segv

I have completely rewritten my first post with detailed instructions on how to install Ayufan's Armbian Ubuntu without needing a separate PC.

Thank you Igor: how stupid of me not to look in the commit messages and find that eth1 had simply been disabled in the DT.
Thank you also Xalius for the DT overlay tip: it is neat to be able to patch the DT in the running kernel.
 
For other users the following command re-enables eth1 at run time:
sudo enable_dtoverlay eth1 ethernet@ff550000 okay

for wifi I found this https://github.com/wonview/wifi_driver.
It might work.I've not tested this myself,in fact it's been a long time since a compiled
kernels or modules,before the DTS era actually.

By reverting this: https://github.com/ayufan-rock64/linux-kernel/commit/232b62b4bd69db6e9f074afc710f2c1c00b668df ?

What Igor said :-), you can also use an overlay to enable it at run-time. Ayufan just added a script to toggle existing nodes without creating an overlay for each.
 
https://github.com/ayufan-rock64/linux-build/blob/master/package/root/usr/local/sbin/enable_dtoverlay
 
The eth1 interface was disabled by default since it creates issues when there is no magjack mounted on the Rock64 for it, e.g. when you don't have the top-board with the audio DAC, this is also the usual Linux convention for boards with headers.

Ayufan’s Armbian on a V88 Piano or V88 Mini III
 
These two TV boxes seem to be electrically identical except that the V88 Mini III has 2 GB RAM and 8 GB ROM whereas the V88 Piano has 4 GB RAM and 16 GB ROM.
They use the same PCB as can be seen from the photos in these FreakTab topics:-
- http://freaktab.com/forum/tv-player-support/rockchip-based-tv-players/rk3328-devices/681869-scishion-v88-piano-tv-box-rk3328-4gb-ram-16gb-rom-android-7-1-usb-3-0-fast-lan
- http://freaktab.com/forum/tv-player-support/rockchip-based-tv-players/rk3328-devices/663248-scishion-v88-mini-iii-tv-box-rk3328-2-8gb-2-4-wifi-fast-lan
 
I do not have a V88 Mini III to test but I believe that my results for the V88 Piano should also be relevant to it.
 
N.B. many sites claim that the V88 Piano has Gigabit Ethernet (1000 Mbps). It does not: it only has Fast Ethernet (100 Mbps) like the V88 Mini III.
 
One nice thing about these TV boxes is that, unlike many others, they will boot easily from a micro-SD card.
Just insert the card and power on
 
My aim was to have Ubuntu running with all version-specific partitions (boot and root) on a USB drive.
I wanted to keep Android in the internal eMMC so that I could dual-boot by just inserting or removing the micro-SD card.
 
I wanted to have the root partition on a USB stick for three reasons:
1) A good USB stick is faster than a micro-SD card.
2) This avoids the system writing repeatedly to the micro-SD card because, if the root partition is on the micro-SD card, after a while it gets corrupted and will no longer boot. This happened to me with both a cheap Ansonchina card and also with a Kingston card. Maybe the write timings in the micro-SD card driver are incorrect.
3) Whilst experimenting on Amlogic boxes I have fried two big micro-SD cards. I have read that others have fried cards on Rockchip boxes. Moving the rootfs to a USB stick enables me to use a smaller and cheaper card.
(I suspect that they were destroyed by over-voltage due to a badly programmed regulator. With a 5 V USB stick and a 5 V PSU there should be no risk as I don’t think the regulators used can step up the voltage.)
 
I also wanted the boot partition to be on the USB stick so that I could have several GNU/Linux distributions on different USB sticks and boot with the same unmodified micro-SD card containing just the boot loaders.
 
I have deliberately avoided the necessity to have a Linux (or even Windows) PC.
 
N.B. the Ubuntu system will not (yet) have working Wi-Fi.
 
You will need:-
- a rooted V88 Piano (mine was sold pre-rooted)
- a micro-SD card: mine was 8 GB but 4 GB should suffice
- a USB Flash Drive: I have used both 32 GB and 8 GB but 4 GB may suffice for a fairly minimal system
- a USB keyboard (and mouse if installing a desktop): I used a wireless mini-keyboard/mouse
- a wired (RJ45) Ethernet connection with DHCP and Internet access
- an HDMI display
 
WARNING: before using a /dev/ or /dev/block device verify that you are using the correct one, using dmesg for instance. Otherwise you could overwrite precious data.
However if you remove all additional USB drives the names below should be correct.
 
The login is rock64 with password rock64 which is also required for sudo.
 
First step – install Ayfan’s Ubuntu Xenial Minimal 0.5.15 on a micro-SD card and prepare 0.6.25 on a USB stick.
 
Boot Android.
 
I installed and used Google Chrome for the following downloads because, with the stock Lightning browser, I couldn’t see when the download had finished.
(The busybox wget can't be used because it doesn’t support https.)
 
Open https://github.com/ayufan-rock64/linux-build/releases/tag/0.5.15 in the browser.
Download xenial-minimal-rock64-0.5.15-136-arm64.img.xz
 
If you wish to pass directly to Ubuntu Bionic you could use the Bionic 0.6.25 image instead of Xenial below.
However this may make it more difficult to update U-Boot later as I think a Xenial environment is expected to compile it.
Open https://github.com/ayufan-rock64/linux-build/releases/tag/0.6.25 in the browser.
Download xenial-minimal-rock64-0.6.25-193-arm64.img.xz

Insert the micro-SD card and the USB stick.
N.B. all existing files on both will be destroyed.
You will be asked how to use the USB stick: choose "removable storage" and "cancel" if asked whether to format it.
 
Execute the following actions and commands (in the text following the $ or #).
 
Install and start ConnectBot.
 
Open a local shell.
Become root.
$ su
 
Enter the directory where browsers save downloaded files.
# cd /sdcard/Download
 
Decompress the files.
# busybox xz -d xenial-minimal-rock64-0.5.15-136-arm64.img.xz
# busybox xz -d xenial-minimal-rock64-0.6.25-193-arm64.img.xz
 
Write the 0.6.25 image to the USB stick.
# dd if=xenial-minimal-rock64-0.6.25-193-arm64.img of=/dev/block/sda bs=1048576
 
Write the 0.5.15 image to the micro-SD card.
# dd if=xenial-minimal-rock64-0.5.15-136-arm64.img of=/dev/block/mmcblk1 bs=1048576
 
Ensure everything is written.
# sync
 
Power off the box.

Second step – boot Ayfan’s Ubuntu Xenial Minimal 0.5.15 and prepare the switch to 0.6.25 on the USB stick.
 
Insert the micro-SD card.
Boot and login (rock64/rock64).
 
Become root.
$ sudo -s
 
Remove partitions 6 (boot) and 7 (root) from the micro-SD card so that U-Boot and Linux will use the ones on the USB stick next time.
Luckily this only deletes their entries so Linux can continue to use them until they are unmounted.
Reply "Yes" and "Ignore" to the warnings.
# parted /dev/mmcblk1
rm 6
rm 7
q
 
# poweroff

Third step - boot Ayfan’s Ubuntu Xenial Minimal 0.6.25 from the boot and root partitions on the USB stick and prepare to update to a recent version.
 
Insert the USB stick in the middle USB slot and insert the micro-SD card.
Boot and login.
$ sudo -s
 
This DHCP configuration will be necessary for Bionic.
# cd /etc/network/interfaces.d
# sed s/eth0/eth1/ eth0 > eth1
 
At the time of writing there are only pre-release versions of 0.6.x but Ayufan has promised an official release shortly after the official release of Bionic due on 24th April.
If, in addition to Ubuntu updates,  you want to update to Auyufan's pre-release versions with an added risk of instability then:
# vi /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ayufan-rock64.list
Uncomment the last line
 
# apt update
 
The following lines are necessary if you update to a more recent Ayufan version which will disable eth1:
This is needed to re-enable eth1:
# apt install device-tree-compiler
Make rc.local enable eth1 which is disabled in recent versions and disable eth0 which is not used on the V88 Piano:
# vi /etc/rc.local
Add these two lines just before the last line (exit 0):
enable_dtoverlay eth1 ethernet@ff550000 okay
enable_dtoverlay eth0 ethernet@ff540000 disabled
 
# apt dist-upgrade -y
 
If you want a Mate desktop you can:
# install_desktop.sh mate
 
This gave me an error which I corrected with:
# apt -f install
 
If you wish you can also upgrade from Xenial to Bionic with do-release-upgrade.
 
# reboot
 
You should now be running an up-to-date version with the boot and root partitions on the USB stick.

The next step will be to compile and install a more recent U-Boot supporting the USB 3.0 port correctly.
To be continued...

The procedure above may seem convoluted so here are some additional explanations.
0.5.15 is used for its boot loaders as it is the latest version which will boot directly from a micro-SD card. Unfortunately it does not have working Ethernet and its U-Boot will not load correctly from the USB 3.0 slot.
0.6.25 is used because it has working Ethernet to install device-tree-compiler which is needed to re-enable eth1 on recent versions.

Hi,
 
I have received my SCISHION V88 Piano and I can confirm that it boots to a Ubuntu Mate desktop from a micro SD-card with the image in the first post of this topic.
Like rob0809 I did nothing except insert the micro SD-card and power on
Unfortunately after running for a few minutes there were some I/O errors which I must investigate but this is perhaps due to my cheap (Ansonchina) SD-card.
 
I shall try other images and report back later.
 
Updates:
I tried this image:
https://github.com/ayufan-rock64/linux-build/releases/download/0.5.15/xenial-mate-rock64-0.5.15-136-arm64.img.xz
and it also booted directly but still with I/O errors.
I replaced the Ansonchina 8GB SD-card with a Kingston 8GB one and there were no more I/O errors
 
I tried the following images which also booted directly from the Kingston SD-card with no intervention:
http://dietpi.com/downloads/images/DietPi_Rock64-ARMv8-Stretch.7z
https://github.com/Raybuntu/LibreELEC.tv/releases/download/rb-leia23/LibreELEC-rock64.arm-rb-leia23.img.gz
https://github.com/ayufan-rock64/linux-build/releases/download/0.5.15/xenial-i3-rock64-0.5.15-136-arm64.img.xz
 
Most of these images require an external USB Ethernet adapter (internal Ethernet and WiFi don't seem to be supported).
They also run much more slowly than I had expected. Unfortunately I don't think that this is just due to a lack of hardware graphics acceleration  
But this is just a start and at least they do run
 
Later update:
I found an easy hack to greatly speed up simple operations not involving heavy video or graphics.
(Due to the lack of hardware acceleration, YouTube videos, for example, still play frame by frame.)
I copied exactly the same disk image to both a micro SD-card and to a USB 3.0 storage device.
I modified the label on the root partition of the SD-card so that it would use the USB disk as the rootfs instead.
On most of these images the rootfs is labelled linux-root on partition 7.
I used gparted to change the SD-card's partition 7 label to linux-rootX so that it would pick up the partition on the USB drive instead.
 
I also used parted to correct for the size of both the devices and to increase the size of the root partition on the USB drive. However this is not strictly necessary.
As a stability test and a realistic benchmark, I compiled natively the recent mainline v4.15 Linux kernel: "make defconfig && make -j 4 Image" finished successfully in slightly under 100 minutes.
This is not too bad for a box costing about $40.
 
Even later update:
The best Ubuntu image that I have found is this one:
https://dl.armbian.com/rock64/Ubuntu_xenial_default_nightly.7z
This currently redirects to:
https://dl.armbian.com/rock64/nightly/Armbian_5.34.171121_Rock64_Ubuntu_xenial_default_4.4.77.7z
There is only one single partition so I had to:
'- copy the image to a USB storage device
- resize the partition
- add the label linux-root
- copy the appropriate files from the boot directory of this partition to replace the dtb, Image and initrd.img files on the boot partition of the SD-card I used previously
- ensure that there is no partition labeled linux-root on the SD-card
- after booting I installed ubuntu-mate-desktop but this is obviously not mandatory
The advantages of this image are:
- it will find the linux-root partition even if the USB storage device is on a hub (otherwise the USB drive monopolizes the USB 3.0 port)
- YouTube video (nearly) works so there must be some hardware acceleration
Unfortunately the video freezes from time to time. This doesn't seem to be due to a slow Internet connection.
With this image the compilation time for the same kernel dropped to 72 minutes.
 
I also tried this image but it did not seem to boot (at least there was only a blank screen on HDMI).
https://github.com/ayufan-rock64/linux-build/releases/download/0.6.19/bionic-minimal-rock64-0.6.19-181-arm64.img.xz
Maybe it is headless so I shall try again to ssh into it.
(Or to login via a serial console but I have not yet needed to open the case.)
 
Cheers,
Chris

Ayufan’s Armbian on a V88 Piano or V88 Mini III
 
These two TV boxes seem to be electrically identical except that the V88 Mini III has 2 GB RAM and 8 GB ROM whereas the V88 Piano has 4 GB RAM and 16 GB ROM.
They use the same PCB as can be seen from the photos in these FreakTab topics:-
- http://freaktab.com/forum/tv-player-support/rockchip-based-tv-players/rk3328-devices/681869-scishion-v88-piano-tv-box-rk3328-4gb-ram-16gb-rom-android-7-1-usb-3-0-fast-lan
- http://freaktab.com/forum/tv-player-support/rockchip-based-tv-players/rk3328-devices/663248-scishion-v88-mini-iii-tv-box-rk3328-2-8gb-2-4-wifi-fast-lan
 
I do not have a V88 Mini III to test but I believe that my results for the V88 Piano should also be relevant to it.
 
N.B. many sites claim that the V88 Piano has Gigabit Ethernet (1000 Mbps). It does not: it only has Fast Ethernet (100 Mbps) like the V88 Mini III.
 
One nice thing about these TV boxes is that, unlike many others, they will boot easily from a micro-SD card.
Just insert the card and power on
 
My aim was to have Ubuntu running with all version-specific partitions (boot and root) on a USB drive.
I wanted to keep Android in the internal eMMC so that I could dual-boot by just inserting or removing the micro-SD card.
 
I wanted to have the root partition on a USB stick for three reasons:
1) A good USB stick is faster than a micro-SD card.
2) This avoids the system writing repeatedly to the micro-SD card because, if the root partition is on the micro-SD card, after a while it gets corrupted and will no longer boot. This happened to me with both a cheap Ansonchina card and also with a Kingston card. Maybe the write timings in the micro-SD card driver are incorrect.
3) Whilst experimenting on Amlogic boxes I have fried two big micro-SD cards. I have read that others have fried cards on Rockchip boxes. Moving the rootfs to a USB stick enables me to use a smaller and cheaper card.
(I suspect that they were destroyed by over-voltage due to a badly programmed regulator. With a 5 V USB stick and a 5 V PSU there should be no risk as I don’t think the regulators used can step up the voltage.)
 
I also wanted the boot partition to be on the USB stick so that I could have several GNU/Linux distributions on different USB sticks and boot with the same unmodified micro-SD card containing just the boot loaders.
 
I have deliberately avoided the necessity to have a Linux (or even Windows) PC.
 
N.B. the Ubuntu system will not (yet) have working Wi-Fi.
 
You will need:-
- a rooted V88 Piano (mine was sold pre-rooted)
- a micro-SD card: mine was 8 GB but 4 GB should suffice
- a USB Flash Drive: I have used both 32 GB and 8 GB but 4 GB may suffice for a fairly minimal system
- a USB keyboard (and mouse if installing a desktop): I used a wireless mini-keyboard/mouse
- a wired (RJ45) Ethernet connection with DHCP and Internet access
- an HDMI display
 
WARNING: before using a /dev/ or /dev/block device verify that you are using the correct one, using dmesg for instance. Otherwise you could overwrite precious data.
However if you remove all additional USB drives the names below should be correct.
 
The login is rock64 with password rock64 which is also required for sudo.
 
First step – install Ayfan’s Ubuntu Xenial Minimal 0.5.15 on a micro-SD card and prepare 0.6.25 on a USB stick.
 
Boot Android.
 
I installed and used Google Chrome for the following downloads because, with the stock Lightning browser, I couldn’t see when the download had finished.
(The busybox wget can't be used because it doesn’t support https.)
 
Open https://github.com/ayufan-rock64/linux-build/releases/tag/0.5.15 in the browser.
Download xenial-minimal-rock64-0.5.15-136-arm64.img.xz
 
If you wish to pass directly to Ubuntu Bionic you could use the Bionic 0.6.25 image instead of Xenial below.
However this may make it more difficult to update U-Boot later as I think a Xenial environment is expected to compile it.
Open https://github.com/ayufan-rock64/linux-build/releases/tag/0.6.25 in the browser.
Download xenial-minimal-rock64-0.6.25-193-arm64.img.xz

Insert the micro-SD card and the USB stick.
N.B. all existing files on both will be destroyed.
You will be asked how to use the USB stick: choose "removable storage" and "cancel" if asked whether to format it.
 
Execute the following actions and commands (in the text following the $ or #).
 
Install and start ConnectBot.
 
Open a local shell.
Become root.
$ su
 
Enter the directory where browsers save downloaded files.
# cd /sdcard/Download
 
Decompress the files.
# busybox xz -d xenial-minimal-rock64-0.5.15-136-arm64.img.xz
# busybox xz -d xenial-minimal-rock64-0.6.25-193-arm64.img.xz
 
Write the 0.6.25 image to the USB stick.
# dd if=xenial-minimal-rock64-0.6.25-193-arm64.img of=/dev/block/sda bs=1048576
 
Write the 0.5.15 image to the micro-SD card.
# dd if=xenial-minimal-rock64-0.5.15-136-arm64.img of=/dev/block/mmcblk1 bs=1048576
 
Ensure everything is written.
# sync
 
Power off the box.

Second step – boot Ayfan’s Ubuntu Xenial Minimal 0.5.15 and prepare the switch to 0.6.25 on the USB stick.
 
Insert the micro-SD card.
Boot and login (rock64/rock64).
 
Become root.
$ sudo -s
 
Remove partitions 6 (boot) and 7 (root) from the micro-SD card so that U-Boot and Linux will use the ones on the USB stick next time.
Luckily this only deletes their entries so Linux can continue to use them until they are unmounted.
Reply "Yes" and "Ignore" to the warnings.
# parted /dev/mmcblk1
rm 6
rm 7
q
 
# poweroff

Third step - boot Ayfan’s Ubuntu Xenial Minimal 0.6.25 from the boot and root partitions on the USB stick and prepare to update to a recent version.
 
Insert the USB stick in the middle USB slot and insert the micro-SD card.
Boot and login.
$ sudo -s
 
This DHCP configuration will be necessary for Bionic.
# cd /etc/network/interfaces.d
# sed s/eth0/eth1/ eth0 > eth1
 
At the time of writing there are only pre-release versions of 0.6.x but Ayufan has promised an official release shortly after the official release of Bionic due on 24th April.
If, in addition to Ubuntu updates,  you want to update to Auyufan's pre-release versions with an added risk of instability then:
# vi /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ayufan-rock64.list
Uncomment the last line
 
# apt update
 
The following lines are necessary if you update to a more recent Ayufan version which will disable eth1:
This is needed to re-enable eth1:
# apt install device-tree-compiler
Make rc.local enable eth1 which is disabled in recent versions and disable eth0 which is not used on the V88 Piano:
# vi /etc/rc.local
Add these two lines just before the last line (exit 0):
enable_dtoverlay eth1 ethernet@ff550000 okay
enable_dtoverlay eth0 ethernet@ff540000 disabled
 
# apt dist-upgrade -y
 
If you want a Mate desktop you can:
# install_desktop.sh mate
 
This gave me an error which I corrected with:
# apt -f install
 
If you wish you can also upgrade from Xenial to Bionic with do-release-upgrade.
 
# reboot
 
You should now be running an up-to-date version with the boot and root partitions on the USB stick.

The next step will be to compile and install a more recent U-Boot supporting the USB 3.0 port correctly.
To be continued...

The procedure above may seem convoluted so here are some additional explanations.
0.5.15 is used for its boot loaders as it is the latest version which will boot directly from a micro-SD card. Unfortunately it does not have working Ethernet and its U-Boot will not load correctly from the USB 3.0 slot.
0.6.25 is used because it has working Ethernet to install device-tree-compiler which is needed to re-enable eth1 on recent versions.

[1] Original  Z28:
Can boot from micro SD
2 USB ports (1 x USB3, 1 x OTG)
WiFi provided by rtl8188.
PCB marked as "XJH-ZY168-V00".
 
 
 
[2] Cheaper Z28:
Can boot from micro SD (not sure)
2 USB ports (1 x USB3, 1 x OTG)
WiFi provided by ssv6051.
PCB marked as "XJH-ZY168-V01".
 
 
 
[3] Original Z28 Pro (Original Alfawise Z28 Pro):
Can't boot from micro SD.
3 USB ports (1 x USB3, 1 x OTG)
WiFi + Bluetooth provided by rtl8822. (placed inside fn6222B module)
Gigabit ethernet provided by rtl8211e.
PCB marked as "XJH-RK28-V10".
 
 
[4] Cheaper Z28 Pro (Cheaper Alfawise Z28 Pro):
Can't boot from micro SD.
3 USB ports (1 x USB3, 1 x OTG)
WiFi provided by rtl8189.
PCB marked as "XJH-RK28-V10".
 
 
 
[5] Cheaper 2 Z28 Pro (Cheaper 2 Alfawise Z28 Pro):
Can't boot from micro SD. (not sure)
3 USB ports (1 x USB3, 1 x OTG) (not sure)
WiFi provided by ssv6051.
PCB marked as "XJH-Q7L-V00".

Hi,
 
some progress.
After installing the latest ayufan-build (0.6.22 xenial) I could update via Wifi-Dongle to kernel 4.15 (from ayufan) and now I have working ethernet. Beside that my box "feels" more stable, at least in the last 10 minutes. But I did not do anything to really stress the system.
I have a Z28Pro (2/16, V11).

Very good observation. I bought 4 of these and i can confirm all of them having only 100Mb/s link (booted in Android) when connected to a 1GbE switch.
So Gearbest & co have LIED to us about the spec. I've now claimed full refund from Paypal.
 
 
 
 

Just got my first 2pcs of SCISHION V88 Piano, i will start testing some of the images and report back. Hope to get GbE in the first place and then....really hope the USB3 will work

Tried with ioBroker image and it booted up on my first attempt, WOW! This is the first box to boot on my first attempt.
USB mouse and keyboard work, but there are error messages related to the GbE i think:
stmmac_open hw setup failed + some DMA setup failures
'ip a' shows an interface named eth0, but 'ethtool eth0' gives some errors as well.
Kernel version is 4.4.77-rk3328.
 
Now if we can get the ethernet to work and USB3 (not yet tested), this is gonna rock!
 
Edit1: Some images of the issues for debugging purposes:
https://my.owndrive.com/index.php/s/ycA9lCC1yQSFIH2
 
Edit2: USB3 seems to be working as i get ~90MB/s for reads with a USB memory drive.
 
Now only the ethernet is not working so i hope we can find a pay to patch it.
Still waiting early to get started with my Ceph home lab with these!

Finally received my SCISHION V88 Piano box.  I was able to burn the DietPi image for Rock64 to a micro SD card, place it in the micro SD slot, apply power and it booted up to a login.  The ethernet showed up as eth0 but I couldn't connect to anything.  Wireless also wasn't working.  I'm not sure what else is broken.

Anyone tested "SCISHION V88 Piano" box? https://www.gearbest.com/tv-box/pp_1064854.html
Gigabit ethernet, 4GB ram, nice thermal case design, DRM widevine level 1, ... seems to me like a nice RK3328 box.
The smaller SCISHION box is booting from the card, not sure about this one.

Thanks for the TV Box link.
But where I can find the image you loaded?
Thanks again.

It's in the first post in this thread.
 
https://github.com/ayufan-rock64/linux-build/releases/download/0.4.0/xenial-mate-rock64-0.4.0-63-armhf.img.xz
 
I also tried the DietPi image for ROCK64 and that worked well too.  I loaded a Libreelec image and it booted but there was no sound.  Probably needs the correct device tree.

Sorry, I put the wrong box.  It's this one SCISHION V88 Mini III TV Box RK3328- 2/8GB 2.4 WiFi Fast Lan.
 
https://www.gearbest.com/tv-box/pp_680984.html

Say man, I have SCISHION V88 mini II RK3229 TV Box.  I loaded the ROCK64 Ubuntu Mate image on a mcroSD card and it booted up without doing anything.  No toothpick, no standing on my head, no nothing.  Ethernet worked until I upgraded the kernel.  Or maybe it was because of the reboot.  Not sure.  The MAC address of the NIC changes with every reboot.  So I plugged a USB ethernet adapter into the USB 3.0 port and I had network connectivity again.  I was able to run Subsonic and Samba/NFS on it to make it a media and file server with decent throughput due to the USB 3.0 port.  For under $30, not a bad little box and things will only get better when/if a proper device tree is available for the box.  Well now that I think of it, the box was $30 but if you add another $10 for a USB NIC and another $10 for a  USB 3.0 hub, it loses it's appeal as a cheap NAS.

Hi,
 
I have received my SCISHION V88 Piano and I can confirm that it boots to a Ubuntu Mate desktop from a micro SD-card with the image in the first post of this topic.
Like rob0809 I did nothing except insert the micro SD-card and power on
Unfortunately after running for a few minutes there were some I/O errors which I must investigate but this is perhaps due to my cheap (Ansonchina) SD-card.
 
I shall try other images and report back later.
 
Updates:
I tried this image:
https://github.com/ayufan-rock64/linux-build/releases/download/0.5.15/xenial-mate-rock64-0.5.15-136-arm64.img.xz
and it also booted directly but still with I/O errors.
I replaced the Ansonchina 8GB SD-card with a Kingston 8GB one and there were no more I/O errors
 
I tried the following images which also booted directly from the Kingston SD-card with no intervention:
http://dietpi.com/downloads/images/DietPi_Rock64-ARMv8-Stretch.7z
https://github.com/Raybuntu/LibreELEC.tv/releases/download/rb-leia23/LibreELEC-rock64.arm-rb-leia23.img.gz
https://github.com/ayufan-rock64/linux-build/releases/download/0.5.15/xenial-i3-rock64-0.5.15-136-arm64.img.xz
 
Most of these images require an external USB Ethernet adapter (internal Ethernet and WiFi don't seem to be supported).
They also run much more slowly than I had expected. Unfortunately I don't think that this is just due to a lack of hardware graphics acceleration  
But this is just a start and at least they do run
 
Later update:
I found an easy hack to greatly speed up simple operations not involving heavy video or graphics.
(Due to the lack of hardware acceleration, YouTube videos, for example, still play frame by frame.)
I copied exactly the same disk image to both a micro SD-card and to a USB 3.0 storage device.
I modified the label on the root partition of the SD-card so that it would use the USB disk as the rootfs instead.
On most of these images the rootfs is labelled linux-root on partition 7.
I used gparted to change the SD-card's partition 7 label to linux-rootX so that it would pick up the partition on the USB drive instead.
 
I also used parted to correct for the size of both the devices and to increase the size of the root partition on the USB drive. However this is not strictly necessary.
As a stability test and a realistic benchmark, I compiled natively the recent mainline v4.15 Linux kernel: "make defconfig && make -j 4 Image" finished successfully in slightly under 100 minutes.
This is not too bad for a box costing about $40.
 
Even later update:
The best Ubuntu image that I have found is this one:
https://dl.armbian.com/rock64/Ubuntu_xenial_default_nightly.7z
This currently redirects to:
https://dl.armbian.com/rock64/nightly/Armbian_5.34.171121_Rock64_Ubuntu_xenial_default_4.4.77.7z
There is only one single partition so I had to:
'- copy the image to a USB storage device
- resize the partition
- add the label linux-root
- copy the appropriate files from the boot directory of this partition to replace the dtb, Image and initrd.img files on the boot partition of the SD-card I used previously
- ensure that there is no partition labeled linux-root on the SD-card
- after booting I installed ubuntu-mate-desktop but this is obviously not mandatory
The advantages of this image are:
- it will find the linux-root partition even if the USB storage device is on a hub (otherwise the USB drive monopolizes the USB 3.0 port)
- YouTube video (nearly) works so there must be some hardware acceleration
Unfortunately the video freezes from time to time. This doesn't seem to be due to a slow Internet connection.
With this image the compilation time for the same kernel dropped to 72 minutes.
 
I also tried this image but it did not seem to boot (at least there was only a blank screen on HDMI).
https://github.com/ayufan-rock64/linux-build/releases/download/0.6.19/bionic-minimal-rock64-0.6.19-181-arm64.img.xz
Maybe it is headless so I shall try again to ssh into it.
(Or to login via a serial console but I have not yet needed to open the case.)
 
Cheers,
Chris