manuti

Technically I flashed the image directly to the La Frite eMMC with etcher on a Debian 10 laptop via USB2. Using the bundled USB male to male cable.
 
Upon bootup, I press (a bunch of times) Esc on the keyboard connected to La Frite, then after ~3 seconds (start pressing from turning ON the La Frite) I press down 5 times, then Enter and it appears on linux as "Linux UMS" a 8GB drive you can flash to.

Hi @djismgaming how you did you manage to move armbian to the eMMC?
Thanks

Since I originally wrote this post Ive re-written bits and included quick videos to guide you through the steps (My original post is still below).
 
As Im writing other posts on other topics related to Armbian, but not relevant to install/setup, Im keeping them all on my new site, so all my updates will be on there. Id welcome any feedback (drop me a comment on here or on https://www.OnDROID.net). Also, if anyone has any specific topics they want me to take a look at, let me know. 
 
As always, thanks to balbes150 for his work getting Armbian on ARM boxes.
 
Index of Articles https://www.ondroid.net/armbian-os/
Youtube playlist for the videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjEdM2nEElw&list=PLNYK1P0CVRKsCqkQsMHEJeL1aWRbPYINk 
(The videos are quite quick, but are designed to go with the articles below) 
  Requirements https://www.ondroid.net/armbian-os-requirements/
- Hardware you need
- Software/Downloads Installation https://www.ondroid.net/armbian-os-installation/ 
- Steps to image your SD Card/USB stick from a Windows PC
- First boot setup
- Updating the system, changing hostname and RDP setup
- Includes 2 x videos showing the whole process and the extra optional steps Troubleshooting Amlogic Boot https://www.ondroid.net/armbian-os-troubleshootingboot/
- What to do if your system wont even boot at all
- Includes 1 x video showing the whole process uEnv.ini and extlinux.conf configuration https://www.ondroid.net/armbian-os-uenv-ini-and-extlinux-conf/
- Editing the files and picking the right DTB.
- What do these 2 files do and why cant I boot off emmc internal ram?
- What should the files look like? Installing to emmc https://www.ondroid.net/armbian-os-installing-to-emmc/
- Performing the install
- What files/folder and other issues can cause problems with booting off emmc Bricked device recovery https://www.ondroid.net/armbian-os-bricked-device-recovery/
- How to figure whats happened when your device no longer boots
- How to recover your device back to factory/working condition Using Clonezilla to make a compressed backup of your TF card/USB stick - https://www.ondroid.net/armbian-os-backing-up-an-sd-card-usb-stick/
- How to create a bootable Clonezilla USB
- How to make a small file sized backup using Clonezilla
- How to restore using Clonezilla
- Includes 1 x video showing the whole process Making a Backup of your emmc via the GUI https://www.ondroid.net/armbian-os-backing-up-emmc-nand-via-gui/
- What you will need
- All the commands/screens to perform this
- Includes 1 x video showing the whole process Making a Backup of your emmc via Command line https://www.ondroid.net/armbian-os-backing-up-emmc-nand-via-cli/
- What you will need
- All the commands/screens to perform this
- Includes 1 x video showing the whole process Remote access/administration SSH, RDP and Webmin https://www.ondroid.net/armbian-os-remote-management-access/
- Not Armbian specific, however very handy for those who want simple remote access or administration of their systems.
- SSH - Setup/Use (Remote control via a command line)
- RDP - Setup/Use (Remote control direct to the desktop of Armbian)
- Webmin Setup/Use (Webpage based administration, setup, configuration, diagnostics, terminal access, backups, settings for just about everything etc etc etc)  
Ive not yet written anything on fully troubleshooting a linux/armbian system that was working but now fails to boot (TS card damaged/power cut or something like that happened), though these things do happen from time to time. If you are performing a lot of configuration, it took you a long time to setup your system or you want to make a major change to your system, I highly recommend taking a look at the backup videos/instructions Ive done. 
 
OnDROID is a new thing for me... and Armbian OS install is my first topic/guide on there, so if anyone wants to give me feedback or support you're welcome to drop me a message on here or OnDROID. 
 
Thanks
 
erew
https://www.ondroid.net
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
 
 
Its based on setting up the Armbian that balbes150 created (Thanks @balbes150) and all the things I picked up/learned along the way/had to hunt around the forums to try understand. 
 
I use Amlogic based systems (905, 912 etc etc).... I assume things are pretty similar for Rockchip etc, but if anyone wants to post other useful information in this post!
 
Contents of this post:
 
Contents of this post Intro

Example of setting up a system Example Setup on a MeCool M8S PRO w (Change your DTB file in uEnv.ini and extlinux.conf for other boxes).
- Hardware you need
- Software/Downloads Setting it up
- Steps to image your SD Card/USB stick from a Windows PC
- Installing onto the MeCool M8S PRO w (Or any other box assuming youve changed the DTB) Congratulations - If you reach here you will have a working Armbian server.

Booting Problems and getting your system to boot Booting off SD/USB problems. uEnv.ini and extlinux.conf (Required for booting Armbian)
- Editing the files and picking the right DTB.
- What do these 2 files do and why cant I boot off emmc internal ram?
- What should the files look like? Installing onto emmc/NAND - The internal hard drive of the TV box. LOST.DIR, System Volume Information and Android folders cause problems booting off eMMC/NAND.

What to do if you brick your device. Ive done something and now my box wont boot/stuck on a splash screen/is a brick what do I do?
- Getting the system recovered - notes
- Doing the recovery
  Intro
I had written a previous article just over 1 year ago and things have moved on and its now far simpler/more efficient to do this… between 20 to 40 minutes depending on your speed. To get a basic working Armbian server, you only need to follow this guide. The example setup is for a MeCool M8S PRO w (4x cores, 2GB ram), though the procedure and information in here is relevant for all TV boxes.
 
To be clear, on the MeCool M8S PRO w, you have to plug it in via a network cable and run the OS off an SD card or USB stick. The Bluetooth and WiFi dont (at this moment) work. So, if that is a limitation for you, either keep an eye on the Armbian forum looking for later OS builds that may work, or on there you can also find other Android TV boxes that will work. (side note, I think there are 2 revisions of the MeCool M8S Pro w.. one you can install to emmc/NAND and one you cant).
 
Example Setup on a MeCool M8S PRO w

Hardware you will need:
 
MeCool M8S Pro W (or box of your choice…after researching which ones work). A Windows PC/Laptop. A micro SD card OR USB memory sick (16GB or larger recommended)  A way to plug that SD card into your Windows computer to image the Armbian OS onto it. A Cat 5 LAN cable to plug it into your Router/Switch/Network port.  
NOTE - It looks like you will only see the option to install Armbian to eMMc memory, within Armbian Config, if you are running from an SD Card, NOT a USB stick. (As mentioned, you cannot do this with this MeCool M8S PRO w anyway, but you can with other boxes like the Beelink GT1 Mini).
 
As an additional note, if you want to UPS protect your device from power outages etc, most (Im not claiming all) of these Android TV boxes (and I assume maybe Pi’s but Ive never tested so research that before you try it) support being powered from the USB ports (and the main power socket simultaneously too if you like). The RAVPOWER RP-PB078 is a battery pack for charging USB devices like phones etc. Its special trick, is that it is like an online UPS style device, meaning it can be both charging and powering your device at the same time. So, if the power cuts out, it will keep powering your device through the USB port (or you can buy a USB to 5v adapter cable if you like and use the main power port). I dont know how long for sure, but my rough estimation is this will give you about 5 to 9 hours run-time on the battery pack without any problems, plenty for small power outages.
 
Software/Downloads:
 
Armbain from here https://yadi.sk/d/pHxaRAs-tZiei (Armbian_5.88_Aml-s905_Ubuntu_bionic_default_5.1.0_desktop_20190611) (Later builds should work fine!!)
  Win32DiskImager from here  https://sourceforge.net/projects/win32diskimager/  
Setting it up
 
Steps to image your SD Card/USB stick from a Windows PC:
 
Download the above files. Unzip/Extract with Armbain image file (Use WinRAR or 7Zip). Install Win32DiskImager . Insert your micro SD card or USB Stick into your PC. Run Win32DiskImager as an Administrator. In Win32DiskImager , click the folder Icon and select your Armbian Image file. Check the Device field is pointing at your SD card/USB stick you just inserted and click the Write button. Wait about 5 minutes while the SD card/USB is imaged. (takes about 2 minutes at USB3 speed)  
       
 
 
The MeCool M8S PRO w and other Amlogic boards are often set to boot from external media first, however there is a simple process I will add at the bottom of this document to show you how to change the boot order if needed. The fix (as far as I know) only works on Amlogic based chipsets 905, 912, 922 etc. If you use a system based on Rockchip or something else, you will need to research the Armbian forums, which I would do ahead of time anyway if you decide to use an alternate TV Box.
 
For different Android TV boxes (other than the MeCool M8S PRO w), you may need to edit the uEnv.ini and extlinux.conf file on the SD card/USB stick, to choose a different DTB file. The DTB files are effectively for choosing what hardware drivers are needed when loading the OS and different Android TV boxes will have different chipsets e.g 905, 905X2, 912, RK3399 etc. I would suggest using Notepad++ for editing this file on a Windows computer, as the file is in UNIX file format, so much easier to read with Notepad++. I will add a short explanation of uEnv.ini and extlinux.conf at the bottom of this document (though they dont need changing with the above Armbian image, when used on the MeCool M8S PRO w.
 
Installing onto the MeCool M8S PRO w (Or any other box assuming youve changed the DTB)
 
Place the SD card or into your MeCool box’s SD card slot, plug in a monitor, network cable to your switch/router, keyboard and mouse and then the power. Your Armbian box should now boot and will prompt you at a text command prompt to type in the Username and Password (default are root and 1234) . After this is done, it will ask you once again to type in the root password 1234 and change the root password to something else more secure. You will now be asked to create a user account, other than the root account. I created a user called openhab with a password. For the “Name” I called it openhab , ignore the other questions, leaving them blank and when asked if this is correct, say Y and press enter. (You will see references in here a user openhab, this is just the account I created. You can use any name you like)

           NOTE - if it doesnt boot to Armbian and you have the box I suggest, or an Amlogic based chipset, read the note at the bottom of this document.
  The box will now load the GUI, asking you for the password of the user account you created . Log in and you will now be at the Armbian desktop.


  From here, we want to open the Application menu at the top left > Settings > Armbian Config. Type in your password when prompted.


  In the config system that opens up, we are going to perform a few tasks pretty quickly. Setup our system keyboard locale, change the name of this computer on the network, setup SAMBA file sharing, setup Microsoft RDP for remote control access to the system.

NOTE - On this build of Armbian with this MeCool box, Ive had a situation where it sometimes doesnt like detecting my monitor correctly when it boots, at the point it switches from the text boot to the GUI interface, meaning, you can get a black screen. So ensure RDP is enabled on your 1st boot, then you can always RDP from a windows machine to get to the GUI desktop OR, boot it with no monitor attached and after about 5 minutes, you can plug the monitor in and it usually works… As I say, only on THIS build of Armbian and THIS MeCool box, hence setting up RDP.

You can use the keyboard cursor keys, TAB key to move around each screen and Escape will move you back a screen.


  With your cursor keys, go down to the Personal menu, select Timezone and choose your region. then back and select Keyboard and select your correct keyboard layout.


  Still on the Personal menu select Hostname. This allows you to change the name of the computer to whatever you want to call it on your network (Default is aml). After this, go back to the main Armbian Config main menu. Back at the main menu, select Software and scroll down to RDP - Enable remote desktop from windows and select it. (THIS IS OPTIONAL) This will allow you to use Remote Desktop (mstsc) to this computer ON your LOCAL network from a Windows computer by connecting to the server’s network name or local network IP address. It will not be internet accessible via RDP unless you create a rule in your router/firewall for port 3389 to point to your server, which, please research security concerns if you want to go down the route of allowing the internet to RDP your server. Exit back out of Armbian config and............
            

        (Yes, I know my screen grab says disable, I had already installed RDP)
 
CONGRATULATIONS - You now have a working Armbian Server.
 
BOOTING OFF SD/USB PROBLEMS - (ALL the Below sections all cover boot problems)
If you cant boot an Amlogic based system off external media
 
Once you have completed steps 1 through to 8, of the Installing onto the MeCool M8S PRO w at the top of this guide. Boot your Amlogic based system into the Android OS that is installed on the box. When you are booted in to Android, plug in your newly created Armbian SD card or USB stick to the system. Somewhere in the Android interface, perhaps the applications folder, you will find a program called Update OR Update&Backup (you can also hunt the Settings menu and find an update in there). Open this application.


  It should give you the choice to update OTA (Over the Air) or from a Local File. Select Local and browse to your SD card/USB stick. You will find a file called aml_autoscript.zip select that and confirm the upgrade. The system should reboot, most likely twice. After which it may either boot into your Android OS or it may start booting into Armbian. Its also possible it may just do the reboots and then sit at a splash screen for a while. In short, if its not booting an OS within 3 minutes, give it 2 more minutes, then pull the power and try rebooting (with your SD card/USB stick in). If it doesnt work (meaning it doesnt boot Armbian off your SD card/USB stick), try again with this process and also check you are using the right DTB files in uEnv.ini (as below) as they can cause a system to hang at a splash screen.  
To explain what aml_autoscript.zip is doing..... The file is from here:
 
https://github.com/150balbes/Amlogic_s905/wiki/s905_multi_boot
 
What it does, is tell the boot partition of the Android TV box, that it has multi-boot (can boot from any device, internal/external) and sets external devices as being the 1st thing to try booting off.
 
If youve copied your Armbian OS to the emmc/NAND chip and it wont boot off the internal memory, read up below on uEnv.ini and extlinux.conf as that may be the problem… though some boxes just cant/wont boot off emmc/NAND
 
uEnv.ini and extlinux.conf 
 
When you set up Armbian on a Android TV box, you need to tell Armbian what drivers/setup to use for the chipset in your box. This is done through matching the best DTB file to your TV Box’s hardware. To do this, there are 2 files on the SD card or USB stick you create.
 
In the root of the BOOT partition, you will find uEnv.ini and in /extlinux directory, you will find extlinux.conf.
 
Editing the files and picking the right DTB
These files are best edited in Notepad++ on Windows, or some program that happily edits Unix format text files.
 
If you just use Windows Notepad, they wont look correct when edited (as shown below) and you can screw the formatting up, resulting in your system NOT booting. Use Notepad++ or a Unix text file editor!!
 
 
Within these files you will specify a DTB file, from the dtb folder on the BOOT partition.. Your TV Box might be a 905x2 chipset, or an 912 etc, so you need to find the DTB that works for your chipset. Lets say you have an S912 based system, you can look in the DTB folder and you will see various DTB files with 912 in their name, you can try each one of those, one at a time and see which one works, though not all DTB files are labeled as clearly as this. As an example, I have a Beelink GT1 Mini which is based on the 905x2 chipset, and for that unit, the X96 DTB file is recommended, though I only found that out through hunting the forums/finding out what other people had used.
 
In short, look at the Armbian forums to find the best one, or just pick one that you think, list it in the uEnv.ini and extlinux.conf, see if the box will boot (try a different DTB file if not) and see if all the hardware works (Try a different DTB file if not, or some boxes its possible to find there is no bluetooth driver or something. Best to research the Armbian forums first to see what boxes people have success with. 
 
There is no harm in just trying different DTB files, one at a time. Your box will either boot or not boot and either some or all of the features of your box will work.
 
If you are just at a stage of testing your booting process from an SD card or USB stick, you only need to edit the uEnv.ini file for now, as your system will boot from that, however, when you find the DTB you want to use, update the extlinux.conf file too, so you can install to emmc/NAND.
 
What do these 2 files do and why cant I boot off emmc internal ram?
My understanding is that uEnv.ini takes care of the boot information when you are booting off SD card or USB Stick and the extlinux.conf takes care of the boot sequence if you load the OS onto the internal eMMC memory (the internal hard drive ram chip thing).
 
So long and short… if you boot off external media, transfer the OS to the internal eMMC and you HAVNT updated the extlinux.conf, dont expect it to boot off the internal eMMC, it will just sit at the box’s spashscreen. (though you can boot off an external SD/USB and edit those files).

In short… just update BOTH files to ensure you can boot off external SD card/USB stick and internal emmc (if you copy the OS over).
 
What should the files look like?
NOTE - If they dont look/arent formatted like this when you open them, you arent using a Unix file editor like Notepad++
 
uEnv.ini
 
dtb_name=/dtb/meson-gxl-s905x-khadas-vim.dtb
bootargs=root=LABEL=ROOTFS rootflags=data=writeback rw console=ttyAML0,115200n8 console=tty0 no_console_suspend consoleblank=0 fsck.fix=yes fsck.repair=yes net.ifnames=0
 
extlinux.conf
 
LABEL Armbian
  LINUX /zImage
  INITRD /uInitrd
  FDTDIR /dtb
#  FDT /dtb/meson-gxl-s905x-khadas-vim.dtb
  APPEND root=LABEL=ROOTFS rootflags=data=writeback rw console=ttyAML0,115200n8 console=tty0 no_console_suspend consoleblank=0 fsck.fix=yes fsck.repair=yes net.ifnames=0 
 
You would be replacing meson-gxl-s905x-khadas-vim.dtb with the DTB file that matches your box, in BOTH these files.
 
Also, DONT delete the # out of the extlinux.conf file, its meant to be there!
 
Installing onto emmc/NAND - The internal hard drive of the TV box.
 
This is pretty simple to do, though its worth re-mentioning not every box will support this, for one reason or another. If you want to try however:
 
Boot your system from your Armbian OS SD Card (I think it HAS to be an SD card, or at least the menu option wont show up in my tests using a USB stick, only on SD card). Make sure you have edited BOTH your uEnv.ini AND extlinux.conf files as above. In the OS, go to Armbian config (Step 5 onwards from Installing onto the MeCool M8S PRO w above). Go into the system option. In there, the first option should be Install to SATA, emmc, NAND or USB and select that. It will now copy over your files (wiping your Android OS off your box). This takes 3 to 8 minutes approximately. While this is copying, read the section below LOST.DIR, System Volume Information and Android and follow that process if needed. Assuming you configured your extlinux.conf file with the correct DTB, you can shut your system down, take out your SD card, switch it back on, and it should boot.  
You can always boot off your SD card again, to edit the BOOT_NAND (on the desktop.. I think its called that) which is the copied over boot volume, where you can find the extlinux.conf file, to update the DTB file it uses.
 
Worst case, check through the bits in this document and the forums. I dont know much about Rockchip based systems and how they differ (most of what Ive put in here was based on my Amlogic chipset TV boxes), Id assume its pretty similar.
 
LOST.DIR, System Volume Information and Android folders cause problems booting off eMMC/NAND.
If your SD card or USB stick had been in an Android or Windows box BEFORE you copied your OS over to eMMC/NAND, you may find out that your system WONT boot off the eMMC/NAND memory, but will still boot off your external card. These folders, as far as I can tell ONLY interfere with booting from the internal emmc/NAND and seem to cause no problem when booting from an SD card/USB stick.... but of course, if you copy Armbian to emmc/NAND, they seem to then cause a problem booting from emmc/NAND.
 
I dont know why these folders seem to create an issue, but in my tests, deleting them before you copy over to your eMMC/NAND, OR after you have copied the OS over to eMMC/NAND, boot the system off your original SD Card/USB stick and on the Desktop of your system, go to the BOOT_EMMC drive, delete the folders LOST.DIR, System Volume Information and Android (or whichever combination of those 3 exist), shutdown the system and try booting again from eMMC.

I tested multiple times on a system and after I had deleted those folders.... my system suddenly started booting correctly (with the occasional corruption occurring and having to re-copy the OS to eMMC/NAND again,  but if you do this, you can delete the folders before attempting to boot next time).
 
To be clear, at time of writing this document, on your boot volume, there should be maybe 20 files in the root of the boot partition and only 3 folders ("dtb," "dtb-XXX-aml-XXX "and "extlinux"). (the XXX's will be some number)
 
Ive done something and now my box wont boot/stuck on a splash screen/is a brick what do I do?
 
If this happens, it usually means your onboard emmc/NAND storage area has become trashed somehow OR if you have your SD Card/USB stick, thats trashed somehow. To figure which, take your SD card/USB stick out and see if it boots look at these 2 options:
 
OPTION A - if it boots without the SD Card/USB stick in, then its your SD Card/USB stick. Quick fix is to check you are using the correct DTB and edited uEnv.ini and extlinix.conf correctly (maybe try a different DTB if its never booted).  If it was booting off the SD card/USB stick, then re-image the SD card/USB stick with Armbian and make sure you have the right DTB and all should be good again.
 
OPTION B - It wont boot without the  SD Card/USB stick in then the emmc/NAND area on your tv box is trashed in some way and its therefore not multibooting. So you need to re-flash the internal memory with the correct ROM/image for your box.
 
Getting a system recovered - notes
So for example, with an Amlogic based box, lets say the MeCool M8S Pro w box (Amlogic based box) you would find an original ROM for that system via a google hunt and download it (expect about a 1GB to 2GB download). You would also need the Amlogic USB Burning tool. Id recommend version 2.1.6.8 or later as it starts up in English (though you can find a language menu and select English on older versions).  Install this on a Windows based computer.
 
You will will need a USB cable that will plug into both the USB port of your computer AND the USB port of your Amlogic based TV Box. This is how it will communicate to re-image the emmc/NAND.
 
On the TV boxes, there is usually a reset button. but this could be:
 
a tiny hole in which you need to stick a paperclip or something to press the reset button. you might need to open the box and connect 2 jumpers or short out 2 points on the board (on the MeCool M8S Pro w, its like this) Some systems, you can power on and hold down/press a button on the supplied remote AS you are powering on the box.   
Doing the recovery
Lets pretend you have method 1 from above, the paperclip version.
 
For an Amlogic based system (Other makes will have their own software, but it will be a variation on doing this).
 
Install the USB Burning tool to your Windows machine. Open the USB Burning tool and go to File > Import Image, then select the image file you have downloaded (Unzip or Unrar the file if its compressed).  DONT power your TV box from the supplied mains adapter!! (The Amlogic boards arent expecting that it appears, so dont go into recovery mode on mains power. It wont hurt your box, it just wont go into recovery). - Plug one end of your USB cable into your Windows PC. - Push down the reset button (or whichever method you need to use) with the paperclip on the TV Box and at THAT point, plug in the USB cable. This should now power on the box, but it may display a blank screen.

          On some TV boxes, it appears ONLY 1 of the multiple USB ports they have will be usable/activate for the flashing process. As such, try your other ports if it doesnt appear in your flashing software. 
  - You should hear a ding/chime or something from your Windows PC and the Amlogic USB Burning tool should now say something like HUB Connected. - In the USB Burning tool you should have it set at "Normal Erase" but Ive also done "Full Erase" before.... I dont quite know the difference... but Normal Erase seems to be fine, try Full if if doesnt work on Normal. - Press the start button and wait about 5 minutes until the USB Burning tool says 100% success. Wait about another 20 seconds. Press Stop and unplug your TV Box. Next time you power on the box, it should start booting into Android.   
Now you are back at a working box and can start your install procedure as per this guide... so setup multiboot with aml_autoscript.zip etc....
 
Hopefully all this helps someone figure things out.... if you cant find the answer here.... Im sure someone in the forums will give an answer!
 
Thanks!
 
erew (the OP for this topic)

Also forgot to:

Sudo update-alternatives --config mali
and choose the gl4es

I've got ffmpeg working with v4l2_request api on Allwinner H3 (orange pi pc).
It achieved in a few steps:
1. Download FFmpeg https://github.com/xbmc/FFmpeg/archive/4.0.4-Leia-18.4.tar.gz
2. Patch it with https://github.com/LibreELEC/LibreELEC.tv/tree/master/packages/multimedia/ffmpeg/patches
3. Download mainline kernel 5.3.5
4. Patch it with https://github.com/LibreELEC/LibreELEC.tv/tree/master/projects/Allwinner/patches/linux
5. Copy linux headers on rootfs /usr/include after kernel built:
make headers_install ARCH=arm INSTALL_HDR_PATH=/your/path/to/headers 6. Install libdrm-dev and libudev-dev before configuring FFmpeg
7. Configure FFmpeg with:
/configure --enable-v4l2-request --enable-libudev --enable-libdrm --enable-shared --disable-static \ --disable-openssl --disable-gray --disable-vaapi --disable-vdpau --disable-rkmpp 8. Build FFmpeg on the target machine (orange pi pc in my case)
That's it )
 
ffmpeg -re -hwaccel drm -i Big_Buck_Bunny_720_10s_2MB.mp4 out.avi FFmpeg perfectly uses HW acceleration on decoding H264.

The other day I got an email (which I have less and less time to deal with) saying why we don't provide SHA numbers for 7z archive. He is afraid to open our archive and my answer was not satisfying him. Since I can't afford to educate people in person (or change anything in this regard) I didn't proceed.
 
Where can I get the file hashes (MD5, SHA1, SHA256, or SHA512) for each download so that I can verify that my image download is pristine and not corrupted in any way?  I've searched quite a bit and couldn't find this important info on your site.
 
Me:

They are inside 7z file.
https://docs.armbian.com/User-Guide_Getting-Started/#how-to-check-download-integrity
 
Thanks. I think it would be a good idea to publish the hash also for the 7z file the same way raspbian does for their compressed file (https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/raspbian/).  When I download any file from the web, I calculate the hash before interacting it with. If the hash doesn't match what the vendor has published on their website, I don't even attempt to extract or use it in any way. It's a good a security practice in my opinion.

lima & panfrost driver (mesa) has been pushed to beta.armbian.com, if you already use beta image or use beta armbian software repo, please just update.
if not please add armbian beta software repo, and update.
 
newer version (19.3-develop) mesa will be installed.
 
you need to follow https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/lima/web#xorgconf
to configure your Xserver.
 
then enjor your mali GPU.

installing armbian-config and the full desktop on top of the minimal image runs like a champ on this La Frite! Thanks so much guys for this awesome work (in progress :D)
 
and temperatures around 15C (on idle, ~60C on LibreComputer current desktop images) less than with the desktop images direct from LibreComputer, WOW! Even overclocked to 1.5GHz! You guys rock for a nightly image!

I will double check this, but my "Le Potato" board seems to have no trouble with 4K screens (I don't often test this feature, it's my main monitor, I don't have a second test monitor so the test is a little disruptive of my work flow)
 
[edit[ It took it a long time to bring up the desktop on this 5.3 RC kernel, but Le Potato:
 

Panfrost instructions Armbian
 
This tutorial explains how to build an Armbian image with panfrost. And what else you need to make it work.
These are early drivers. Many things don't work yet. Only OpenGL 2.1 works now.
 
You need to build an image with kernel 5.2 or later.
For this you need an x86 pc with Ubuntu 18.04 or a virtual Ubuntu 18.04 x86 image.

First install git, then clone the build folder from Armbian, and enter the build directory.
 
apt-get -y -qq install git git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/armbian/build cd build Now run the script with EXPERT=yes so you can choose to build a dev image.
sudo ./compile EXPERT=yes Choose "Full OS image for flashing" Then "Show a kernel configuration menu before compilation" Choose your board. If it's not in the regular list, look in "Show SCS/WIP/EOS/TVB". Choose Development version kernel configuration -> device drivers -> graphic drivers -> panfrost  
Let it run until it's finished. The image will be in the /build/output/images
Burn it to an SD-card/eMMC/...
 
Now we need to install all the needed software
sudo apt install flex bison python3-mako libwayland-egl-backend-dev libxcb-dri3-dev libxcb-dri2-0-dev libxcb-glx0-dev libx11-xcb-dev libxcb-present-dev libxcb-sync-dev libxxf86vm-dev libxshmfence-dev libxrandr-dev libwayland-dev libxdamage-dev libxext-dev libxfixes-dev x11proto-dri2-dev x11proto-dri3-dev x11proto-present-dev x11proto-gl-dev x11proto-xf86vidmode-dev libexpat1-dev libudev-dev gettext glmark2 glmark2-es2 mesa-utils xutils-dev libpthread-stubs0-dev ninja-build bc python-pip flex bison cmake git valgrind llvm llvm-8-dev python3-pip pkg-config zlib1g-dev wayland-protocols Download and install meson
wget http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/pool/main/m/meson/meson_0.52.0-2_all.deb sudo dpkg -i meson_0.52.0-2_all.deb Download and install mesa DRM
git clone git://anongit.freedesktop.org/mesa/drm cd drm meson build --prefix=/usr ninja -C build sudo -E ninja -C build install cd .. Download and install mesa graphics
git clone git://anongit.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa cd mesa meson -Ddri-drivers= -Dvulkan-drivers= -Dgallium-drivers=panfrost,kmsro -Dlibunwind=false -Dprefix=/usr build/ ninja -C build/ sudo ninja -C build/ install REBOOT
 
Optionally, update sdl (recommended)
git clone https://github.com/SDL-mirror/SDL.git cd SDL mkdir build cd build cmake ../ make -j6 sudo make install REBOOT
 
Only thing that works ok with it is supertuxkart, to install it.
sudo apt install supertuxkart
 
Panfrost - Linux games working from repo
SuperTuxKart - Works well
ExtremeTuxRacer - lots of glitches
AssaultCube - lots of glitches
 
Instructions by Salvador Liébana & NicoD

I made an archive/backup when you said down.nu is going to be closed. And also more or less forget about  

@manuti No, I really didn't. Good to know.

Hi, your images @jernej are right here https://dl.armbian.com/_openelec/ I don't know if you know this or not.
Regards

Hi!
 
HW video decoding on mainline kernel is possible, but in most cases you have to do some kernel patching yourself and use special library which provides VAAPI or use modified ffmpeg libraries. MPEG2 decoding is possible with kernel 5.0 or 5.1 (not sure), basic H264 decoding will be possible with kernel 5.3 and HEVC decoding will probably come with kernel 5.5 (patches already exist). Note that H264 and HEVC codecs are feature incomplete currently. However, I did some improvements for LibreELEC and there most H264 and HEVC videos work. Patches are available on LibreELEC github but are incompatible with VAAPI library, so only option is to use modified ffmpeg.
 
Regarding memory consumption, please note that with OrangePi Lite you have only 512 MiB of RAM which is a bit low. LibreELEC for that reason doesn't support devices with less than 1 GiB of RAM. Consider following calculations for memory requirements, no matter which kernel you use:
1. Multiple variants of 4K and 1440p resolutions exist, so I'll assume that 4K means 4096x2160 (same as on my LG TV) and 1440p means 2560x1440
2. kernel allocates one XRGB (4 bytes per pixel) buffer for user interface (no matter if you're using window manager or not), so for that you need 4096*2160*4 ~ 34 MiB of CMA memory
3. video is decoded to NV12 or NV21 formats and both take 1.5 byte per pixel, that means 2560*1440*1.5 = 5.27 MiB of CMA memory per single frame
4. worst case for H264 and HEVC is that you need 16 reference frames to properly decode current frame, which means additional 5.27 * 16 ~ 84 MiB of CMA memory
5. VPU needs additional scratch buffers per frame. Size of those buffers depends on codec features used, but for H264 is typically about 1/4th of multiplied width and height, so in worst case (1 + 16)*2560*1440/4  ~ 15 MiB of CMA memory
6. VPU needs some other scratch buffers, but they are small, about 1 MiB in total
7. you also need additional CMA memory for providing encoded data to VPU, but memory consumption for that heavily depends on userspace library/player implementation. Hard to give any estimation, so let's use 20 MiB.
 
Final estimation for worst case display + VPU CMA consumption for 4K display and 1440p video: 34 + 5.27 + 84 + 15 + 1 + 20 ~ 160 MiB. You also have to consider that other devices may use CMA memory at the same time. In LibreELEC, CMA memory size is set to 256 MiB because so much is needed for decoding 4K videos.
 
Hopefully that gives you perspective how much memory is needed for H264/HEVC video decoding.
 
I won't touch (use) 3.4 kernel anymore, but I can help you with patching mainline kernel for better H264 and/or HEVC support and bring up ffmpeg based solutions (that includes mpv), if you want.

In the old days, I provided OpenELEC images with 3.4 kernel (https://github.com/jernejsk/OpenELEC-OPi2) and it worked with 4K videos on 1080p display. Sadly, images don't exist anymore and source doesn't build anymore. Be aware, I used CedarX library instead of libvdpau-sunxi.
 
I don't think I ever make it work with 4K screens, mostly because I didn't have such screen at the time.

Added a wip target to the build system, it is dev kernel only, and builds just fine, however booting is another issue I've not spent a lot of time with yet:
 
Found U-Boot script /boot/boot.scr 3048 bytes read in 11 ms (270.5 KiB/s) ## Executing script at 08000000 154 bytes read in 5 ms (29.3 KiB/s) ## Error: Can't overwrite "ethaddr" himport_r: can't insert "ethaddr=00:50:43:84:fb:2f" into hash table 8101414 bytes read in 217 ms (35.6 MiB/s) 16093192 bytes read in 416 ms (36.9 MiB/s) libfdt fdt_check_header(): FDT_ERR_BADMAGIC No FDT memory address configured. Please configure the FDT address via "fdt addr <address>" command. Aborting! 232 bytes read in 26 ms (7.8 KiB/s) Applying kernel provided DT fixup script (meson-fixup.scr) ## Executing script at 34000000 ## Loading init Ramdisk from Legacy Image at 13000000 ... Image Name: uInitrd Created: 2019-08-12 5:04:59 UTC Image Type: AArch64 Linux RAMDisk Image (gzip compressed) Data Size: 8101350 Bytes = 7.7 MiB Load Address: 00000000 Entry Point: 00000000 Verifying Checksum ... OK ERROR: Did not find a cmdline Flattened Device Tree Could not find a valid device tree The device tree is there in the /boot/fdt/amlogic folder, and the script is the same for Le Potato/ Khadas Vim/Nanopi K2 and works.
 
[some minutes elapse]
 
I think I found it, the printenv (had to figure out the UART, not an easy task) shows me
 
fdtfile=libre-computer/aml-s805x-ac/platform.dtb
 
...which is completely wrong in a normal context, where it should match the linux device tree:  meson-gxl-s805x-libretech-ac.dtb
 
I'll try to figure that out later.
 
 

Hi all.
I've discovered Vivaldi Browser for arm. A fork of Chromium.
There is a armhf version and a arm64 version.
Youtube playback with this is a lot better. I've tested it on the NanoPi M4.
The same video in Chromium had 2/3 dropped frames. (10 frames/s) 1080p video
With Vivaldi browser you get 1/3 dropped frames. (20 frames/s)
A lot better experience.

Here you can download it.
https://vivaldi.com/nl/blog/snapshots/vivaldi-1-15-rc-2/
 
Here the source where I found it. From Meveric @ Odroid. Also explanation of how to install. No wget, and change filename to the file you've downloaded for gdebi. Or use gdebi package installer.(not tested)
https://forum.odroid.com/viewtopic.php?t=29229

I tried in armhf on the M4 in armhf Lubuntu, worked great. Also tried the arm64 in Armbian Stretch. Also great.
I didn't find any posts about Vivaldi in the Armbian forum. I thought it could be helpful.
Cheers

Fine that it worked. 
So armbian is using the network-manager you can also use the command nmtui to configure your network devices
(BUT keep in mind to enter the networkadress for eth0/wlan0 like 192.168.6.76/24)
 
Welcome to armbian

About point #3, your Orange PI PC is not stuck at kernel 3.0.
H3 chip is not the fastest nor the newest, but currently is one of the best supported in mainline kernel. There is an enduring work-in-progress for hardware decoding on mainline kernel which is progressing nicely.
It looks like LibreElec will soon include some official H3 support. All the main peripherals are working well and 3D acceleration is available.
As for desktop replacement, the problem with the H3 is the lacking of the thermal driver, so frequencies of the SoC are set in a conservative fashion in armbian. The experience may suffer from this.
You may think to use a small heatsink and drive the SoC to its rated 1.4Ghz and see if it satisfactory for you. IMHO it is not powerful enough for a decent desktop replacement, but you may try and see if it suits your needs.

I've got a pocket C.H.I.P. and its just such a neat device---I still haven'
t thought of a good use for it.   The Next Thing guys had a lot of style.. 
 

I really like both generation Opi Ones.  a lot of bang for buck.....both slighty lacking in the USB department tho... just one more port would have been great.  (OTG doesnt count)

That makes me think about the fact I also bought a Tinker Board for a friend with 7" display and rii i8 mini keyboard. I guess it has never been used, since he never asked how to do anything with it.
That's 3 of those horrible Tinker Boards I wasted my money on, and they're so expensive...

And also a rpi3B for my nephew with RetroPie installed and 128GB of games. No need to say he loved it. Until he got a Playstation(I don't know which number).

OrangePi Zero: My very first SBC. I do not really remember why I bought it but it started with DietPi. It served Pihole for my network. Then Dietpi dropped their support for OrangePi boards and Pihole dropped their support for older Debian distributions. So a new OS was needed and that is the reason I landed her and I have to tell I learned a LOT about all the things thanks to Armbian OrangePi One Plus: Well the main reason were the quite interesting specifications and the low price. Even though this board (or Allwinner H6 at all) is poorly designed I am not that disappointed about it. It very rarly failed on me, worked most of the time really nice. It serves data sharing, another One Plus is for testing purpose of new images and features. OrangePi One: As a nice replacement for the OrangePi Zero. Better voltage regulator and no crappy wireless onboard for the same price.Two of those I prepared with Armbian and Pihole and gave them away to friends. In the meantime I have another pair of Ones to prepare and give them away somewhen in the future as well. Kind a to spread the word about SBCs, Pihole and last but not least Armbian. Well... that's it. Quite a short list but much text ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  A board I always wanted to have but did not have a chance yet is the OrangePi Zero Plus. GBe and Allwinner H5 SoC. Maybe sometime in the future...

Many of then barely used ... but always searching for the definitive SBC:
Raspberry Pi B everything stars here.  Raspberry Pi B+ : Solving many issues from the previous version. Raspberry Pi A+ : Really low power consumption, this will be a good starting point to something with dual core balancing power & consumption.  Raspberry Pi 2B the Good Raspberry Pi 3B the Ugly Raspberry Pi Zero :  Main Kodi OSMC board, really, I don't need more. Raspberry Pi Zero W : Used as a CCTV. Raspberry Pi 3B+ the Bad ODROID-U3 : The best SBC I have with eMMC and 2GB. But today without updates from hardkernel. ODROID-C1 : Many problems before C1+ arrive ... good board but not better than U3. UG802 RK3066 : Reconverted Android TV with Picuntu, used on a weekly basis sharing more than 1000 small torrents and waiting for a death that never arrives. Banana Pi PRO : main home NAS with last armbian and OMV, Plex and Torrents. SATA & Gigabit marks the difference. Orange Pi One : When I know this board has armbian support I decided to buy only because is cheap and not hopping so much ... but is a really good board for the price. Orange Pi Lite : After having OPi One I want to try this with Wi-Fi and more USB. Used with Lakka as Retrogame platform. Orange Pi PC : Looking for a substitute or back-up of my Banana Pi PRO or the Lakka. Good CPU performance but never used a lot. Orange Pi PC2 : Again looking for a second NAS board. Good performance and net bandwidth. With SSD and UASP can be a good and cheap board to be used as NAS or light server. Beelink X2 : after the success, in my opinion, I'm always searching for good Android TV box to be converted in a cheap Linux PC. This was a good one, difficult to have the Wi-Fi up and running in the beginning. This board shows me also the TV box root problem: same name but different hardware (Wi-Fi, NAND, eMMC, RAM, ...). MXQ PRO+ 4k : received to test it. Appreciate the @balbes150 effort but many boards with different hardware and I never have the Wi-Fi on my unit working (with many hours spent on this). DragonBoard 410c : I wined on a raffled!!! Really good board. With the last Linaro Debian Buster it feels like a light PC but without a proper case, I can use normally. NanoPi Neo2 : Another try to have a small NAS. Good board overall but the position of cables is not the better to be used as a server. Please, FriendlyCore thinks on having power, network and 1 x USB in one side. Sunvell R69 : I like small boards and small TV boxes. The case of Android TV boxes is one of my main reasons to love this piece of cr*p. A pity this one is more or less good but the Wi-Fi is a real sh*t only capable of keeping SSH connexions.  La Frite: last addition to the crew. Only booted once. I'm thinking in use as my new Kodi center when the OS or LibreElec will be released. C.H.I.P. the $9 computer: I bought with a lot of hopes in my time and projects. I like the Chrome use to flash the board but when the company disappears I know this is the wrong approach. Good ideas in this board: the female GPIO with pinout printed, the built-in battery control, ... Omega2 : is another kind of devices I only used sometimes to be a Wi-Fi Gateway. I think is a really good device for IoT projects.

Many of then barely used ... but always searching for the definitive SBC:
Raspberry Pi B everything stars here.  Raspberry Pi B+ : Solving many issues from the previous version. Raspberry Pi A+ : Really low power consumption, this will be a good starting point to something with dual core balancing power & consumption.  Raspberry Pi 2B the Good Raspberry Pi 3B the Ugly Raspberry Pi Zero :  Main Kodi OSMC board, really, I don't need more. Raspberry Pi Zero W : Used as a CCTV. Raspberry Pi 3B+ the Bad ODROID-U3 : The best SBC I have with eMMC and 2GB. But today without updates from hardkernel. ODROID-C1 : Many problems before C1+ arrive ... good board but not better than U3. UG802 RK3066 : Reconverted Android TV with Picuntu, used on a weekly basis sharing more than 1000 small torrents and waiting for a death that never arrives. Banana Pi PRO : main home NAS with last armbian and OMV, Plex and Torrents. SATA & Gigabit marks the difference. Orange Pi One : When I know this board has armbian support I decided to buy only because is cheap and not hopping so much ... but is a really good board for the price. Orange Pi Lite : After having OPi One I want to try this with Wi-Fi and more USB. Used with Lakka as Retrogame platform. Orange Pi PC : Looking for a substitute or back-up of my Banana Pi PRO or the Lakka. Good CPU performance but never used a lot. Orange Pi PC2 : Again looking for a second NAS board. Good performance and net bandwidth. With SSD and UASP can be a good and cheap board to be used as NAS or light server. Beelink X2 : after the success, in my opinion, I'm always searching for good Android TV box to be converted in a cheap Linux PC. This was a good one, difficult to have the Wi-Fi up and running in the beginning. This board shows me also the TV box root problem: same name but different hardware (Wi-Fi, NAND, eMMC, RAM, ...). MXQ PRO+ 4k : received to test it. Appreciate the @balbes150 effort but many boards with different hardware and I never have the Wi-Fi on my unit working (with many hours spent on this). DragonBoard 410c : I wined on a raffled!!! Really good board. With the last Linaro Debian Buster it feels like a light PC but without a proper case, I can use normally. NanoPi Neo2 : Another try to have a small NAS. Good board overall but the position of cables is not the better to be used as a server. Please, FriendlyCore thinks on having power, network and 1 x USB in one side. Sunvell R69 : I like small boards and small TV boxes. The case of Android TV boxes is one of my main reasons to love this piece of cr*p. A pity this one is more or less good but the Wi-Fi is a real sh*t only capable of keeping SSH connexions.  La Frite: last addition to the crew. Only booted once. I'm thinking in use as my new Kodi center when the OS or LibreElec will be released. C.H.I.P. the $9 computer: I bought with a lot of hopes in my time and projects. I like the Chrome use to flash the board but when the company disappears I know this is the wrong approach. Good ideas in this board: the female GPIO with pinout printed, the built-in battery control, ... Omega2 : is another kind of devices I only used sometimes to be a Wi-Fi Gateway. I think is a really good device for IoT projects.

I'll for sure forget some of them.
It all started with the Raspberry Pi2B(4 years ago now) ... and then ...
Odroid C2                         (For 3 years my favorite. Clocked at 1.75Ghz, with 128Ghz eMMC and ram OC it's amazingly fast. Low power consumption, good video playback(low display resolution), great gaming on it. Still use it as my SBC laptop, but the VIM3'll replace it Raspberry Pi3B                 (Not better than the pervious model. Dissapointed by it) Raspberry Pi Zero (+ 2 x Zero W)  (was handy, had build a Pi0Camera with it and an audio recorder, got in dissuse) Orange Pi+2                     (hated it, I still believed the 1.6Ghz bs, afterwards started to love it for what it is) Tinker Board (x2)             (Worst buy ever, too expensive for what it's. First broke, I was so stupid to buy another one without using it much) Khadas VIM2 Max           (Too slow for what it is. Otherwise a good designed board when used for what it's good) Odroid XU4                     (Loved it. It was my 2nd desktop with a HDMI-hub so I could switch to it when my PC was bussy. Amazing performance and great games. But a lot of issue's too) Rock64                            (a lot of issue's, nice on paper but doesn't deliver it's promises) Banana Pi M2 Zero          (nice little board, runs too hot to be useful, but had a lot of fun with it) NanoPC T3+                    (Love it a lot. Amazing for Blender renders, at a low power consumption. But single core performance is too low, should be default overclocked to 1.6Ghz in my opinion. It can handle it and cooling solution is sufficient) Raspberry Pi 3B+            (What a garbage board. DDR2 with a ok SoC is a bad combination. Bad power delivery, not very useable) NanoPi M4                      (My favorite until the VIM3 came, all-round a great board. Too bad there's a lack of Linux drivers for great gaming on it) Rock Pi 4B                       (First impression was great. But that went away after a while. Many software issues. I hate that I can't reach my eMMC with the big heatsink on) NanoPi DUO2                 (Still need to review it, but my first impression wasn't too good. Bad thermals, no hardware video encoding for the camera. This should be fixed by now, maybe a next video someday...) Orange Pi 3                    (Ok SoC, badly designed board) Pine H64 model b          (Ok SoC better designed board, it's their second try tho) Odroid N2                      (Great board, amazing performance and no fan needed. But runs at 12V so I can't run it on my power banks. I use it headless with VNC to do render jobs together with the NanoPC T3+) Nitrogen8M Mini           (I don't know yet, no HDMI and all proprietary connectors for everything. It is an industrial board for KIOSK's, but I'd like to see HDMI to set it up easily. It does have great audio assets, amplifier, audio in-out)
Khadas VIM3                 (My newest favorite. What a performance for such low consumption at 5V. I've got the Basic, so much want the Pro... It's perfect to take with me to do heavy video render tasks. I love it...) Raspberry Pi4B             (My biggest surprise ever. Not thinking too much of it. But it's a lot more than I thought. Performs amazing.  But still has its faults. I think that's it. In chronological order I bought them.
The first 2 were great boards that I still use a lot. But then I bought a lot of them that never delivered what they promissed. Only the XU4 and NanoPC T3+ were great.
I started to get them for free to review starting with the NanoPi M4, and those were again very good.  Only bought the Odroid N2 after that.
Good I review SBC's, I'm saving myself a lot of money now I've spend enough in the past on them.
Cheers