eselarm

I would not be surprised if there has always been a HW initialization issue. It is just that now with newer Linux (whole systemd stuff etc) you hit this problem. I always liked this HC1, but it is not even on Odroid WiKi anymore. You might need to focus on version/build of U-Boot in combination with kernel and DTB. I have some examples (Rockchip based SBC's) were it is make-or-break, e.g. if I just take latest U-Boot whole system / use-case is useless / gone. So I need to stick to legacy U-Boot or just buy other HW/platform.

Is the much trouble USB-SATA chip, I have it as 'cable', but unused as it at least fails with RPI4 when SSD. It looks like a sequencing/timing issue. You can treat it like external maybe and/or reset the USB device node. That usually works for various USB connected HW that fails at boot but when Linux/platform fully up and running, a reset then somehow avoids timing issues.

My ROCK3A has a jumper option to disable SPI clock, so whole SPI will be bypassed and only SD-card works then. I power with fixed 12V (USB-C pigtail). I do not know now what version the board/PCB is. AFAIR from Radxa docs other versions have no such jumper. Maybe you already tried/know all this. Maybe wipe the SPI via rkdevelop. W.r.t. Rockchip SBC's (various brands) I am a bit confused what boot-device prefence/priority is. From schematics I saw it depends on a resistor value, but many boards in the world and endless resistor values possible.

I also saw that both apt and beta repo's do not contain recent rockchip64 kernels at the moment. There is only a recent generic arm64 one. So it is not only my rock3a, also my nanopi-r6c would be affected, but I use own/other/vendor kernels as well, so specific 6.18.8 is not an issue for me. I use extlinux or grub to select a certain kernel (6.19 flavor on nanopi-r6c for example). For my rock3a, I need vendor kernel, but if you use mainline based, you could use standard Debian backports kernel: https://packages.debian.org/trixie-backports/linux-image-arm64 You need to get the .dtb manually and I just assume most features are supported when the rock3a has mainline U-Boot in SPI. You need of course add that to sources.list and specifically select it. You could also use Armbian build framwork to build a 6.18.x yourself, you will also get a header files package then. For Debian14 I see there is: /usr/lib/linux-image-6.18.15+deb14-arm64/rockchip/rk3568-rock-3a.dtb But as indicated, this is total DIY, I have not tested it. I only know that on rock5b I could run standard distro since quite some months, but use 6.1.115 vendor one as I need all RK3588 HW to work.

Maybe see https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Medion_Chromebook_S2015_(google-veyron-mighty) It is RK3288, so an Armbian Rockchip kernel might do something, but I have no clue about DeviceTree and/or bootloader. Alpine is quite different from Armbian/Debian but maybe with that bootloader+kernel+DTB and Armbian rootfs it might do something, but make sure you have seril debug cable. In general might need to find solder points on motherboard/PCB or some specific resistor value on OTG ID pin.

No need to thank me in this case. You don't even read or understand or act upon it from the start; I mentioned essentially twice earlier what the problem is and now that I again opened that ssh log and you don't seem to understand how to handle ssh links. Is trivial for decades, you need to read docs or maybe ask an AI-bot, else forget about Linux and stay with Windows only.

AFAIR Windows uses other files/objects/regkeys when ssh admin/root I just remember it from other place on internet, test also with Linux only.

you cannot login as root via ssh using password, it is disabled by default for years already you need a normal user first or prepare the image/sd-card to use ssh keys/ids

in the root of the rootfs do: find . -name platform_install.sh find . -name u-boot-sunxi-with-spl.bin essentially construct correct dd arguments somethings else might be wrong though, so make sure you have a serial console/debug able with loglevel=7

The paste armbian URL displays nothing (anymore?) so without any (new) info from you, no-one can help you. AFAIR, 4K via HDMI connector is only recently available (on RK3588, not sure about RK3399), so make sure you can manage various combinations of U-Boot, kernel, rootfs. So sort of act like a developer, als make sure you have a serial console (debug) cable, else you cannot get any step further. Use a 26.2 based U-Boot and 6.19 rockchip64 kernel I would say, then see what happens.

If I understand you correctly: root via ssh is not allowed by default I usually setup (new) SBC's in a different way, but last time testing 2 of my boards with 26.2 minimal/IoT fresh image was via serial console, have not used ssh and certainly not putty. If no (serial) console, you might also have sme networking firewall issues somewhere in Windows or so, although would be vary rare. Have you setup a normal user first via (serial) console first?

You should also consider the bootloader (type and version), in principle you do not need the dtb- package as the dtb files are also in the kernel package (enough when doing own extlinux). U-Boot philosophy is to provide just enough so that the kernel/initrd/DTB can load and started. Audio is not part of that I think. LE certainly used other bootloader and as you already showed has more non-upstreamed patches. See my experience:

then this topic is not applicable

What hardware do you have? What exactly is in the M.2 slot?

What is in armbianEnv.txt then? Anyway you need to load and edit it such that you make sure loglevel=7 Then there will be more text after Starting kernel ... You also seem to have a power and/or reliability problem w.r.t. cables as characters are missing in your debug log text.