guenter

🏆 Become a sponsor, help to add other boards in armbian standart, you don't need to be a programmer to help the community,
just need a copy of the ARM BOARD and a x86 computer to compile new versions.
 
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Armbian Needs you help!
 
This Armbian adventure was summarized in my Public Github Repository.
 
H96 MAX V56 RK3566 8gb Ram SD-Card unofficial images:
Tutorial SD-Card Version v0.5 ARMBIAN BETA unofficial
H96 MAX V56 RK3566 8gb EMMC Chainloader to mainline HotnikQ unofficial images:
Tutorial EMMC Version V0.7 ARMBIAN BETA unofficial
H96 MAX V56 RK3566 8gb EMMC Mainline Boot Hzdm unofficial images:
Tutorial EMMC Version v0.8 ARMBIAN unofficial
H96 MAX V56 RK3566 8gb EMMC Mainline Boot Hzdm unofficial images:
Tutorial EMMC Version v0.9 ARMBIAN BETA unofficial
H96 MAX V56 RK3566 8gb EMMC Chainloader to mainline HotnikQ unofficial images:
Tutorial EMMC Version v1.0 ARMBIAN unofficial
H96 MAX V56 RK3566 8gb EMMC Hzdm Mainline Boot Custom unofficial images:
Tutorial Build Your own Armbian EMMC unofficial image
H96 MAX V56 RK3566 EMMC Raspiblitz HotnikQ unofficial images:
Tutorial Build Raspiblitz on EMMC Armbian Bullseye unofficial   
H96 MAX V56 RK3566 8gb EMMC Hzdm Mainline Boot unofficial images:
Tutorial Build Your own V1.1 Armbian EMMC unofficial image
H96 MAX V56 RK3566 8gb Vendor Kernel 5.1.16
Tutorial Build Your own Armbian Rockchip Kernel vendor Kernel 5.1.16 Armbian
Joshua Riek Ubuntu Rockchip Images kernel 5.1
H96 MAX V56 RK3566 8gb Vendor Kernel 6.1.43
Tutorial Build Your own Armbian Rockchip Kernel vendor Kernel 6.1.43 Armbian
Joshua Riek Ubuntu Rockchip Images Kernel 6.1
Tutorial Flash H96 Max on Linux Desktop
 
 
                                         
H96 MAX V56 RK3566 8gb EMMC Ning Mainline Kernel:
                       Armbian EMMC official image
Armbian Desktop Gnome kernel The Latest official
Debian BookWorm Server Kernel Minimal The Latest official
 

Desktop Test Images:
Pre-Build Desktop 22.04 Armbian Test Image (PT-BR)
 
Community Official Images:
Armbian_community_25.2.0-trunk.410_H96-tvbox-3566_bookworm_current_6.12.11_minimal.img.xz
Armbian_community_25.2.0-trunk.410_H96-tvbox-3566_noble_current_6.12.11_gnome_desktop.img.xz
 
Bleding Edge images:
Armbian-unofficial_25.02.0-trunk_H96-tvbox-3566_noble_edge_6.13.0_cinnamon_desktop.tar.xz
Armbian-unofficial_25.02.0-trunk_H96-tvbox-3566_jammy_edge_6.13.0_cinnamon_desktop.tar.xz
Armbian-unofficial_25.02.0-trunk_H96-tvbox-3566_bookworm_edge_6.13.0_cinnamon_desktop.tar.xz
Armbian-unofficial_25.02.0-trunk_H96-tvbox-3566_noble_edge_6.13.0_minimal.tar.xz
Armbian-unofficial_25.02.0-trunk_H96-tvbox-3566_bookworm_edge_6.13.0_minimal.tar.xz
Armbian-unofficial_25.02.0-trunk_H96-tvbox-3566_jammy_edge_6.13.0_minimal.tar.xz
 
Joshua-Riek Vendor Images:
Joshua-Riek-ubuntu-22.04-preinstalled-desktop-arm64-h96max-v56
Joshua-Riek-ubuntu-22.04-preinstalled-server-arm64-h96max-v56
Joshua-Riek-ubuntu-24.04-preinstalled-desktop-arm64-h96max-v56
Joshua-Riek-ubuntu-24.04-preinstalled-server-arm64-h96max-v56
 
Software description:
V0.5 = @armbian The Armbian SD card image "Compiled From Armbian Project"
V0.8 = @hzdm Project with Mainline Bootloader "Boot the 64gb Emmc Armbian with Mainline Rockchip"
V0.9 = @hzdm Release Mainline Bootloader "Boot the 32gb and 64gb Emmc Armbian with Mainline Rockchip"
V1.0 = @hotnikq The Armbian SD card inside the Android Legacy Rockchip Image "Two Original Glued Images: Android boot for Linux" 
V1.2 = @ning Release Device Tree and Bootloader to longterm 6.6.27 Kernel "Boot with Mainline Rockchip"
V1.3 = @Hqnicolas Github PR Enable h96 Rk3566 TV-Box device for Kernel 6.8
V1.4 = @pocosparc Github PR Enable OpenVFD and IR controller
V1.5 = @dfahren Github PR Update U-boot 2025.01 for Kernel 6.12+
@fevangelou Linux Flash Tutorial
 
Video drivers:
https://developer.arm.com/downloads/-/mali-drivers/bifrost-kernel 
https://docs.mesa3d.org/download.html 
https://docs.mesa3d.org/drivers/panfrost.html 
 
Wifi Driver:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1B1LmAylalETcnBEWiPiJHL0MjK5xlIV4/view?usp=sharing
 
Front Panel Display: Tutorial 
Repo: https://github.com/jefflessard/tm16xx-display
 
UEFI: https://github.com/hqnicolas/h96v56_uefi/releases/tag/v1.2.1
 
Or Just Live install Wifi Driver:
cd /lib/firmware/brcm/ sudo wget https://github.com/CoreELEC/brcmfmac_sdio-firmware-aml/raw/master/firmware/brcm/fw_bcm4335b0_ag.bin sudo ln -s fw_bcm4335b0_ag.bin brcmfmac4335-sdio.h96-TVbox,rk3566.bin sudo reboot now nmcli dev wifi  
 
sudo rmmod brcmfmac_wcc brcmfmac brcmutil modprobe brcmfmac  
Topic description:
This topic aims to demonstrate the path taken to the Armibian EMMC solution.
In our path we create a lot of ready-to-use ROM files, some users burn an use this images without learning with the Linux compilation process.
the name of the topic is efforts but that's no effort at all, you should try compile your own images.

 
Device Capability Test: Using Rockchip SoCs NPU.
Drivers: https://github.com/rockchip-linux/rknpu2
User Guide: https://github.com/rockchip-linux/rknpu2/blob/master/doc/Rockchip_RKNPU_User_Guide_RKNN_API_V1.4.0_EN.pdf
OpenCV: https://opencv.org/blog/2022/11/29/working-with-neural-processing-units-npus-using-opencv/
A discussion on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/OrangePI/comments/12b3jmj/accessing_the_npu_on_the_orange_pi/
Transformers models: https://github.com/usefulsensors/useful-transformers
Usage: https://www.crowdsupply.com/useful-sensors/ai-in-a-box/
Usage: https://youtu.be/pN8mKZ5wpdQ
 

 

For anyone looking for simple instructions to install the official Armbian image for "H96 Max V56" (as of August 30th, 2025) using a Linux PC (e.g. Ubuntu Desktop 24.04):
 
1. Install the "rkdeveloptool" tool first, as instructed in: https://docs.radxa.com/en/zero/zero3/low-level-dev/rkdeveloptool?host-os=debian
 
sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install -y libudev-dev libusb-1.0-0-dev dh-autoreconf pkg-config libusb-1.0 build-essential git wget git clone https://github.com/rockchip-linux/rkdeveloptool cd rkdeveloptool autoreconf -i ./configure make -j $(nproc) sudo cp rkdeveloptool /usr/local/sbin/  
At the time of writing, this installed version 1.32. If you installed "rkdeveloptool" from Ubuntu's repos, it would install version 1.0 which may work, but let's be on the safe side here...
 
2. Connect and boot the device to loader/maskrom mode
 
2.1 While pressing the reset button (back/right) with a pin, connect the USB 2.0 port (back/left) and the power cable. Gotta be careful here not to miss the reset button pressing while connecting the cables.
 
2.2 Use the rkdeveloptool tool to identify the device and the mode it is on ("loader" or "maskrom").
    $ rkdeveloptool ld
   
    ...should show the connected device if point 2.1 was successful - e.g. on my 8GB RAM device it printed this: DevNo=1 Vid=0x2207,Pid=0x350a,LocationID=304 Loader
   Or after I had already flashed Armbian, it would show: DevNo=1 Vid=0x2207,Pid=0x350a,LocationID=304 Maskrom
 
    (If you installed "rkdeveloptool" from Ubuntu's repo, the command is "rkdeveloptool list" if I recall correctly - every other "rkdeveloptool" command following though is the same)
 
    Now grab the latest release of Armbian for this device. At the time of writing it was: https://github.com/armbian/community/releases/download/25.11.0-trunk.106/Armbian_community_25.11.0-trunk.106_H96-tvbox-3566_bookworm_current_6.12.44_minimal.img.xz (the name of the device is on the filename)
 
    Extract the included .img file with (sudo apt install xz-tools):
    $ unxz Armbian_community_25.11.0-trunk.106_H96-tvbox-3566_bookworm_current_6.12.44_minimal.img.xz
 
2.2.1 If in "loader" mode (see the last part of the command's output above), simply flash Armbian directly. E.g.
    $ sudo rkdeveloptool wl 0x0 Armbian_community_25.11.0-trunk.106_H96-tvbox-3566_bookworm_current_6.12.44_minimal.img
   (if you attempt to flash the attached bootloaders, you'll get a "device not supported" error - Armbian already contains a bootloader)

2.2.2 If in "maskrom" mode (e.g. if you are re-flashing Armbian), flash the bootloader first:
    # For the 8GB RAM device use the attached (in this post) H96-MAX-8gb-MiniLoaderAll.bin file
    $ sudo rkdeveloptool db H96-MAX-8gb-MiniLoaderAll.bin
 
    # For the 4GB RAM device use the attached (in this post) H96-MAX-4gb-MiniLoaderAll.bin file
    $ sudo rkdeveloptool db H96-MAX-4gb-MiniLoaderAll.bin

    ...and then re-flash Armbian as you did the first time:
    $ sudo rkdeveloptool wl 0x0 Armbian_community_25.11.0-trunk.106_H96-tvbox-3566_bookworm_current_6.12.44_minimal.img
 
2.3 Reboot the device with:
    $ sudo rkdeveloptool rd
 
Done!
 
If all goes well, once you reboot the device you will be asked to set a root password and optionally a sudo user. Rebooting afterwards you should now be greeted with:
 
_ _ _ _ _ /_\ _ _ _ __ | |__(_)__ _ _ _ __ ___ _ __ _ __ _ _ _ _ (_) |_ _ _ / _ \| '_| ' \| '_ \ / _` | ' \ / _/ _ \ ' \| ' \ || | ' \| | _| || | /_/ \_\_| |_|_|_|_.__/_\__,_|_||_|_\__\___/_|_|_|_|_|_\_,_|_||_|_|\__|\_, | |___| |__/ v25.11 rolling for h96-tvbox-3566 running Armbian Linux 6.12.44-current-rockchip64 Packages: Debian stable (bookworm), possible distro upgrade (trixie) Updates: Kernel upgrade enabled and 2 packages available for upgrade Support: for advanced users (rolling release) IPv4: (LAN) 192.168.1.10 (WAN) 1.2.3.4 Performance: Load: 3% Uptime: 2 min Memory usage: 2% of 7.50G CPU temp: 40°C Usage of /: 3% of 57G Commands: Configuration : armbian-config Upgrade : armbian-upgrade Monitoring : htop Last login: Sat Aug 30 12:47:54 2025  
Key points:
- If you do this the first time, it's obviously a matter of just flashing the latest Armbian image directly.
- You don't need to open the device or compile Armbian.
- It's simpler than 2 years ago when I bought the device thanks to people like @Hqnicolas (muito obrigado Nicolas!)
H96-MAX-4gb-MiniLoaderAll.bin H96-MAX-8gb-MiniLoaderAll.bin

@Jean-Francois Lessard
You won't believe it, but I found my error(s) ....
For the solution I had to look at the dts Paolo (https://github.com/paolosabatino/leds-fd6551) suggested in his code. I missed a line that effectively makes SDA really open-drain. However, pinctrl is not relevant in this context.
The fist line is bloody important, the second not so:
 
i2c-gpio,sda-output-only; i2c-gpio,scl-output-only; Although they do incur warnings in the kernel log, they are indispensable because without them, i2c signals don't reach the fd6551 controller.
 
Now everything works as expected. It shows (in fact, it showed ...) 88:88 right at the start and after that the actual time. Great!
I'm going to write a pull request for Nicolas' Github repo so that he can integrate it with the Armbian distribution.
I also edited your tm16xx source code to show 'boot' instead of 88:88, which is not my cup of tea.
You also have to make sure you compile the driver als built-in and not as a kernel object. So you get the 'boot' writing roughly around second 2.8 in the boot process when plugging in the mains adapter and this is early enough for me.
I attach all of the sources to this post. I hope you don't mind too much that I messed with your code and I apologize upfront.
 
Best wishes,
Deetsh
tm16xx_boot.c display-client-snippet.dts

Hello Hqnicolas,
thank you very much for the effort you made with the yy3568.
I have a nvme SSD connected to .m2 and this works with the youyeetoo kernel "Linux yy3568 4.19.232 #8 SMP Wed Aug 7 10:48:37 CEST 2024 aarch64 GNU/Linux".
I tried your Armbian plus the attached patch but the SSD doesn't work. See attached screenlog.0

[    2.512779] pci 0000:00:00.0: ROM [mem 0xf4200000-0xf420ffff pref]: assigned
[    2.512806] pci 0000:00:00.0: PCI bridge to [bus 01-ff]
[    2.512830] pci_bus 0000:00: resource 4 [io  0x0000-0xfffff]
[    2.512844] pci_bus 0000:00: resource 5 [mem 0xf4200000-0xf5ffffff]
[    2.512857] pci_bus 0000:00: resource 6 [mem 0x300000000-0x33fffffff]
[    2.516131] pcieport 0000:00:00.0: PME: Signaling with IRQ 73
[    2.516722] pcieport 0000:00:00.0: AER: enabled with IRQ 73
[    2.518475] phy phy-fe8c0000.phy.2: lane number 0, val 1
[    2.518506] phy phy-fe8c0000.phy.2: lane number 1, val 2
[    2.518519] phy phy-fe8c0000.phy.2: bifurcation enabled
[    2.519039] phy phy-fe8c0000.phy.2: rockchip_p3phy_rk3568_init: lock failed 0x6890000, check input refclk and power supply
[    2.519059] phy phy-fe8c0000.phy.2: phy init failed --> -110
[    2.519102] rockchip-dw-pcie 3c0800000.pcie: probe with driver rockchip-dw-pcie failed with error -110
[    2.520137] mmc0: new HS200 MMC card at address 0001
[    2.525326] mmcblk0: mmc0:0001 ISOCOM 57.6 GiB
[    2.529794] rockchip-usb2phy fe8a0000.usb2phy: Requested PHY is disabled
[    2.531377] rockchip-usb2phy fe8a0000.usb2phy: Requested PHY is disabled
[    2.531408] rockchip-usb2phy fe8a0000.usb2phy: Requested PHY is disabled

At least is PCI bridge found:
root@yy3568:~# lspci -v
00:00.0 PCI bridge: Rockchip Electronics Co., Ltd RK3568 Remote Signal Processor (rev 01) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 73
        Bus: primary=00, secondary=01, subordinate=ff, sec-latency=0
        I/O behind bridge: [disabled] [16-bit]
        Memory behind bridge: [disabled] [32-bit]
        Prefetchable memory behind bridge: [disabled] [64-bit]
        Expansion ROM at f4200000 [virtual] [disabled] [size=64K]
        Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 3
        Capabilities: [50] MSI: Enable- Count=1/32 Maskable- 64bit+
        Capabilities: [70] Express Root Port (Slot-), MSI 00
        Capabilities: [b0] MSI-X: Enable- Count=1 Masked-
        Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting
        Capabilities: [148] Secondary PCI Express
        Capabilities: [160] L1 PM Substates
        Capabilities: [170] Vendor Specific Information: ID=0002 Rev=4 Len=100 <?>
        Kernel driver in use: pcieport

It would be great if you find some time to find a solution.

Kind Regards,
Guenter
kernel-rockchip64-edge.patch screenlog.0