompress selected image:
xz -d Armbian_20.10_Arm-64_focal_current_5.9.0_desktop.img.xz  
Burn the uncompressed image to the SD card:
dd if=Armbian_20.10_Arm-64_buster_current_5.9.0.img of=/dev/<yoursdcard> bs=10M status=progress  
Change <yoursdcard> as needed. In my case the SD card is /dev/sda so my command was:
dd if=Armbian_20.10_Arm-64_buster_current_5.9.0.img of=/dev/sda bs=10M status=progress  
 
Then you need to burn U-boot and Trust Images:
dd if=uboot-rk3318.img of=/dev/<yoursdcard> seek=16384 dd if=trust.img of=/dev/<yoursdcard> seek=24576  
Again change <yoursdcard> as needed...
Now flush the cached writes to the SD card.
sync  
Now remove the SD card from computer and re-insert back.
You should see the two partitions on SD card - BOOT and ROOTFS.
 
Copy the DTB file (rk3318-t9-mainline.dtb) to the folder /dtb/rockchip/ in BOOT partition.
And edit the file /extlinux/extlinux.conf in boot partition to use this DTB.
You can remove commented lines (# at the beginning).
My file looks like this - APPEND line is taken from RK3328 part:
LABEL Armbian LINUX /zImage INITRD /uInitrd # rk-3318 FDT /dtb/rockchip/rk3318-t9-mainline.dtb APPEND root=LABEL=ROOTFS rootflags=data=writeback rw console=uart8250,mmio32,0xff130000 console=tty0 no_console_suspend consoleblank=0 fsck.fix=yes fsck.repair=yes net.ifnames=0  
After editing flush the writes by sync command again, and remove the SD card from computer.
Insert SD card to your RK3318 device and boot...
 
You can experiment with different DTB files and settings... Good luck.

Welcome to the world of Armbian on TV Boxes!
 
TV Boxes are not officially supported by the Armbian project.  This "TV Box" sub forum is for users interested in experimenting with Armbian on TV Boxes.
 
Overall you will be best served if you set your expectations low as to what you might be able to accomplish with your TV Box and Armbian.  Specifically you should think of your TV Box as a potential linux server - *not* as a desktop replacement.
 
Feel free to post and ask questions in the TV Box forums if you are interested.  But realize this is a peer-to-peer forum so you may or may not get an answer.  Don't expect or demand support as there are only a handful of people that participate in these forums and they are all donating their time.
 
Search is your friend.  There is a lot of historic information stored on this site.  Your question has likely already been asked previously.  However, a lot has changed over time and therefore be prepared for a lot of the information you find by searching the forums to be outdated and in some cases just plain wrong.  Even though that may be the case, please search the forums first before posting a question.  It shows you are willing to invest the time to do your part and makes those of us who volunteer our time to answering questions more likely to want to help you.
 
 
Amlogic (S9xx) based TV Boxes
1. There is a community build for Amlogic based s9xx TV Boxes - The key being community - so please contribute to make improvements
2. A single developer (@balbes150) had worked years on getting things to the state they are.
3. As of October 14th, 2020 balbes150 removed support for Amlogic CPUs, so that is the last active build from him
4. Expectations should be set low (i.e. don't expect anything to work) but if you do get the box to boot, get HDMI and wired ethernet to work, you are doing good.
5. You really shouldn't expect things like Wi-Fi, bluetooth, remote control, etc. to work.
6. There is a very small number of people on this forum/club that are able to provide any guidance.
7. Most likely no one on this forum owns your specific box and therefore generally can only provide vague guideance.
8. If you get this working on your box, it will likely only be useful for server type tasks, maybe a little light graphical desktop usage, but do not expect video playback, etc.
 
RockChip (rk3399, rk3328, rk3288, rk3228, etc) based TV Boxes
These are probably the best supported TV boxes currently.  They have the most active developers.  Feel free to post in the Rockchip TV Box sub forums your questions.
 
Allwinner (H6, H616, H313) based TV Boxes
There is no ongoing effort to support Allwinner based boxes.  Occasionally a developer will respond to a question, but in general if this is what you have, you will be expected to do a lot of work on your own, so you better be comfortable doing development for these type of boards.  You aren't likely to find anything that you can just install and have work.
 
Other Comments
The official recommendation from the Armbian project would be to not use TV Boxes and use officially supported SBCs. Taking this approach will likely result in an easier time, less hassle, better support and likely a more fully functioning device.
 
There are reasons you may choose to want to use unsupported Armbian on TV boxes, for example here are some of my ( @SteeMan ) reasons:
 
1) It is a challenge and therefore a learning opportunity.  I would never have learnt to build my own linux kernels from source if I was still exclusively using x86 hardware.  If you want a challenge you will find it here.
 
2) Price vs specs.  The Android TV boxes are built to be cheap consumer devices.  They are produced in larger quantities which drives down the per unit price.  You will generally not be able to get the same level of hardware for the same price with a standard SBC.  But that cheapness comes with - no support by the manufacturers and potentially sub-standard components.  If the manufacturers goal is to sell the lowest price box they are likely cutting corners somewhere to make that happen.
 
3) emmc is standard.  TV boxes always come with internal storage while most SBCs do not.  Again from a price/performance standpoint having internal emmc storage vs running off an SD card is a plus.  emmc storage *should* be faster and more durable than storage on an sd card.  The caveats here being that this is one of the areas that the manufacturers may cut corners.  For example I have two TX3 mini boxes that are supposed to have 16GB of emmc memory (like the other TX3 mini boxes I have), but they were instead manufactured with cheaper nand memory for which there is no mainline kernel support.  There is no visible difference between the identically packaged boxes that had emmc vs those that came with nand, other than opening the case and looking at the physical chips on the boards.
 
4) cases come standard.  TV boxes always come with cases, whereas for SBCs that is an extra cost.  For my uses having a case is a big improvement vs not having one.  A downside if that these cases are not necessarily well designed to provide adequate cooling.  So depending on your use case, overheating might be a problem.
 
5) While I own both SBCs and TV boxes, I personally find the TV boxes work best for my needs (running server based software) and I enjoy the challenge of getting them running and keeping them running with the great underlying work that the Armbian project is doing to build on top of.
 
If you have the correct expectations (set your expectations low) are looking to learn and are up for a challenge these are fun things to work with.  And I look forward to working with you on these forums.
 
 

The following template should be used to report a working TV Box running Armbian.  The purpose of this template is to gather consistent and complete information.
 
To submit a report of a working TV Box start a new topic in this sub-forum with the name of the TV box as the title and copy/paste this template into the post and provide the requested information.
 
Note:  Only report status using dtb files that are part of the image and therefore available to all users from a standard source.  If you have used another dtb file, please mention that in the comments along with where the source code for the dtb is located and what the custom dtb improved.
Note: You will need to install/enable a desktop environment to gather all of the below information (i.e. hdmi audio)
 
TV Box Status Information Template Version 1.0
TV Box Name (example: TX3 mini):
CPU (example: amlogic s905w):
Armbian build file name:
DTB file used:
Kernel Version:
Distribution Installed (focal, buster, etc):
Working Ethernet (Yes/No):
Max Ethernet Speed that works (100/1000):
Does wifi work (Yes/No):
Does bluetooth work (Yes/No):
Does HDMI audio work (Yes/No):
Additional Comments (provide any additional information you feel is important):
 
 

DISCLAIMERS (PLEASE READ):
Everything you can find in this thread (binaries, texts, code snippets, etc...) are provided AS-IS and are not part of official Armbian project. For this reason not people from Armbian project nor myself are responsible for misuse or loss of functionality of hardware. THIS POST explains very well the troubles with TV Boxes and why they are not suitable for everyone Please don't ask about support or assistance in other non-community forums nor in the official Armbian github repository, instead post your questions in this thread, in the TV Boxes forum section (hardware related) or in the Peer-to-peer support section (general linux/software related).  
Following the recent thread on LibreElec forum about an unofficial image for rk3229 devices, I would like to make public the work made by me and @fabiobassa about bringing rk322x support to armbian.
The project is now in -> mainline Armbian <- development fork -> here <-
 
This first page and the last 3 or 4 pages of the thread are enough to get up to date with recent developments.
Many useful experiences are scattered through the thread, but the most important things are collected here in the first page, so please read it carefully!
 
Mainline kernel is fully supported and will receive most support in the future. Legacy kernel 4.4 is deprecated, but is kept around only for special purposes.
 
What works:
Should boot and work flawlessy on all boards with RK3228a, RK3228b and RK3229, with either DDR2 and DDR3 memories. Mainline u-boot Proprietary OPTEE provided as Trusted Execution Environment (needed for DRAM frequency scaling) All 4 cores are working Ethernet Serial UART (configured at 115200 bps, not 1.5Mbps!) Thermals, CPU and DRAM frequency scaling OTG USB 2.0 port (also as boot device!) EHCI/OHCI USB 2.0 ports MMC subsystem (including eMMC, SD and sdio devices) Hardware video acceleration NAND is available only on legacy kernel. To fully boot from NAND, use the Multitool and its steP-nand installation (instructions are below) Various WIFI over SDIO are supported (SSV6051P, SSV6256P, ESP8089, Realtek chips, etc...), ssv6256p driver is available only on legacy kernel Full GPU acceleration U-boot boot order priority: first the sdcard, then the USB OTG port and eventually the internal eMMC; you can install u-boot (and the whole system) in the internal eMMC and u-boot will always check for images on external sdcard/USB first.  
Unbrick:
Technically, rockchip devices cannot be bricked. If the internal flash does not contain a bootable system, they will always boot from the sdcard. If, for a reason, the bootable system on the internal flash is corrupted or is unable to boot correctly, you can always force the maskrom mode shorting the eMMC clock pin on the PCB. Here there is the procedure, but you can also google around if you get stuck on a faulty bootloader, the technique is pretty simple and requires a simple screwdriver.
 
There are however some unfortunate cases (expecially newer boards) where shorting the eMMC clock pin is difficult or impossibile, like eMMC or eMCP BGA chips with no exposed pins. In those cases pay double attention when burning something on the internal eMMC/eMCP and always test first the image from the sdcard to be sure it works before burning anything on eMMC/eMCP.
 
Some useful links with pins, pads or procedures for some boards:
Generic procedure for boards with non-BGA eMMC MXQPRO_V71 - eMCP H20 - eMCP ZQ01 - eMCP  
NAND vs eMMC vs eMCP difference:
RK3228 and RK3229 tv boxes comes with three different flash memory chips: eMMC, NAND and eMCP.
It does not depend upon the market name of the tv box and neither the internal board; manufacturers put whatever they find cheaper when they buy the components.
 
NAND chip is just the non-volatile memory eMMC chip contains both the non-volatile memory plus a controller. eMCP chip contains the non-volatile memory, a controller for the non-volatile memory (like eMMC), but also contains a bank of DDR SDRAM memory on the same physical chip.  
The difference is very important, because eMMC and eMCP are far easier to support at various levels: the controller deals with the physical characteristics of the non-volatile memory, so the software has no to deal with.
NAND chips instead are harder to support, because the software is required to deal with the physical characteristics and non-standard things that depends upon the NAND manufacturer.
 
If you have a NAND chips you're unlucky because mainline kernel currently cannot access it, but also because you need special care and instructions explained later.
 
You can discover if you have a NAND, eMMC or eMCP chip looking on the board are reading the signature on the flash memory chip.
The Multitool (see later) also can detect which chip you have onboard: the program will warn you at startup if you have a NAND chip.
 
NAND bootloader upgrade:
IMPORTANT: don't do this is you have an eMMC or eMCP; skip this paragraph if you are unsure too!
For very expert people who are having issues when (re)booting images, there is the chance to upgrade the bootloader on NAND.
The NAND bootloader is nothing else than a regular idbloader (see official rockchip documentation) but contains some bits to correctly access the data on your flash memory.
Upgrading requires to erase the existing flash content, in the worst case will require you to follow the Unbrick procedure above or restore an older but more compatible bootloader.
If you are not mentally ready to overcome possible further issues, don't do this!
 
The detailed instructions and the binaries are available at this post
 
Multimedia:
Mainline kernel: 3D acceleration is provided by Lima driver and is already enabled. Hardware video decoding: https://forum.armbian.com/topic/19258-testing-hardware-video-decoding-rockchip-allwinner/ Deprecated legacy kernel: multimedia features, like OpenGL/OpenGL ES acceleration, hardware accelerated Kodi, ffmpeg and mpv you can take a look to this post An effective tutorial from @Hai Nguyen on how to configure a box as a hi-quality music player using an USB audio card, and controlling it via remote control is available in this post  
Brief explanation about kernel naming:
current kernel is the mainline LTS kernel version, most maintained and tested. This is the suggested version for production devices. If you don't know what to pick, pick this. legacy kernel (version 4.4) is provided by manufacturer; it is deprecated, unmaintained and not suggested. edge kernel is the development mainline kernel version, with experimental features and drivers; usually stable but perhaps suitable for production devices.  
You can switch from one kernel flavour to another using armbian-config or manually via apt.
 
Installation (via SD card):
Building:
You can build your own image follow the common steps to build armbian for other tv boxes devices: when you are in the moment to choose the target board, switch to CSC/TVB/EOL boards and select "rk322x-box" from the list.
 
Download prebuilt images from the following links:
Archive builds (GPG-signed) - https://imola.armbian.com/dl/rk322x-box/archive/ SUGGESTED - Nightly built from trunk each week by Armbian servers (GPG-signed) - https://github.com/armbian/community Old images provided by me (unsigned and outdated) - https://users.armbian.com/jock/rk322x/armbian/stable  
Archived/older images:
https://armbian.hosthatch.com/archive/rk322x-box/archive/
 
Multitool:
The Multitool is a small but powerful tool to do quick backup/restore of internal flash, but also burn images and general system rescue and maintenance via terminal or SSH.
Compressed images will be uncompressed on fly.
Multitool - A small but powerful image for RK322x TV Box maintenance (instructions to access via network here)  
Quick installation instructions on eMMC:
Build or download your preferred Armbian image and a copy of the Multitool; Burn the Multitool on an SD card; once done, place the Armbian image in images folder of the SD card NTFS partition; Plug the SD card in the TV box and plug in the power cord. After some seconds the blue led starts blinking and the Multitool appears; OPTIONAL: you can do a backup of the existing firmware with "Backup flash" menu option; Choose "Burn image to flash" from the menu, then select the destination device (usually mmcblk2) and the image to burn; Wait for the process to complete, then choose "Shutdown" from main menu; Unplug the power cord and the SD card, then replug the power cord; Wait for 10 seconds, then the led should start blinking and HDMI will turn on. The first time the boot process will take a couple of minutes or more because the filesystem is going to be resized, so be patient and wait for the login prompt. On first boot you will be asked for entering a password for root user of your choice and the name and password for a regular user Run sudo rk322x-config and select your board characteristics to enable leds, wifi chips, high-speed eMMC, etc... Run sudo armbian-config to configure timezone, locales and other personal options Congratulations, Armbian is now installed and configured!  
Despite the procedure above is simple and reliable, I always recommend to first test that your device boots Armbian images from SD Card.
Due to the really large hardware variety, there is the rare chance that the images proposed here may not boot. If a bad image is burned in eMMC, the box may not boot anymore forcing you to follow the unbrick section at the top of this post.
 
Quick installation instructions on NAND:
Build or download your preferred Armbian image and a copy of the Multitool; Burn the Multitool on an SD card; once done, place the Armbian legacy kernel image in images folder of the SD card NTFS partition; Plug the SD card in the TV box and plug in the power cord. After some seconds the blue led starts blinking and the Multitool appears; OPTIONAL: you can do a backup of the existing firmware with "Backup flash" menu option; Choose "Burn Armbian image via steP-nand" from the menu, then select the destination device (usually rknand0) and the image to burn; Wait for the process to complete, then choose "Shutdown" from main menu; Unplug the power cord and the SD card, then replug the power cord; Wait for 10 seconds, then the led should start blinking and HDMI will turn on. The first time the boot process will take a couple of minutes or more because the filesystem is going to be resized, so be patient and wait for the login prompt. On first boot you will be asked for entering a password for root user of your choice and the name and password for a regular user Run sudo rk322x-config and select your board characteristics to enable leds, wifi chips, etc... Run armbian-config to configure timezone, locales and other personal options Congratulations, Armbian is now installed!  
Alternative: you can install the bootloader in NAND and let it boot from SD Card or USB:
Download a copy of the Multitool and burn it on an SD card; Plug the SD card in the TV box and plug in the power cord. After some seconds the blue led starts blinking and the Multitool appears; RECOMMENDED: make a backup of the existing firmware with "Backup flash" menu option; Choose "Install Jump Start for Armbian" menu option: the Jump Start uses the internal NAND to boot from external SD Card or external USB Stick; Follow the general instructions to boot from SD Card below, skip the first erase eMMC step.  
Quick installation instructions to boot from SD Card:
If you are already running Armbian from eMMC, skip to the next step. Instead if you are running the original firmware you need to first erase the internal eMMC; to do so download the Multitool, burn it on an SD Card, plug the SD Card and power the TV Box. Use "Backup flash" if you want to do a backup of the existing firmware, then choose "Erase flash" menu option. Build or download your preferred Armbian image; Uncompress and burn the Armbian image on the SD Card; Plug the SD Card in the TV Box and power it on; Wait for 10 seconds, then the led should start blinking and HDMI will turn on. The first time the boot process will take a couple of minutes or more because the filesystem is going to be resized, so be patient and wait for the login prompt; On first boot you will be asked for entering a password for root user of your choice and the name and password for a regular user Run sudo rk322x-config and select your board characteristics to enable leds, wifi chips, high-speed eMMC or NAND, etc... Run armbian-config to configure timezone, locales and other personal options, or also to transfer the SD Card installation to internal eMMC; Congratulations, Armbian is running from SD Card!  
A note about boot device order:
With Armbian also comes mainline U-boot. If you install Armbian or just the bootloader in the eMMC or the Jump Start on internal NAND, the bootloader will look for valid bootable images in this order:
External SD Card External USB Stick in OTG Port Internal eMMC  
Installation (without SD card, board with eMMC)
If you have no sd card slot and your board has an eMMC, you can burn the armbian image directly on the internal eMMC using rkdeveloptool and a male-to-male USB cable:
 
Download your preferred Armbian image from Armbian download page and decompress it. Download the rk322x bootloader: rk322x_loader_v1.10.238_256.bin Download a copy of rkdeveloptool: a compiled binary is available in the official rockchip-linux rkbin github repository. Unplug the power cord from the tv box Plug an end of an USB Male-to-male cable into the OTG port (normally it is the lone USB port on the same side of the Ethernet, HDMI, analog AV connectors) while pressing the reset microbutton with a toothpick. You can find the reset microbutton in a hole in the back of the box, but sometimes it is hidden into the AV analog jack Plug the other end of the USB Male-to-male cable into an USB port of your computer If everything went well, run lsusb: you should see a device with ID 2207:320b Run sudo rkdeveloptool rd 3 (if this fails don't worry and proceed to next step) Run sudo rkdeveloptool db rk322x_loader_v1.10.238_256.bin Run sudo rkdeveloptool wl 0x0 image.img (change image.img this with the real Armbian image filename) Unplug the power cord Done!  
Installation (without SD card, board with NAND)
If you are in the unfortunate case you can't use an SD card for installation and your board has a NAND chip, you still have an option to use the quick Multitool installation steps via USB.
 
Obtain a copy of rkdeveloptool: a compiled binary is available in the official rockchip-linux rkbin github repository. Unplug the power cord from the tv box Plug an end of an USB Male-to-male cable into the OTG port (normally it is the lone USB port on the same side of the Ethernet, HDMI, analog AV connectors) while pressing the reset microbutton with a toothpick. You can find the reset microbutton in a hole in the back of the box, but sometimes it is hidden into the AV analog jack Plug the other end of the USB Male-to-male cable into an USB port of your computer If everyting went well, using lsusb you should see a device with ID 2207:320b Run sudo rkdeveloptool wl 0x4000 u-boot-main.img (download u-boot-main.img.xz , don't forget to decompress it!) Unplug the power cord  
Now you can follow the instructions on how to install on eMMC/NAND via SD card, just use instead an USB stick to do all the operations and plug it into the USB OTG port. Once you reboot, USB OTG port will be used as a boot device.
 
NOTE: NAND users without SD slot may be unhappy to know that it will be difficult to do extra maintenance with Multitool in case something breaks in the installed Armbian system: installing u-boot-main.img makes the installed system unbootable because it is missing the NAND driver.
 
 
Alternative backup, restore and erase flash for EXPERTS:
These backup, restore and erase flash procedures are for experts only. They are kept here mostly for reference, since the Multitool is perfectly able to do same from a very comfy interface and is the suggested way to do maintenance.
 
Backup:
Obtain a copy of rkdeveloptool: a compiled binary is available in the official rockchip-linux rkbin github repository. If you prefer, you can compile it yourself from the sources available at official rockchip repository Unplug the power cord from the tv box Plug an end of an USB Male-to-male cable into the OTG port (normally it is the lone USB port on the same side of the Ethernet, HDMI, analog AV connectors) while pressing the reset microbutton with a toothpick. You can find the reset microbutton in a hole in the back of the box, but sometimes it is hidden into the AV analog jack Plug the other end of the USB Male-to-male cable into an USB port of your computer If everyting went well, using lsusb you should see a device with ID 2207:320b change directory and move into rkbin/tools directory, run ./rkdeveloptool rfi then take note of the FLASH SIZE megabytes (my eMMC is 8Gb, rkdeveloptool reports 7393 megabytes) run ./rkdeveloptool rl 0x0 $((FLASH_SIZE * 2048)) backup.data (change FLASH_SIZE with the value you obtained the step before) once done, the internal eMMC is backed up to backup.data file  
Restore: first we have to restore the original bootloader, then restore the original firmware.
Running rkdeveloptool with these switches will accomplish both the jobs:
./rkdeveloptool db rk322x_loader_v1.10.238_256.bin Downloading bootloader succeeded. ./rkdeveloptool ul rk322x_loader_v1.10.238_256.bin Upgrading loader succeeded. ./rkdeveloptool wl 0x0 backup.data Write LBA from file (100%) Download here:
 
Erase the flash memory: clearing the internal eMMC/NAND memory makes the SoC look for external SD Card as first boot option.
If there isn't any suitable SD Card, the SoC enters maskrom mode, which can then be used for full eMMC/NAND access using rkdeveloptool. This is perfectly fine if your box has an eMMC flash memory.
NOTE: In case you have a NAND flash memory this option is however discouraged. The original bootloader contains some special parameters to correctly access the data. Clearing the flash memory will probably garbage the NAND data and restoring the bootloader may require some special instructions.
 
Obtain a copy of rkdeveloptool: a compiled binary is available in the official rockchip-linux rkbin github repository. If you prefer, you can compile it yourself from the sources available at official rockchip repository Unplug the power cord from the board Plug an end of an USB Male-to-male cable into the OTG port (normally it is the lone USB port on the same side of the Ethernet, HDMI, analog AV connectors) while pressing the reset microbutton with a toothpick. You can find the reset microbutton in a hole in the back of the box, but sometimes it is hidden into the AV analog jack Plug the other end of the USB Male-to-male cable into an USB port of your computer If everyting went well, using lsusb you should see a device with ID 2207:320b run ./rkdeveloptool ef and wait a few seconds once done, the internal eMMC is erased and the device will boot from the sdcard from now on  
Partecipation and debugging:
If you want to partecipate or need help debugging issues, do not hesitate to share your experience with the installation procedure of the boxes.
In case of issues and missed support, provide as many as possible of these things is very useful to try and bring support for an unsupported board:
 
some photos of both sides of the board. Details of the eMMC, DDR and Wifi chips are very useful! upload the device tree binary (dtb) of your device. We can understand a lot of things of the hardware from that small piece of data; and alternative is a link to the original firmware (you can do a full backup with the Multitool); dmesg and other logs (use armbianmonitor -u that automatically collects and uploads the logs online) attach a serial converter to the device and provide the output of the serial port;  
Critics, suggestions and contributions are welcome!
 
Credits:
@fabiobassa for his ideas, inspiration, great generosity in giving the boards for development and testing. The project of bringing rk322x into armbian would not have begun without his support! Justin Swartz, for his work and research to bring mainline linux on rk3229 (repository here) @knaerzche for his great contribution to libreelec support and mainline patches @Alex83 for his patience in testing the NAND bootloader upgrade procedure on his board @Jason Duhamell for his generous donation that allowed researching eMCP boards and esp8089 wifi chip

DISCLAIMER (PLEASE READ): everything you can find in this thread (binaries, texts, code snippets, etc...) are provided AS-IS and are not part of official Armbian project. For this reason not people from Armbian project nor myself are responsible for misuse or loss of functionality of hardware.
Please don't ask about support or assistance in other non-community forums nor in the official Armbian github repository, instead post your questions in this thread, in the TV Boxes forum section (hardware related) or in the Peer-to-peer support section (general linux/software related).
Thank you!
 
This is CSC Armbian for XT-Q8L-V10 boards, also known as Chiptrip Q8, Vsmart Q8, ENY 3288 Q8, etc...
 

 
All source code has been merged into Armbian mainline project.
I still keep my personal public Armbian fork for experimental features: https://github.com/paolosabatino/armbian-build
 
Nightly images: download directory
 
Quick installation instructions on eMMC:
Build or download your preferred Armbian image from Download directory and a copy of the Multitool; Burn the Multitool on an SD card; once done, place the Armbian image in images folder of the SD card NTFS partition; Plug the SD card in the TV box and plug in the power cord. After some seconds the blue led starts blinking and the Multitool appears; OPTIONAL: you can do a backup of the existing firmware with "Backup flash" menu option; Choose "Burn image to flash" from the menu, then select the destination device (usually mmcblk2) and the image to burn; Wait for the process to complete, then choose "Shutdown" from main menu; Unplug the sd card, then push the power button for 1 second (the led will turn blue) After 10 seconds HDMI will turn on and you will get logging messages; On first boot you will be asked for entering a password for root user of your choice and the name and password for a regular user Run armbian-config to configure timezone, locales and other personal options Congratulations, Armbian is now installed!  
Boot from SD Card/USB stick (with Armbian already installed in eMMC, empty eMMC or no eMMC😞
Build or download your preferred Armbian image from Download directory; Burn the image on your SD card/USB stick; Plug the SD card/USB stick in the device; Push the power button for 1 second (the led will turn blue); After 10 seconds HDMI will turn on and you will get logging messages; On first boot you will be asked for entering a password for root user of your choice and the name and password for a regular user Run armbian-config to configure timezone, locales and other personal options Congratulations, Armbian is now installed!  
Boot from SD Card/USB stick (with original firmware or other firmware):
In case your box has the original firmware installed, use the Multitool to erase the internal flash.
Don't worry, you will not brick your box: once the eMMC is emptied, the box will automatically boot from SD Card. This is called Maskrom mode and is common to all Rockchip devices. Instructions and download links for the Multitool are at the bottom of this post.
After erasing the internal eMMC, just follow the "Boot from SD Card" procedure above and then you are fine.
 
Boot priority:
Newer images (those with mainline kernel >= 4.14.50) now support booting from multiple devices.
Priority is fixed and boot devices are probed in this order:
 
External SD card External USB storage device (Any USB Stick/Hard drive attached to USB host ports) Internal eMMC  
This way even if you install armbian to internal eMMC, you can still easily test different images booting from external devices.
Experts notes: when armbian is installed into eMMC you get U-boot installed too in eMMC. This is important to know because the box won't boot in Maskrom Mode, but instead will always boot the embedded U-boot, no matter if you put an sdcard/usb stick. In practice the embedded U-boot is totally responsible for the boot priority. If you want to restore the Maskrom Mode, just erase U-boot from eMMC using this command:
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/mmcblk2 seek=64 count=8128 conv=sync,fsync  
Current status:
Wireless: works. pretty fast and stable, signal is strong on my box; Bluetooth: works. I was able to transfer files and stream audio without problems USB ports: works, with autosuspend too. A quick benchmark show that transfer rate is quite good (topped at 34 MB/s) USB OTG: works in host mode. Transfer rate is very good (> 40 MB/s) MMC: works and is perfectly accessible as storage device. The images above with "eMMC friendly" have been tested and work when installed in eMMC using the standard armbian-config eMMC installer SDCard: works. legacy kernel is limited to high speed, while mainline works fine in UHS mode too. A quick benchmark with a Samsung EVO card shows the promised 48Mb/s read speed. Gigabit Ethernet: works, fast and reliably HDMI: works perfectly Serial: works Audio: both HDMI audio and SPDIF connector works IR remote: works on legacy and mainline kernels Reboot/Suspend process: rebooting the device is a working in progress, at the moment sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Suspend is still not available. Hardware acceleration: everything which works for rk3288 boards applies here too. This guide or maybe the Media Testing Script will help you gain an hardware accelerated X11 and Chromium (using GL4ES I enjoyed Quake 2 from the start till the end, but also Quake and Quake III Arena work flawlessy, here a quick how-to to compile and install GL4ES)  
Multimedia:
On mainline kernel 3D acceleration is provided by Panfrost driver and is already enabled.
Hardware video decoding: https://forum.armbian.com/topic/19258-testing-hardware-video-decoding-rockchip-allwinner/
 
Multitool:
The Multitool is a small but powerful tool to easy operate on internal eMMC flash of RK3288 devices.
 
Features:
Backup the content of internal eMMC Restore a previously backed-up image to eMMC Erase the eMMC (via fast blkdiscard or zero-fill as fallback) Burn an Armbian (or LibreELEC) image directly on the eMMC Provide a recovery shell for manual maintenance Windows-friendly: everything is placed in a NTFS partition Image compression format autodetection: they are decompressed on-the-fly during burn process Network support for remote maintenance via SSH (instructions to access via network here)  
Instructions are simple:
Download the image from here Burn it on an sdcard Open the NTFS partition with your preferred file manager Place the images you want to burn on the device in images directory (backups will be stored in backups directory) Plug the sd card in the RK3288 device Power the device and wait few seconds, the Multitool menu will appear on screen and can be navigated with the keyboard  
Last edit: 07/06/2020 - updated installation instructions
 

­DISCLAIMER (PLEASE READ): everything you can find in this thread (binaries, texts, code snippets, etc...) are provided AS-IS and are not part of official Armbian project. For this reason not people from Armbian project nor myself are responsible for misuse or loss of functionality of hardware.

Please don't ask about support or assistance in other non-community forums nor in the official Armbian github repository, instead post your questions in this thread, in the TV Boxes forum section (hardware related) or in the Peer-to-peer support section (general linux/software related).

Thank you!
 
This thread is to give stable and mature long-term range support to rk3318/rk3328 found in many tv boxes in Armbian project as Community Supported Configuration (CSC).
The current work is mainlined into Armbian project, but your mileage may vary; most recent developments live on my personal fork on github -> here <-
 
Important notes: is just a personal opinion, but apparently widely supported, that rk3318 chip is not an official rockchip part. They probably are scrap rk3328 parts which have not passed conformance tests but are sold anyway to tv boxes manufacturers. They don’t reach the same operating frequency of the rk3328, have much higher leakage currents (and thus higher temperatures) and often the boards they are installed on are low quality with low quality components, in fact a very very common issue is the eMMC failure due to bad parts and bad soldering. So said, I personally suggest not to buy any rk3318 tv box, but instead find a properly supported SBC (Single Board Computer) if you need a reliable product. In the unfortunate case you already have such product, this thread may help you have some fun with them.
 
What works:
    • Works on RK3318 and RK3328 TV boxes with DDR3 memories
    • Mainline u-boot
    • Mainline ATF provided as Trusted Execution Environment
    • All 4 cores are working
    • Ethernet
    • Serial UART (configured at stock 1.5Mbps)
    • Thermals and frequency scaling
    • OTG USB 2.0 port (also as boot device!)
    • EHCI/OHCI USB 2.0 ports and XHCI USB 3.0 ports
    • MMC subsystem (including , SD and sdio devices)
    • Hardware video acceleration (fully supported via RKMPP on legacy kernel, support via hantro and rkvdec kernel driver on mainline)
    • Various WIFI over SDIO are supported
    • Full acceleration on legacy kernel and mainline kernel
    • U-boot boot order priority: first the sdcard, then the USB OTG port and eventually the internal ; you can install u-boot (and the whole system) in the internal and u-boot will always check for images on external sdcard/USB first.
 
Unbrick:
Technically, rockchip devices cannot be bricked. If the internal flash does not contain a bootable system, they will always boot from the sdcard. If, for a reason, the bootable system on the internal flash is corrupted or is unable to boot correctly, you can always force the maskrom mode shorting the clock pin on the PCB. The procedure is explained here for rk322x, but for rk3318/28 is the same.

In most of the rk3318/28 boards, shorting the clock pin is difficult or impossible because eMMC are BGA chips with no exposed pins. Pay double attention when burning something on the internal flash memory and always test first the image booting from the sdcard to be sure it works before burning anything in internal flash.
 
This is a list of posts where forum users have been able to spot the eMMC clock pin to trigger the maskrom mode:
H96 Max+ (board signature: RK3318_V1.4) by @Gausus X88 PRO 10 (board signature: X88_PRO_B) by @mathgaming Ninkbox N1 Max RK3318 by @enigmasphinx  
 
Partecipation and debugging:
If you want to partecipate or need help debugging issues, do not hesitate to share your experience with the installation procedure of the boxes.
In case of issues and missed support, provide as many as possible of these things is very useful to try and bring support for an unsupported board:
 
some photos of both sides of the board. Details of the eMMC, DDR and Wifi chips are very useful! upload the device tree binary (dtb) of your device. We can understand a lot of things of the hardware from that small piece of data; and alternative is a link to the original firmware (you can do a full backup with the Multitool); dmesg and other logs (use armbianmonitor -u that automatically collects and uploads the logs online) attach a serial converter to the device and provide the output of the serial port;  
Multimedia:
Mainline kernel: 3D acceleration is provided by Lima driver and is already enabled. Hardware video decoding: https://forum.armbian.com/topic/19258-testing-hardware-video-decoding-rockchip-allwinner/ Legacy kernel: If you need multimedia features, like OpenGL/OpenGL ES acceleration, hardware accelerated Kodi, ffmpeg and mpv you can take a look to this post  
Installation (via SD card):
Building:
You can build your own image follow the common steps to build armbian for other tv boxes devices: when you are in the moment to choose the target board, switch to /TVB/ boards and select "rk3318-box" from the list.
   
Prebuilt images:
Archived images - built by Armbian servers and GPG-signed: https://imola.armbian.com/dl/rk3318-box/archive/ Nightly stables - built from trunk by Armbian servers and GPG-signed: https://github.com/armbian/community Stables provided by me (unsigned): https://users.armbian.com/jock/rk3318/  
Multitool:
Multitool - A small but powerful image for RK3318/RK3328 TV Box maintenance. Download it from here  
Quick installation instructions on eMMC:
Build or download your preferred Armbian image and a copy of the Multitool; Burn the Multitool on an SD card; once done, place the Armbian image in images folder of the SD card NTFS partition; Plug the SD card in the TV box and plug in the power cord. After some seconds the blue led starts blinking and the Multitool appears; OPTIONAL: you can do a backup of the existing firmware with "Backup flash" menu option; Choose "Burn image to flash" from the menu, then select the destination device (usually mmcblk2) and the image to burn; Wait for the process to complete, then choose "Shutdown" from main menu; Unplug the power cord and the SD card, then replug the power cord; Wait for 10 seconds, then the led should start blinking and HDMI will turn on. The first time the boot process will take a couple of minutes or more because the filesystem is going to be resized, so be patient and wait for the login prompt. On first boot you will be asked for entering a password for root user of your choice and the name and password for a regular user Run rk3318-config to configure the board specific options Run armbian-config to configure timezone, locales and other personal options Congratulations, Armbian is now installed!  
Despite the procedure above is simple and reliable, I always recommend to first test that your device boots Armbian images from SD Card.
Due to the really large hardware variety, there is the rare chance that the images proposed here may not boot. If a bad image is burned in , the box may not boot anymore forcing you to follow the unbrick section at the top of this post.
 
Quick installation instructions to boot from SD Card:
If you are already running Armbian from eMMC, skip to the next step. Instead if you are running the original firmware you need to first erase the internal flash; to do so download the Multitool, burn it on an SD Card, plug the SD Card and power the TV Box. Use "Backup flash" if you want to do a backup of the existing firmware, then choose "Erase flash" menu option. Build or download your preferred Armbian image; Uncompress and burn the Armbian image on the SD Card; Plug the SD Card in the TV Box and power it on; Wait for 10 seconds, then the led should start blinking and HDMI will turn on. The first time the boot process will take a couple of minutes or more because the filesystem is going to be resized, so be patient and wait for the login prompt; On first boot you will be asked for entering a password for root user of your choice and the name and password for a regular user Run rk3318-config to configure the board specific options Run armbian-config to configure timezone, locales and other personal options, or also to transfer the SD Card installation to internal ; Congratulations, Armbian is running from SD Card!  
Tutorial - How to install Armbian on your TV Box (by @awawa) :
https://www.hyperhdr.eu/2022/01/tv-box-mania-i-part-x88-pro-10.html
A note about boot device order:
With Armbian also comes mainline U-boot. If you install Armbian, the bootloader will look for valid bootable images in this order:
External SD Card External USB Stick in OTG Port Internal  
The Multitool does not boot / How to burn image directly on eMMC:
 
Some boards have the sdcard attached to an auxiliary (called also sdmmc_ext or external) controller which is not the common one.
Forum findings declare that those boards are not able to boot from sdcard with stock firmware and they neither do in maskrom mode: the stock firmware always boots even if you put the multitool on sdcard.
 
In such case, burning images directly on eMMC is the only way to have a working Armbian installation.
You can follow these instructions by @fabiobassa to burn images directly on eMMC:
 
https://forum.armbian.com/topic/17597-csc-armbian-for-rk3318rk3328-tv-box-boards/?do=findComment&comment=130453
 
Notes and special hardware:
Script to change DDR memory frequency here Wireless chip AP2734, SP2734, HY2734C and similars: they are clones of AmPAK AP6334 which is combo wifi + bluetooth of broadcom BCM4334/B0 chips. You may need a special nvram file, instructions by @paradigman are here  
Critics, suggestions and contributions are welcome!
 
Credits:
@fabiobassa for his ideas, inspiration, great generosity in giving the boards for development and testing. The project of bringing rk3318 into armbian would not have begun without his support! @hexdump for his precious support in early testing, ideas and suggestions
@MX10.AC2Nfor his patience in testing mxq-rk3328-d4 board support
All the rockhip64 maintainers at Armbian project who have done and do most of the work to support the platform
 
 

New Image 20210123 for H6, kernel 5.10.9
 
https://yadi.sk/d/0a41swJcEAZ0SQ?w=1
 
 
https://mega.nz/folder/j9QSDQSQ#6WpasOlbZYIInfw6yo4phQ/folder/K9BRjSaZ

Yo guys 
Recently I've aventured myself into building and installing Arch Linux ARM on my RK3229 MXQ 4K box. It works! 
Running mainline kernel and U-Boot!
 
Does anyone else tried it or want to? 
I'm thinking about writing a walkthrough or kinda. 
 
This is my first topic here in the forum
Thanks for reading this! :) 

Hi!
 
It depends of what you want to do with them
 
Rockchip Rk3229 and 3328 Has both good support. 3229 to light desktop or server use, and 3328/3388 for power-demanding tasks 
 
I can provide support to the rk3229 because I have one. I have a Allwinner H6 shipping and planning to get a Rockchip 3328.
 
I'll give support for all of them 
 
 

Amlogic has quite good performance/price ratio: their low-end S905X3/X4 are very good chips for the price, and quite updated too (Cortex A55). Rockchip and Allwinner have nothing comparable yet for the price. Allwinner is far behind. Rockchip recently introduced the long-awaited RK356x series which at least is on par with raw performance to S905X3 and has a nice set of features, but the price is clearly higher and support is still going on. RK3328 is not as good as S905X3, either from CPU and GPU sides, but the RK3399 is still quite good SoC. Amlogic has the best chip on paper with S922 (and similar ones), but in the past they did some double-cross with frequencies and temperatures so people is reasonably skeptic on the real performances.
Despite lagging behind, Allwinner chips are at least very cheap with decent raw performance (H6 at least), but the company is a bit silly.
 
About linux and community support, Amlogic is the worst one by far, being quite obscure about their hardware and generally not very supportive of opensource.
Rockchip is the best one, a lot of their drivers are production ready in the mainline kernel. Recently although I saw quite a stop in their "proprietary" kernel and u-boot public forks. I don't know why they stopped, but I hope it's just a temporary reorganization: the effort they did in supporting opensource was very appreciated by the community and mainline kernel is very advanced on supporting their chips and peripherals.
Allwinner in the past was a total wreck, a lot of work by community has been done to reverse engineering things with excellent results and I think they now opened a bit more publishing especially documentation.
 
My two cents.