NicoD

Hi all.
I've created a tool to install Box86, Box64 and Wine onto Armbian Hirsute 5.13

I've tested it on RK3399. Should work on any device with panfrost drivers enabled.

Please let me know on what it works, or if it doesn't.
 
Here is the script.
https://github.com/NicoD-SBC/armbian-gaming
 
I also made a video where I show how to use it.
 

Hi all.
I've done a collaboration with @Igor, the creator of Armbian.
He shows and talks about the hardware that is used to maintain the project. Servers, boards, other electronics, ...
Enjoy!

More videos to come.
 

Hi all.
I've done a collaboration with @Igor, the creator of Armbian.
He shows and talks about the hardware that is used to maintain the project. Servers, boards, other electronics, ...
Enjoy!

More videos to come.
 

Hi all.
I've done a collaboration with @Igor, the creator of Armbian.
He shows and talks about the hardware that is used to maintain the project. Servers, boards, other electronics, ...
Enjoy!

More videos to come.
 

Hi all.
I've done a collaboration with @Igor, the creator of Armbian.
He shows and talks about the hardware that is used to maintain the project. Servers, boards, other electronics, ...
Enjoy!

More videos to come.
 

Hi all.
I've done a collaboration with @Igor, the creator of Armbian.
He shows and talks about the hardware that is used to maintain the project. Servers, boards, other electronics, ...
Enjoy!

More videos to come.
 

Hi all.
I've done a collaboration with @Igor, the creator of Armbian.
He shows and talks about the hardware that is used to maintain the project. Servers, boards, other electronics, ...
Enjoy!

More videos to come.
 

Hi all.
The Panfrost GPU driver is finally starting to mature for Mali G52 on the Odroid N2/N2+ and Khadas VIM3.
It doesn't perform great yet. But this will improve with time. In this video I show how to activate the panfrost driver on Armbian mainline.
 
To activate panfrost :
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:oibaf/graphics-drivers sudo apt update sudo apt upgrade sudo reboot Khadas VIM3 support is in the making. This also works on any other mainline image.
Greetings.
 
 

Hi all. I've just finished a new video about Armbian Hirsute XFCE4.
I show what's new. Mostly the feel and look are a bit more modern.
Here is my video.
 
Some other notes I've got :

 
Memory usage buster < focal < hirsute xfce4 < budgie < cinnamon CPU performance buster < hirsute < focal xfce4 < cinnamon < budgie So Buster xfce uses the least memory. And is also the slowest.
Hirsute is quite a bit slower than Focal, and uses more memory. I do find the newer looks worth the price.
 
Here my benchmarks :
Fix missing network sudo apt install gvfs-backends Download SBC-Bench wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ThomasKaiser/sbc-bench/master/sbc-bench.sh Execute SBC-Bench sudo /bin/bash ./sbc-bench.sh -c 7zip all cores 7z b 7zip small core taskset -c 0 7z b 7zip big core taskset -c 5 7z b NicoD Blender blender -b NicoD.xx.blend -f 0 SuperTuxKart 1080p full screen, show fps, choose soccer game with tux and grassfield. Average frames. Max temp Maximum temperature during blender NicoD render Board | SBC-Bench | Distro | Clockspeeds | 7z all cores | 7z small core | 7z big core | CPU-Miner | NicoD-Blender | SuperTuxKart | Memory used at boot | Max temp NanoPi M4 2GB http://ix.io/3xnJ Armbian Hirsute xfce4 5.13.12 1.4Ghz/1.8Ghz 7760 1267 1857 10.05 14m41s 8fps 693MB 78C *** NanoPi M4 2GB http://ix.io/3xv3 Armbian Hirsute xfce4 5.13.12 1.5Ghz/2Ghz 8288 1348 2070 10.95 13m21s 8fps 693MB *** NanoPi M4 2GB http://ix.io/3xs3 Armbian Hirsute cinnamon 5.13.12 1.4Ghz/1.8Ghz 7766 1267 1851 10 14m33s 8fps 809MB 78C NanoPi M4 2GB http://ix.io/3xt0 Armbian Hirsute budgie 5.13.12 1.4Ghz/1.8Ghz 7941 1272 1863 10.05 14m24s/14m18s 8fps 757MB 78C NanoPi M4 2GB http://ix.io/3xtR Armbian Buster xfce4 4.4.213 1.5Ghz/2Ghz 8383 1359 1982 10.8 14m17s 530MB NanoPi M4 2GB http://ix.io/3xuf Armbian Buster xfce4 4.4.213 1.4Ghz/1.8Ghz 7879 1278 1807 10 15m20s 530MB NanoPi M4 2GB http://ix.io/3xux Armbian Focal xfce4 5.10.60 1.4Ghz/1.8Ghz 8028 1286 1859 10.27 13m29s 8fps 586MB *** NanoPi M4 2GB http://ix.io/3xuL Armbian Focal xfce4 5.10.60 1.5Ghz/2Ghz 8427 1351 2076 11.2 12m53s 8fps 638MB ***
 

Armbian is an established Linux for single board computers that is used in enterprise, IOT micro services and various hobby deployments. Recent desktop improvements bring the platform on-par with key players in the Linux desktop arena while keeping the key advantage – you can easily build your own Linux distribution.
 
 
 
 
Armbian provides stable releases every three months. They are driven by CURRENT LTS kernel. Adventurers which likes rolling releases, can check EDGE releases which are using latest daily kernel builds with fresh packages from sid, hirsute or impish userland.
 
Armbian has powerful build system which can build a whole Linux distribution, an OS image or a kernel. Key advantages are simplicity, speed and excellent hardware support. Provides native or cross compilation.
 
This release is hard work of exceptional individuals who have contributed their time and expertise into this release. Many thanks to – in alphabetic order:

@balbes150 @AristoChen @belegdol @Werner@Heisath @iav @Igor @Icenowy @lanefu @jock @piter75@Rich Neese@rpardini@going @tkaiser @tparys @TonyMac32 @Azq2 @henkiejan1 @juanesf @psztoch, @redchenjs @Uglymotha

Special thanks to users and vendors @orangepi, @friendlyelec, @khadas and @olimex that understand the importance of our work and supports the project with donations of cash, hardware & expertise.

Enjoy!
 
Highlights
 
minimal, server or XFCE, Cinnamon and Budgie desktop fast and effective automated language selection on first run regular stable and daily beta & EDGE updates CLI is powered with ZSH or BASH added automated kernel upgrade on EDGE 5.13.y kernels added mainline based SPI boot support for Odroid HC4 added Qemu virtual Armbian builds added CSC images for Tinkerboard 2, Rockpi N10, added ZFS upgrade to v2.1 improved Github Actions CI and CDN network added Cinnamon and Budgie desktop enabled 3D support wherever its possible and works reasonble well added Khadas VIM1-3 & Edge boards, Avnet Microzed enabled VPU support for Rockchip added legacy kernel support for OrangepiZero2, Nvidia Jetson declare Ubuntu Hirsute and Debian Bullseye packages as stable added Ubuntu Impish and Debian Sid as beta build targets added KDE plasma DE as a beta build target
Details:
 
What’s Left
 
long term armbian-config refactoring upgrading Rockchip u-boot from 2010.y to latest resolving Allwinner boot troubles on last u-boot enable 3D on Meson G12 / SM1 infrastructure improvements: mirros, runners, publishing.  
Details:
 
Tough Decisions
 
Odroid C4/HC4 boot problem has to remain unresolved in CURRENT 5.10.y kernel since fixing it would break Khadas boards. Problem was properly solved in EDGE kernel. We had to disable 3D on latest Amlogic boards due to instability Leaving behind published Deepin, Enlightenment, Gnome, i3, KDE plasma, Mate, Xmonad desktop due to space constrains and lack of maintenance. These options are still available within the build tool.  
Known problems
 
XFCE desktop is missing package gvfs-backends and xarchiver bullseye doesn’t properly detect locales Helios64 eMMC IO errors with CURRENT kernel OrangepiZero2 EDGE kernel based image doesn’t boot. Will be fixed in bug fix release.  

Armbian desktop running on Orange Pi Zero2 with kernel 5.13

I received samples of P2 and M2. the first impressions are very positive. I checked the launch of the official versions of Ubuntu 18.04 from Fyrefly. Everything starts and works from the SD card. The startup process is very simple, I downloaded the image, unpacked it, wrote it to the SD card, connected it to P2\M2, turned on the power and the system automatically updated the bootloader in eMMC, rebooted and the Ubuntu system automatically started from the SD card (the regular Station system in eMMC is saved and works if there is no SD card).
 
I really liked the mechanism for connecting SATA devices (SSD\HDD) to P2, it is very simple. I immediately connected a 240GB SSD drive. It was automatically detected and appeared in the system. WiFi antennas on P2 are full-fledged and large, they obviously did not save money here and will ensure proper operation. 

Our documentation got a new page answering the most common questions people have. Feel free to check it out:
 
https://docs.armbian.com/User-Guide_FAQ/
 
 
If you have ideas for other things that could/should be explained there let us know or send a pull request here: http://github.com/armbian/documentation
 

Hi all.
I'm working on a script that can install different Linux gaming tools like Box86, Box64, PPSSPP, ...
For now it can only install box86 and box64. There is also an issue installing wine, so this doesn't work either.
 
https://github.com/NicoD-SBC/armbian-gaming
 
Download and unzip and run script : sudo /bin/bash ./armbian-gaming.sh When ready I'll make a video about it and give more info.
 
I've tested it on the PineBookPro with Hirsute.
With the Odroid N2+ you need to activate panfrost, install dependecies for N2+, and then install box86. Tho it didn't work as it should.
If "install box86" gives a build error, try the dependencies for N2+ and try "install box86" again.
 
Please let me know your experiences on other systems.
 

Version 20210703 for P1 and M1.
Kernel 5.10.47 5.12.14. For the Legacy version, the work with the installation of the media package has been fixed. Due to the peculiarities of installing the media package, for proper operation during subsequent system updates, I recommend freezing the current kernel, it differs from those that arrive in network repositories (the list of supported modules and devices has been significantly expanded).

I just build Gnome image for N2 - except mouse cursor is changing to strange forms, otherwise ... works. Hirsute with 5.12.y kernel.

Hi al.
I've finished my review of the PineBook Pro. I just love this thing. Runs great with Armbian.
Here my video.
Here all my gathered information:
 

Glad you have fun with it
 

Hi al.
I've finished my review of the PineBook Pro. I just love this thing. Runs great with Armbian.
Here my video.
Here all my gathered information:
 

That gave my videos a sudden boost. Thank you

Hi,
 
I did some more tests and it turned out, that there is little difference between LE and armbian legacy for x264 or avc movies - but I found no movieplayer, that worked half as good as armbian legacy with vc-1 movies.
Don't have that many movies with vc-1 but some much-loved like inception ...
 
I already wrote, that I use rockpi as movieplayer together with a beamer, so session selection of armbian legacy is suboptimal for me, as about 10-15% on top and bottom of the screen are invisible (outside of screen). Lightdm/xfce is so dumb, that icons in topbar will not be scaled to bar height, which works fine for second bar ...
Sadly I didn't find any other greeter, that runs on armbian and is more attractive like lightdm-gtk-greeter.
So I started to build my own, which took lot more of time than expected ...
 
any way - I finally have a working sample:

 
is uses gtk too, so it works with armbian.
 
I check the available sessions and if there's no session definition for kody-gbm, the kodi-button will be disabled (as in the screenshot taken from my desktop computer).
Font- and button-size have been increased for a screen distance of 3m approximately.
 
Last login will be cached, so user will be prefilled and hitting ENTER in the password field will login to the last session. Left most button starts kody and right most button the desktop.
 

This post helped me a lot, I am a beginner and I think other beginners like me need to come and read this post first.

Feel free to try to add it to armbian-config.
https://github.com/armbian/config
The script is indeed dated. And no devs have time to work on it.
I've always manually set it up in /etc/rc.local.

new version of Armbian  20210614 with core 5.10.43.
Added support for analog audio and a standard remote control.

Hi Werner, 
 
I'm more of an enthusiast than IT guy, so my technical skills are limited. However, I can put together some good graphics, should you have a requirement for that. I can also put together picture mock-ups of t-shirts and mugs for your store.
 
cheers,
 
Jim