SEIUMU

@Dominik Wójt after setting it up, installing docker and home assistant in a container, I've set up a light dropbear ssh, have disactivated desktop, hdmi, and all the other unwanted services, and have tried to use it remotely. Not sure what went wrong, but it would simply not respond via ssh like that. I am able to log in, drop a few commands, but then it would freeze and not let me do anything. I am hoping that it has to do with my usb drive, so, I am now shifting to the fastest sd card I have. Will try to test it like that. It is quite strange. Will share more observations as I move along.

@Dominik Wójt I am wondering if you experience any picture quality issues. Every once in a while when it goes into sleep mode, reboots, or even spontaneously, the picture goes corrupt and displays as if the resolution is like 300*400 and there are only 16 colors, even though the monitor suggests that it is getting a full-hd signal via hdmi (never happened with android installed in the box). Did you experience any of these? Is there a way to somehow refresh graphics when something like that happens? Is there a way to troubleshoot something like that?

Ok, if anyone in this chat or anyone reading this chat while working on a similar project wonders how to properly set up a docker on armbian, here is what you need: this is all you need... apt-get remove docker docker-engine docker.io containerd runc apt-get install ca-certificates curl gnupg lsb-release mkdir -p /etc/apt/keyrings curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/debian/gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg echo "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg] https://download.docker.com/linux/debian $(lsb_release -cs) stable" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null apt update apt-get install docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io docker-compose-plugin So, back to @JorgenFloy420 MXQ is old but not useless and many thanks to @Dominik Wójt for sharing the .img file that worked. Tried dozens with lots of jungle around dtb files, etc and all would have issues.. This package seems the best one so far.

@Dominik Wójt Thanks for additional thoughts. After playing with it for entire day, I eventually hit the restart button. Unlike yesterday, it did pick up the usb and tried to load from it. The boot looked like it was once again installing everything with a long list of checks and [OK]s. Then, a black screen, the boot logo and another attempt to boot from the usb to eventually reboot the 3rd time (all on its all without me touching anything). Then, finally, on the 3rd round it would boot into armbian. Altogether, this long multistep rebooting took about 5 minutes or so. The mouse and keyboard eventually work fine. Wi-Fi still won't connect despite displaying my network and even attempting to connect and displaying the message that it is connected to then ask for password again. Really strange. I don't really care about wifi for now though, so it is more just an observation. With regards to NAND, I decided to not take chances even though it should theoretically speed the things up by a margin. May I ask what's the purpose of this project for you? How are you using it? My goal it to make it wor as a home server for home assistant and maybe as a surveillance server. Hopefully, it is accomplishable. By the way, I think the speed can be technically improved by improving cooling. The monitor would say the device reaces about 75 degrees C and that's already with an extrernal cooler I installed a while ago. I'll have to renew the thrermopaste and hopefully it will help better cooling. In the last few hours I was desperately trying to install docker-compose, which wouldn't install the normal way.

@Dominik Wójt after spending more time trying to configure it, here are a couple of follow-up observations. First, localization won't work during setup. Even if you pick your geography or set the time zone manually, the system time won't adjust. Without proper time, the browser won't work. You need to install chrony, add google's time server and then restart chrony. With a bit of play - the time will adjust. But even after this, the browser still won't work. If will ping any specific ip but won't ping any websited. To fix this, you'd need to configure new DNS server. Change it to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4. That would fix the problem and you will be able to get online. With regards to wifi, it will see all the 2.4Ghz wifi networks, but it won't take the password. Tried it different ways including setting configuration manually in armbian system settings. No idea what's causing it. The system is quite slow. It freezes and glitches. Youtube will work as a slide show. However, this is all while running it from a USB drive, which may be the reason for issues. The key questions at this point: what do I need to do with the files on the USB drive after first boot, so that I am back to this OS and no undroid upon power loss or reboot. The first time I flashed it and then rebuted, it would completely ignore it NOR boot installation. Also, did you try copying it into nand memory via armbian settings menu or otherwise? Is this reversible?

@Dominik Wójt just checked your image and can confirm that it does seem to be fully functional. I have tested it on an all-black MXQ S805 1GB RAM 8GB Flash. To the best of my knowledge it is M201. It has 4 usb ports and it would boot only if the flash drive is inserted in the 4th one. The installation process goes without major issues. It even locates my wifi, but for some reason refuses to take the password. Still testing. Once the installation process is complete - it brought me to the armbian desktop and this is where I ended for now. No idea if other functionality works. The desktop seems a bit glitchy as my mouse gets frozen from time to time and the keyboard lives its own life occasionally, but it may very well be due to my dell wifi keyboard + mouse configuration. By the way, once the dongle is removed, it will no longer be detected. My key question at this point is what to do if I need to shut down the system? How do I boot into it the next time? I have tried this and it won't work. Once the power goes out and then on again, it will only boot into android even with the USB stick still in. It won't even let to relaunch the installation process. That's what happened to me just now, so while writing this, I am reflashing the USD to repeat the whole initialization process but what to do next?