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Hi everyone! 👋 I managed to get Armbian running on a generic RK3518 TV box — mainline U-Boot, onboard Ethernet, and AIC8800D80 SDIO Wi-Fi all working. I couldn't find a single RK3518 thread here when I started, so I wrote everything up to help the community. Full step-by-step guide, device tree, and the loader binaries I built are in my GitHub repo: 👉https://github.com/juliovendramini/rk3518_armbian Happy to answer questions. Hope it helps someone! 🙂

DISCLAIMERS (PLEASE READ): Everything you can find in this thread (binaries, texts, code snippets, etc...) are provided AS-IS and are not part of official Armbian project. For this reason not people from Armbian project nor myself are responsible for misuse or loss of functionality of hardware. THIS POST explains very well the troubles with TV Boxes and why they are not suitable for everyone Please don't ask about support or assistance in other non-community forums nor in the official Armbian github repository, instead post your questions in this thread, in the TV Boxes forum section (hardware related) or in the Peer-to-peer support section (general linux/software related). Following the recent thread on LibreElec forum about an unofficial image for rk3229 devices, I would like to make public the work made by me and @fabiobassa about bringing rk322x support to armbian. The project is now in -> mainline Armbian <- development fork -> here <- This first page and the last 3 or 4 pages of the thread are enough to get up to date with recent developments. Many useful experiences are scattered through the thread, but the most important things are collected here in the first page, so please read it carefully! Mainline kernel is fully supported and will receive most support in the future. Legacy kernel 4.4 is deprecated, but is kept around only for special purposes. What works: Should boot and work flawlessy on all boards with RK3228a, RK3228b and RK3229, with either DDR2 and DDR3 memories. Mainline u-boot Proprietary OPTEE provided as Trusted Execution Environment (needed for DRAM frequency scaling) All 4 cores are working Ethernet Serial UART (configured at 115200 bps, not 1.5Mbps!) Thermals, CPU and DRAM frequency scaling OTG USB 2.0 port (also as boot device!) EHCI/OHCI USB 2.0 ports MMC subsystem (including eMMC, SD and sdio devices) Hardware video acceleration NAND is available only on legacy kernel. To fully boot from NAND, use the Multitool and its steP-nand installation (instructions are below) Various WIFI over SDIO are supported (SSV6051P, SSV6256P, ESP8089, Realtek chips, etc...), ssv6256p driver is available only on legacy kernel Full GPU acceleration U-boot boot order priority: first the sdcard, then the USB OTG port and eventually the internal eMMC; you can install u-boot (and the whole system) in the internal eMMC and u-boot will always check for images on external sdcard/USB first. Unbrick: Technically, rockchip devices cannot be bricked. If the internal flash does not contain a bootable system, they will always boot from the sdcard. If, for a reason, the bootable system on the internal flash is corrupted or is unable to boot correctly, you can always force the maskrom mode shorting the eMMC clock pin on the PCB. Here there is the procedure, but you can also google around if you get stuck on a faulty bootloader, the technique is pretty simple and requires a simple screwdriver. There are however some unfortunate cases (expecially newer boards) where shorting the eMMC clock pin is difficult or impossibile, like eMMC or eMCP BGA chips with no exposed pins. In those cases pay double attention when burning something on the internal eMMC/eMCP and always test first the image from the sdcard to be sure it works before burning anything on eMMC/eMCP. Some useful links with pins, pads or procedures for some boards: Generic procedure for boards with non-BGA eMMC MXQPRO_V71 - eMCP H20 - eMCP ZQ01 - eMCP NAND vs eMMC vs eMCP difference: RK3228 and RK3229 tv boxes comes with three different flash memory chips: eMMC, NAND and eMCP. It does not depend upon the market name of the tv box and neither the internal board; manufacturers put whatever they find cheaper when they buy the components. NAND chip is just the non-volatile memory eMMC chip contains both the non-volatile memory plus a controller. eMCP chip contains the non-volatile memory, a controller for the non-volatile memory (like eMMC), but also contains a bank of DDR SDRAM memory on the same physical chip. The difference is very important, because eMMC and eMCP are far easier to support at various levels: the controller deals with the physical characteristics of the non-volatile memory, so the software has no to deal with. NAND chips instead are harder to support, because the software is required to deal with the physical characteristics and non-standard things that depends upon the NAND manufacturer. If you have a NAND chips you're unlucky because mainline kernel currently cannot access it, but also because you need special care and instructions explained later. You can discover if you have a NAND, eMMC or eMCP chip looking on the board are reading the signature on the flash memory chip. The Multitool (see later) also can detect which chip you have onboard: the program will warn you at startup if you have a NAND chip. NAND bootloader upgrade: IMPORTANT: don't do this is you have an eMMC or eMCP; skip this paragraph if you are unsure too! For very expert people who are having issues when (re)booting images, there is the chance to upgrade the bootloader on NAND. The NAND bootloader is nothing else than a regular idbloader (see official rockchip documentation) but contains some bits to correctly access the data on your flash memory. Upgrading requires to erase the existing flash content, in the worst case will require you to follow the Unbrick procedure above or restore an older but more compatible bootloader. If you are not mentally ready to overcome possible further issues, don't do this! The detailed instructions and the binaries are available at this post Multimedia: Mainline kernel: 3D acceleration is provided by Lima driver and is already enabled. Hardware video decoding: https://forum.armbian.com/topic/19258-testing-hardware-video-decoding-rockchip-allwinner/ Deprecated legacy kernel: multimedia features, like OpenGL/OpenGL ES acceleration, hardware accelerated Kodi, ffmpeg and mpv you can take a look to this post An effective tutorial from @Hai Nguyen on how to configure a box as a hi-quality music player using an USB audio card, and controlling it via remote control is available in this post Brief explanation about kernel naming: current kernel is the mainline LTS kernel version, most maintained and tested. This is the suggested version for production devices. If you don't know what to pick, pick this. legacy kernel (version 4.4) is provided by manufacturer; it is deprecated, unmaintained and not suggested. edge kernel is the development mainline kernel version, with experimental features and drivers; usually stable but perhaps suitable for production devices. You can switch from one kernel flavour to another using armbian-config or manually via apt. Installation (via SD card): Building: You can build your own image follow the common steps to build armbian for other tv boxes devices: when you are in the moment to choose the target board, switch to CSC/TVB/EOL boards and select "rk322x-box" from the list. Download prebuilt images from the following links: Archive builds (GPG-signed) - https://imola.armbian.com/dl/rk322x-box/archive/ SUGGESTED - Nightly built from trunk each week by Armbian servers (GPG-signed) - https://github.com/armbian/community Old images provided by me (unsigned and outdated) - https://users.armbian.com/jock/rk322x/armbian/stable Archived/older images: https://armbian.hosthatch.com/archive/rk322x-box/archive/ Multitool: The Multitool is a small but powerful tool to do quick backup/restore of internal flash, but also burn images and general system rescue and maintenance via terminal or SSH. Compressed images will be uncompressed on fly. Multitool - A small but powerful image for RK322x TV Box maintenance (instructions to access via network here) Quick installation instructions on eMMC: Build or download your preferred Armbian image and a copy of the Multitool; Burn the Multitool on an SD card; once done, place the Armbian image in images folder of the SD card NTFS partition; Plug the SD card in the TV box and plug in the power cord. After some seconds the blue led starts blinking and the Multitool appears; OPTIONAL: you can do a backup of the existing firmware with "Backup flash" menu option; Choose "Burn image to flash" from the menu, then select the destination device (usually mmcblk2) and the image to burn; Wait for the process to complete, then choose "Shutdown" from main menu; Unplug the power cord and the SD card, then replug the power cord; Wait for 10 seconds, then the led should start blinking and HDMI will turn on. The first time the boot process will take a couple of minutes or more because the filesystem is going to be resized, so be patient and wait for the login prompt. On first boot you will be asked for entering a password for root user of your choice and the name and password for a regular user Run sudo rk322x-config and select your board characteristics to enable leds, wifi chips, high-speed eMMC, etc... Run sudo armbian-config to configure timezone, locales and other personal options Congratulations, Armbian is now installed and configured! Despite the procedure above is simple and reliable, I always recommend to first test that your device boots Armbian images from SD Card. Due to the really large hardware variety, there is the rare chance that the images proposed here may not boot. If a bad image is burned in eMMC, the box may not boot anymore forcing you to follow the unbrick section at the top of this post. Quick installation instructions on NAND: Build or download your preferred Armbian image and a copy of the Multitool; Burn the Multitool on an SD card; once done, place the Armbian legacy kernel image in images folder of the SD card NTFS partition; Plug the SD card in the TV box and plug in the power cord. After some seconds the blue led starts blinking and the Multitool appears; OPTIONAL: you can do a backup of the existing firmware with "Backup flash" menu option; Choose "Burn Armbian image via steP-nand" from the menu, then select the destination device (usually rknand0) and the image to burn; Wait for the process to complete, then choose "Shutdown" from main menu; Unplug the power cord and the SD card, then replug the power cord; Wait for 10 seconds, then the led should start blinking and HDMI will turn on. The first time the boot process will take a couple of minutes or more because the filesystem is going to be resized, so be patient and wait for the login prompt. On first boot you will be asked for entering a password for root user of your choice and the name and password for a regular user Run sudo rk322x-config and select your board characteristics to enable leds, wifi chips, etc... Run armbian-config to configure timezone, locales and other personal options Congratulations, Armbian is now installed! Alternative: you can install the bootloader in NAND and let it boot from SD Card or USB: Download a copy of the Multitool and burn it on an SD card; Plug the SD card in the TV box and plug in the power cord. After some seconds the blue led starts blinking and the Multitool appears; RECOMMENDED: make a backup of the existing firmware with "Backup flash" menu option; Choose "Install Jump Start for Armbian" menu option: the Jump Start uses the internal NAND to boot from external SD Card or external USB Stick; Follow the general instructions to boot from SD Card below, skip the first erase eMMC step. Quick installation instructions to boot from SD Card: If you are already running Armbian from eMMC, skip to the next step. Instead if you are running the original firmware you need to first erase the internal eMMC; to do so download the Multitool, burn it on an SD Card, plug the SD Card and power the TV Box. Use "Backup flash" if you want to do a backup of the existing firmware, then choose "Erase flash" menu option. Build or download your preferred Armbian image; Uncompress and burn the Armbian image on the SD Card; Plug the SD Card in the TV Box and power it on; Wait for 10 seconds, then the led should start blinking and HDMI will turn on. The first time the boot process will take a couple of minutes or more because the filesystem is going to be resized, so be patient and wait for the login prompt; On first boot you will be asked for entering a password for root user of your choice and the name and password for a regular user Run sudo rk322x-config and select your board characteristics to enable leds, wifi chips, high-speed eMMC or NAND, etc... Run armbian-config to configure timezone, locales and other personal options, or also to transfer the SD Card installation to internal eMMC; Congratulations, Armbian is running from SD Card! A note about boot device order: With Armbian also comes mainline U-boot. If you install Armbian or just the bootloader in the eMMC or the Jump Start on internal NAND, the bootloader will look for valid bootable images in this order: External SD Card External USB Stick in OTG Port Internal eMMC Installation (without SD card, board with eMMC) If you have no sd card slot and your board has an eMMC, you can burn the armbian image directly on the internal eMMC using rkdeveloptool and a male-to-male USB cable: Download your preferred Armbian image from Armbian download page and decompress it. Download the rk322x bootloader: rk322x_loader_v1.10.238_256.bin Download a copy of rkdeveloptool: a compiled binary is available in the official rockchip-linux rkbin github repository. Unplug the power cord from the tv box Plug an end of an USB Male-to-male cable into the OTG port (normally it is the lone USB port on the same side of the Ethernet, HDMI, analog AV connectors) while pressing the reset microbutton with a toothpick. You can find the reset microbutton in a hole in the back of the box, but sometimes it is hidden into the AV analog jack Plug the other end of the USB Male-to-male cable into an USB port of your computer If everything went well, run lsusb: you should see a device with ID 2207:320b Run sudo rkdeveloptool rd 3 (if this fails don't worry and proceed to next step) Run sudo rkdeveloptool db rk322x_loader_v1.10.238_256.bin Run sudo rkdeveloptool wl 0x0 image.img (change image.img this with the real Armbian image filename) Unplug the power cord Done! Installation (without SD card, board with NAND) If you are in the unfortunate case you can't use an SD card for installation and your board has a NAND chip, you still have an option to use the quick Multitool installation steps via USB. Obtain a copy of rkdeveloptool: a compiled binary is available in the official rockchip-linux rkbin github repository. Unplug the power cord from the tv box Plug an end of an USB Male-to-male cable into the OTG port (normally it is the lone USB port on the same side of the Ethernet, HDMI, analog AV connectors) while pressing the reset microbutton with a toothpick. You can find the reset microbutton in a hole in the back of the box, but sometimes it is hidden into the AV analog jack Plug the other end of the USB Male-to-male cable into an USB port of your computer If everyting went well, using lsusb you should see a device with ID 2207:320b Run sudo rkdeveloptool wl 0x4000 u-boot-main.img (download u-boot-main.img.xz , don't forget to decompress it!) Unplug the power cord Now you can follow the instructions on how to install on eMMC/NAND via SD card, just use instead an USB stick to do all the operations and plug it into the USB OTG port. Once you reboot, USB OTG port will be used as a boot device. NOTE: NAND users without SD slot may be unhappy to know that it will be difficult to do extra maintenance with Multitool in case something breaks in the installed Armbian system: installing u-boot-main.img makes the installed system unbootable because it is missing the NAND driver. Alternative backup, restore and erase flash for EXPERTS: These backup, restore and erase flash procedures are for experts only. They are kept here mostly for reference, since the Multitool is perfectly able to do same from a very comfy interface and is the suggested way to do maintenance. Backup: Obtain a copy of rkdeveloptool: a compiled binary is available in the official rockchip-linux rkbin github repository. If you prefer, you can compile it yourself from the sources available at official rockchip repository Unplug the power cord from the tv box Plug an end of an USB Male-to-male cable into the OTG port (normally it is the lone USB port on the same side of the Ethernet, HDMI, analog AV connectors) while pressing the reset microbutton with a toothpick. You can find the reset microbutton in a hole in the back of the box, but sometimes it is hidden into the AV analog jack Plug the other end of the USB Male-to-male cable into an USB port of your computer If everyting went well, using lsusb you should see a device with ID 2207:320b change directory and move into rkbin/tools directory, run ./rkdeveloptool rfi then take note of the FLASH SIZE megabytes (my eMMC is 8Gb, rkdeveloptool reports 7393 megabytes) run ./rkdeveloptool rl 0x0 $((FLASH_SIZE * 2048)) backup.data (change FLASH_SIZE with the value you obtained the step before) once done, the internal eMMC is backed up to backup.data file Restore: first we have to restore the original bootloader, then restore the original firmware. Running rkdeveloptool with these switches will accomplish both the jobs: ./rkdeveloptool db rk322x_loader_v1.10.238_256.bin Downloading bootloader succeeded. ./rkdeveloptool ul rk322x_loader_v1.10.238_256.bin Upgrading loader succeeded. ./rkdeveloptool wl 0x0 backup.data Write LBA from file (100%) Download here: Erase the flash memory: clearing the internal eMMC/NAND memory makes the SoC look for external SD Card as first boot option. If there isn't any suitable SD Card, the SoC enters maskrom mode, which can then be used for full eMMC/NAND access using rkdeveloptool. This is perfectly fine if your box has an eMMC flash memory. NOTE: In case you have a NAND flash memory this option is however discouraged. The original bootloader contains some special parameters to correctly access the data. Clearing the flash memory will probably garbage the NAND data and restoring the bootloader may require some special instructions. Obtain a copy of rkdeveloptool: a compiled binary is available in the official rockchip-linux rkbin github repository. If you prefer, you can compile it yourself from the sources available at official rockchip repository Unplug the power cord from the board Plug an end of an USB Male-to-male cable into the OTG port (normally it is the lone USB port on the same side of the Ethernet, HDMI, analog AV connectors) while pressing the reset microbutton with a toothpick. You can find the reset microbutton in a hole in the back of the box, but sometimes it is hidden into the AV analog jack Plug the other end of the USB Male-to-male cable into an USB port of your computer If everyting went well, using lsusb you should see a device with ID 2207:320b run ./rkdeveloptool ef and wait a few seconds once done, the internal eMMC is erased and the device will boot from the sdcard from now on Partecipation and debugging: If you want to partecipate or need help debugging issues, do not hesitate to share your experience with the installation procedure of the boxes. In case of issues and missed support, provide as many as possible of these things is very useful to try and bring support for an unsupported board: some photos of both sides of the board. Details of the eMMC, DDR and Wifi chips are very useful! upload the device tree binary (dtb) of your device. We can understand a lot of things of the hardware from that small piece of data; and alternative is a link to the original firmware (you can do a full backup with the Multitool); dmesg and other logs (use armbianmonitor -u that automatically collects and uploads the logs online) attach a serial converter to the device and provide the output of the serial port; Critics, suggestions and contributions are welcome! Credits: @fabiobassa for his ideas, inspiration, great generosity in giving the boards for development and testing. The project of bringing rk322x into armbian would not have begun without his support! Justin Swartz, for his work and research to bring mainline linux on rk3229 (repository here) @knaerzche for his great contribution to libreelec support and mainline patches @Alex83 for his patience in testing the NAND bootloader upgrade procedure on his board @Jason Duhamell for his generous donation that allowed researching eMCP boards and esp8089 wifi chip

Recently has appeared some 3566 tv boxes in the wild, would be doable to run armbian on them? Since Rockchip seems kinda dedicated to openness the same goes for the RK3566?

I’m really happy to share that I finally managed to port the SV6256P (SSV6X5X) SDIO Wi-Fi driver from the legacy Linux 4.4 kernel to modern kernels. This repository contains my working port for Linux kernel 6.12 and newer, with updated mac80211/cfg80211 integration so the driver can build and run on recent Armbian systems. The chipset is commonly used in many low-cost TV boxes and embedded devices, but the original driver only supported legacy kernels (4.4). Now it’s functional again on modern systems, at least on my tested hardware (Allwinner H616 / X96 Q via SDIO). Repository link: https://github.com/cdhigh/armbian_sv6256p I’m quite excited to finally see this old Wi-Fi chip working on a 6.x kernel 🙂 [ 4.774151] ssv6x5x: importing configuration from /lib/firmware/ssv6x5x-wifi.cfg [ 4.778281] tu_ssv6xxx_sdio_init, probe @(____ptrval____) [ 4.779483] TU_SSV6XXX_SDIO mmc3:0001:1: Probing SDIO bus [ 4.779513] ssv6xxx_set_sdio_clk: set sdio clk 25000000Hz [ 4.799668] TU_SSV6XXX_SDIO mmc3:0001:1: vendor = 0x3030 device = 0x3030 [ 4.825421] TU_SSV6XXX_SDIO mmc3:0001:1: dataIOPort 0x10000 regIOPort 0x10020 [ 4.849181] TU_SSV6XXX_SDIO mmc3:0001:1: dataIOPort 0x10000 regIOPort 0x10020 [ 4.849530] TU_SSV6XXX_SDIO mmc3:0001:1: CHIP ID: SSV6006C0 [ 4.850373] ssv6x5x ops chk: tx=1 start=1 stop=1 config=1 add_if=1 rm_if=1 conf_filter=1 wake_txq=1 [ 4.850402] ssv6x5x chanctx chk: any=1 all=0 emulate=1 add=1 rm=1 chg=1 assign=0 unassign=0 [ 4.850409] ssv6x5x chanctx ops set but not complete [ 4.850424] Attach SSV6006 family HAL function [ 4.858285] MAC address from e-fuse [ 4.858311] EFUSE configuration [ 4.858315] Read efuse chip identity[79000000] ip link show: 6: wlan0: <NO-CARRIER,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue state DOWN mode DORMANT group default qlen 1000 link/ether xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

So I bought this chinise Android TV Box and would love to install armbian on it. I am new on this and discovered armbian just after buying it. I didn't know there was no support and not official open source for the Rockchip RK3528, otherwise I would have chosen any other. The box works fine but it has that known malware that send packets to suspicious links (I scanned activity with pi-hole). Description says it has 2GB RAM and 16GB storage (Hynix H26M51002KPR) WiFi chip is LGX8800D I attach images of the board and all of it's componentes, including IR sensor and display. It also has a red LED that turns on when in stand-by mode. I hope this help to develop or patch a working version of armbian for it. I have already read about some patches around that would probably work, but I' new to this and I'm not sure how to start. What I would like to do first is a completly ROM backup, and start doing test with a pendrive or SD card, not writting directly to the eMMC (if possible) until the important things get working. And any help would be appreciated. Edit: I will keep posting in this thread with my progress (or attemps!)

After initially and successfully booting Armbian 23 jammy from an SD memory card in the TF slot or from a USB flash device in the blue 3.0 port, I had installed Armbian using the /root/install-aml.sh, removed the SD card/USB flash and rebooted Armbian easy peasy. It worked fine for a while. My thread about it is here at this link. But it got bricked, seemingly by itself after a power failure in the home. I managed to recover it with an image of Android, however, all of Armbian was deleted (and no backup either haha 😉). Here is a tutorial to recover this box and the steps may also work for other tv boxes that have the S905x / S905x2 / S905x3 chip. Download Amlogic Burn Card Maker v2.0.3 (not other versions) from Here or Here. Download stock android firmware T95MAXplus-X3-9.0-2GB4GB-6330-0720-20200616-Android.rar from Here or the same firmware but as img a file from MEGA Unpack the archive file in 7zip, if you have the rar file. But there is no unpacking to do if you have the img file. Insert a new good micro-SD memory card into the SD card adapter, and plug it into your PC - be sure there is only one single partition on the SD memory card formatted as FAT32 Run the 'Burn_Card_Maker.exe' executable file. Make sure it is version 2.0.3 Change language to English if it is not already in that: - Click on the Chinese menu (or garbled text menu) in the upper-left corner, and choose the second option. - Dialog screen appears and now simply select 'English Version' and click OK button. Select your SD memory card drive letter under 'Choose Disk:' - you may need to use Disk Management in Windows and apply a drive a letter to the SD memory card. Check mark the Yes box on under 'To Partition and Format' or tick the box 'Formatting SD card' - a new menu pane will popup. follow through and format the SD memory card. Check mark the Yes box on under the Normal SD bootloader for Erase Bootlooader Check mark the Yes box on under the Erase Flash for Normal Flashing Do NOT check mark the Yes on (click to Uncheck it) under 'reboot'. Click 'Open' button under 'Select Burn Package f:' and select the factory stock Android file T95MAXplus-X3-9.0-2GB4GB-6330-0720-20200616.img - make sure there are no spaces in the file name of the img Last step in Burn_Card_Maker: Press 'Make' button and wait to finish. Go to the TV box. Disconnect the power cable from the tv box device. Then insert the micro SD memory card in your tv box device and power on the device. If it didn't boot at all, the you may need to use the toothpick method. Disconnect power cable again. Put a toothpick into the audio jack, press and hold the reset button while you insert the power cable. The tv box will enter into recovery and the firmware will be flashed automatically. Be patient and wait up to 10 minutes. After the TV BOX fully starts, remove the micro SD Card. and the update will completed. The T95 Max (whatever it is) graphic logo will appear and stock Android 9 will start.

i am running a H96(model RK3318) android tv box, its old, i have lost itss remote as well. basically noow i am tryinh to install ambrain os on it, but the conditon now is , even the android id now visible on the tv/monitor, basically when i insert the power cable on the display "boot" is showing with blue light. after few sec, some number like "07:01" is showing, but when i connect my htmi cable, the tv is detecting the htmi. but its showing no signal. basically there is no output on the display. i have tried many methods, there is no problem in htmi, or tv or cable. the andoird itself not booting. and the sd card method for ambrain also not working . tried the toothpick method and everything. but still its nott working!. i dont know why there is no output on the display. i dont know whhat issue. usb, htmi, everything is working. even charger also working.

A guide to installing Armbian on the H96 Max V11 (RK3318_V1.4 blue PCB) What you will need Your H96 Max V11 TV box with the power supply and the HDMI cable that came with it; A TV or a monitor with an HDMI port; A wired USB keyboard (or a wireless one with a USB dongle); An Ethernet cable to connect to a router on your home network that has Internet access; A Micro SD card (minimum 1GB, more if you're going to back up Android on your box before overwriting it with Armbian); A USB card reader for Micro SD cards; A Windows PC connected to your home network; Installation steps Download the experimental Armbian image (kernel 5.19.15 and libreelec patches — alas, that's the latest version that works correctly with our box) and a copy of the Multitool; Burn the Multitool on the SD card using Rufus (no need to change any settings, just click "SELECT" and locate multitool.img.xz or drag and drop the file on Rufus and then click "START"); Connect your TV box to the TV or monitor, connect the keyboard, plug in the Multitool SD card and then plug in the power cord; Wait a minute (while SD card partitions are being resized) for the Multitool main menu to appear, then select "Shutdown"; Unplug the power cord and the SD card, then plug the SD card into your PC. Two new drives should appear, labeled BOOTSTRAP and MULTITOOL. If you see both, skip the next step. If you only see the BOOTSTRAP, proceed to the next step; Start Disk Management (press Win+X, K). Scroll down the list of disks (use the scrollbar, because mouse wheel doesn't work there) to locate your SD card, and on the MULTITOOL partition right-click, then press C, and click "Add", "OK"; Open the MULTITOOL drive in Windows Explorer (or your favorite file manager) and copy the downloaded Armbian image to the images folder; Safely remove (eject) the SD card, plug it into the TV box and plug in the power cord. The Multitool main menu will appear in a few seconds; If you don't care about stock Android firmware on your TV box, skip the next step. If you want to back up the Android firmware, proceed to the next step; In the Multitool main menu select "Backup flash" and click through (there will be only one option). Name your backup file. Wait for the backup to finish. The backup file will be saved to the backups folder on the SD card's MULTITOOL partition; Now it's time to replace Android with Armbian. In the Multitool main menu select "Burn image to flash" and click through (there will be only one option). Wait for the process to complete, then in the main menu select "Shutdown"; Unplug the power cord and the SD card, then replug the power cord. Wait a few minutes for Armbian to get everything ready for its first launch, and then follow the initial setup prompts; You will be taken to the login prompt. Log in with the name/password for the regular user you've created; Connect your TV box to your home network router with an Ethernet cable; In Armbian, enter the command sudo cat /run/motd.dynamic and note the IP address assigned by the router to the TV box; Now you will need to connect to your TV box on the home network via the SSH protocol. If you're running Windows 10 or later, press Win+X, I, Enter. A PowerShell/Terminal window will open. Enter the following command, substituting the words in angle brackets with actual values: ssh <IP address from the previous step> -l <name for the regular user>. Type yes at the prompt asking if you really want to connect to this unknown host. At the next prompt that appears, enter the password for the regular user you've created. Skip the next step; If you're running an older version of Windows, you will need to download PuTTY, an SSH and Telnet client, set up an SSH connection to your TV box with the IP address above and log in with the name/password for the regular user; Now it's time to fix the settings for the Wi-Fi chip that doesn't work out of the box on the H96 Max V11. To delete the old settings, copy the command sudo rm -f /usr/lib/firmware/brcm/brcmfmac4334-sdio.rockchip,rk3318-box.txt and paste it by right-clicking in the SSH window, then press Enter; To create the new settings file, enter (copy-paste) the command sudo nano /usr/lib/firmware/brcm/brcmfmac4334-sdio.rockchip,rk3318-box.txt The nano text editor will open with a new empty file; Now open this small text file (a copy of nvram_2734c.txt from this forum topic), press Ctrl-A to select all text in it, then Ctrl-C to copy it to the clipboard; Switch to the SSH window, right-click to paste the copied text to nano then press Ctrl-S to save and Ctrl-X to exit; Enter (or copy-paste) the command sudo reboot -f to reboot Armbian. After that you can either close the SSH window and proceed with the physical console or start a new SSH session once Armbian has restarted; Enter (or copy-paste) the command sudo apt update && sudo apt install armbian-config After the update and installation is completed, run armbian-config to configure various software and hardware settings (including Wi-Fi). It is recommended to select "Freeze" in System settings to disable Armbian kernel upgrades because our kernel is compiled with custom patches enabling HDMI output on H96 Max V11 to work properly that are unavailable in other kernel versions.

Newbie on Armbian. I have an Allwinner H313 (confirmed) box that I want to to use as a basic Samba server. CPU:Allwinner H313Quad Core ARM Cortex A53 GPU:Mali-G31 OPenGL ES3.2 Memory:2GB Flash:16GB OS:Android 10.0 The actual firmware is a secure image and, no matter what procedure I do, I can't load any other image but the secure one. Debugging shows that 'fastbootd' has the "secure" flag set. My intention is to create a basic secure arm64 Debian image but I am having a hard time in doing so. Any ideas (specific Wiki, procedures) on how to create the secure image or "reset" the "secure" flag will be very appreciated. Thanks in advance.

hello everyone! I bought this tv box..https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005009346784515.html?spm=a2g0o.order_list.order_list_main.11.79e81802pgNRxu but after starting it was not possible to log in to googleplay even though I had a connection via wifi or ethernet. the preinstalled version for applications was Aptoide TV..through it I wanted to update all applications (youtube, netflix, etc.) I managed to do that but no application could be started. the original file manager did not show the internal memory or USB disk or SD card until I managed to download ES file manager through aptoide and it showed my flash disk I installed HW info device and there I found out that it was an RK3528 chip. so I wanted to flash the firmware and I used a rom image for H96max with the same parameters. the firmware upgrade went OK but the device is dead. I can't find the correct firmware. I'm attaching a photo--- maybe someone will recognize the board and identify which rom-img should be correct. the seller can't help me in any way.

Hi, I need help with flashing my tv box or installing it on linux. I would also be happy if you could run an armbian or similar minimal system. I would like to run a website on it at home. I already did it for an old venz v10 for a friend and installed armbian on it and he really liked it, but my couldn't install it with a memory card, the on new box 1. System Information Google Android Tv Box - Android 14 Android Version: 14 (Upside Down Cake) API Level: 34 Android Security Patch Level: 2025-01-01 Rooted Device: No Android ID: 5c4aa62950194797 Build ID: rk3528_box_32-userdebug 14 UTT2.241219.001 eng.hxws.20260124.163421 release-keys Codename: REL Fingerprint: google/blueline/blueline:14/UTT2.241219.001/eng.hxws.20260124.163421:userdebug/release-keys ID: UTT2.241219.001 Incremental: eng.hxws.20260124.163421 Java Runtime Version: Android Runtime 0.9 Java Virtual Machine Version: ART 2.1.0 Java Virtual Machine Heap Size: 128 MB Kernel Architecture: armv7l Kernel Version: 6.1.118 (hxws@PowerEdge-R720-8) (Android 10087095, +pgo, +bolt, +lto, -mlgo, based on clang 17.0.2 of r487747c (https://android.googlesource.com/toolchain/llvm-project d9f89f4d16663d5012e5c09495f3b30ece3d2362), LLD 17.0.2) #124 SMP PREEMPT Wed Jan 21 10:25:12 CST 2026 Tags: release-keys Type: userdebug Google Play Services Version: < None > Huawei Mobile Services Version: OpenSSL 1.1.1 (compatible; BoringSSL) OpenSSL Version: 1.2.13 ZLib Version: 1.2.13 2. Hardware and Processor (CPU/Device) Device Type: TV Manufacturer: Google Model: android_tv_box Brand: google Motherboard: RK3528 Device: blueline Hardware: rk30board Platform: rk3528 Product: blueline Processor: RK3528, 4 cores SoC Model: RockChip RK3528 Core Architecture: 4x ARM Cortex-A53 @ 2016 MHz Instruction Set: 64-bit ARMv8-A (32-bit mode) CPU Version: r0p4 CPU Cores: 4 CPU Clock Range: 408 - 2016 MHz CPU Utilization: 5% Scaler Controller: Interactive Supported ABIs: armeabi-v7a, armeabi Supported 32-bit ABIs: armeabi-v7a, armeabi AES/ASIMD/NEON/PMULL/SHA1/SHA2: Supported 3. Memory and Storage (RAM/Storage) Installed RAM: 2 GB Total Memory: 1920 MB Available Memory: 1221 MB Memory Used: 707 MB (36% of 1.9 GB) Total Internal Storage: 11.00 GB Free Internal storage: 10.11 GB Storage usage: 914 MB (8% of 11 GB) 4. Display and GPU (Display) Display: 1920 x 1080 (Full HD, 16:9) Screen resolution: 1920 x 1080 xdpi / ydpi: 320 / 320 dpi GPU manufacturer: ARM GPU renderer: Mali-450 MP Refresh rate: 60 Hz Default orientation: Landscape OpenGL ES version: 2.0 GPU version: OpenGL ES 2.0 OpenGL ES extensions: (List: GL_EXT_debug_marker, GL_OES_texture_npot, GL_OES_vertex_array_object, GL_OES_compressed_ETC1_RGB8_texture, GL_EXT_compressed_ETC1_RGB8_sub_texture, GL_OES_standard_derivatives, GL_OES_EGL_image, GL_OES_depth24, GL_ARM_rgba8, GL_ARM_mali_shader_binary, GL_OES_depth_texture, GL_OES_packed_depth_stencil, GL_EXT_texture_format_BGRA8888, GL_OES_vertex_half_float, GL_EXT_blend_minmax, GL_OES_EGL_image_external, GL_OES_EGL_sync, GL_OES_rgb8_rgba8, GL_EXT_discards_framebuffer, GL_OES_get_program_binary, GL_ARM_mali_program_binary, GL_EXT_shader_texture_lod) 5. Network and Connections (Network/Bluetooth/USB) Network: WiFi Telephony: None Wi-Fi Status: Enabled SSID: BSSID: 02:00:00:00:00:00 Hidden SSID: No IPv4 Address: 192.168.1.35 IPv6 Address: fe80::5ef3:83b1:27d0:574a Signal Strength: -46 dBm (Excellent) Link Speed: 54 Mbps Frequency: 2427 MHz Gateway: 192.168.1.254 Netmask: 255.255.255.0 DNS1: 192.168.1.254 DHCP Lease Time: 24 hours 5 GHz Band: Supported Wi-Fi Aware: Not Supported Wi-Fi Direct: Supported Bluetooth: Enabled Bluetooth Version: 4+ USB Device - Linux 6.1.118 ehci_hcd EHCI Host Controller: (Serial Number: ff100000.usb, ID: 1D6B-0002, Class: 09/00, Speed: 480 Mbps) USB Device - Linux 6.1.118 xhci_hcd xHCI Host Controller: (Serial Number: xhci-hcd.4.auto, ID: 1D6B-0002, Class: 09/00, Speed: 480 Mbps) USB Device - YICHIP Wireless Device 6. Other Data Audio: HDMI 7.1 Codecs: Widevine L3 (SD only) Wireless Debugging: Enabled IP Address and Port: 192.168.1.35:40729 Wi-Fi pairing code: 642947 IP address and port (for pairing): 192.168.1.35:40035 Device features: (List: android.hardware.audio.output, android.hardware.bluetooth, android.hardware.bluetooth_le, android.hardware.camera, android.hardware.camera.any, android.hardware.camera.external, android.hardware.camera.front, android.hardware.cetherandroid.hdware.mi android.hardware.keystore.app_attest_key, android.hardware.location, android.hardware.location.network)

Hello, sorry for my very bad english. I recently I bought a TV box with an h618 processor And I want to install Linux to make it a server but I only find images for the h616 processor, can I install one of these images on my TV box? It seems that the h616 processor and the h618 procesador are almost the same Thanks :D

Hi, I can't find an image for my TV box and I was wondering if anyone has one that I could use on the device. Thanks for your help

I fried SOIC-8 IC (Probably power management) on H96 Max X2 PCB (I-BOX TV) by applying 12V If anyone (@Thang?) has a board like that, please take a close up of that chip on the back side. I might be able to source it and replace it. Original related topic by Thang is here. BTW, there is native console available on pretty much all Armbian boards, that lets you see linux messages before they appear on the HDMI port. It helps to understand the bootloader sequence, u-boot sequence and gives you root access.

Currently working on a build for this device. It boots and is about 90% functional on 6.6 and 6.7 Kernel https://github.com/sicXnull/armbian-build/tree/X96Q-TVBOX-LPDDR3 Working - Desktop - Ethernet - Wifi Not working - DTS could use some work. Right now it does not detect internal EMMC so installing to EMMC is not an option. - Likely other things i've missed. I've uploaded two images to my git. Full w/Mate Desktop Minimal/Server Feel free to compile this yourself if you don't trust my images, it's encouraged. Changes are on the X96Q-TVBOX-LPDDR3 Branch Full W/Desktop ./compile.sh build BOARD=x96q-tvbox BRANCH=current BUILD_DESKTOP=yes BUILD_MINIMAL=no EXPERT=yes KERNEL_CONFIGURE=no KERNEL_GIT=shallow RELEASE=bookworm Minimal/Server ./compile.sh build BOARD=x96q-tvbox BRANCH=current BUILD_DESKTOP=no BUILD_MINIMAL=yes EXPERT=yes KERNEL_CONFIGURE=no KERNEL_GIT=shallow RELEASE=bookworm

­DISCLAIMER (PLEASE READ): everything you can find in this thread (binaries, texts, code snippets, etc...) are provided AS-IS and are not part of official Armbian project. For this reason not people from Armbian project nor myself are responsible for misuse or loss of functionality of hardware. Please don't ask about support or assistance in other non-community forums nor in the official Armbian github repository, instead post your questions in this thread, in the TV Boxes forum section (hardware related) or in the Peer-to-peer support section (general linux/software related). Thank you! This thread is to give stable and mature long-term range support to rk3318/rk3328 found in many tv boxes in Armbian project as Community Supported Configuration (CSC). The current work is mainlined into Armbian project, but your mileage may vary; most recent developments live on my personal fork on github -> here <- Important notes: is just a personal opinion, but apparently widely supported, that rk3318 chip is not an official rockchip part. They probably are scrap rk3328 parts which have not passed conformance tests but are sold anyway to tv boxes manufacturers. They don’t reach the same operating frequency of the rk3328, have much higher leakage currents (and thus higher temperatures) and often the boards they are installed on are low quality with low quality components, in fact a very very common issue is the eMMC failure due to bad parts and bad soldering. So said, I personally suggest not to buy any rk3318 tv box, but instead find a properly supported SBC (Single Board Computer) if you need a reliable product. In the unfortunate case you already have such product, this thread may help you have some fun with them. What works: • Works on RK3318 and RK3328 TV boxes with DDR3 memories • Mainline u-boot • Mainline ATF provided as Trusted Execution Environment • All 4 cores are working • Ethernet • Serial UART (configured at stock 1.5Mbps) • Thermals and frequency scaling • OTG USB 2.0 port (also as boot device!) • EHCI/OHCI USB 2.0 ports and XHCI USB 3.0 ports • MMC subsystem (including , SD and sdio devices) • Hardware video acceleration (fully supported via RKMPP on legacy kernel, support via hantro and rkvdec kernel driver on mainline) • Various WIFI over SDIO are supported • Full acceleration on legacy kernel and mainline kernel • U-boot boot order priority: first the sdcard, then the USB OTG port and eventually the internal ; you can install u-boot (and the whole system) in the internal and u-boot will always check for images on external sdcard/USB first. Unbrick: Technically, rockchip devices cannot be bricked. If the internal flash does not contain a bootable system, they will always boot from the sdcard. If, for a reason, the bootable system on the internal flash is corrupted or is unable to boot correctly, you can always force the maskrom mode shorting the clock pin on the PCB. The procedure is explained here for rk322x, but for rk3318/28 is the same. In most of the rk3318/28 boards, shorting the clock pin is difficult or impossible because eMMC are BGA chips with no exposed pins. Pay double attention when burning something on the internal flash memory and always test first the image booting from the sdcard to be sure it works before burning anything in internal flash. This is a list of posts where forum users have been able to spot the eMMC clock pin to trigger the maskrom mode: H96 Max+ (board signature: RK3318_V1.4) by @Gausus X88 PRO 10 (board signature: X88_PRO_B) by @mathgaming HK1 Max (board signature YX_RK3318) by @Constantin Gatej Ninkbox N1 Max RK3318 by @enigmasphinx Hongtop H50 (board signature t98-3318-221-v11) by @GmP Partecipation and debugging: If you want to partecipate or need help debugging issues, do not hesitate to share your experience with the installation procedure of the boxes. In case of issues and missed support, provide as many as possible of these things is very useful to try and bring support for an unsupported board: some photos of both sides of the board. Details of the eMMC, DDR and Wifi chips are very useful! upload the device tree binary (dtb) of your device. We can understand a lot of things of the hardware from that small piece of data; and alternative is a link to the original firmware (you can do a full backup with the Multitool); dmesg and other logs (use armbianmonitor -u that automatically collects and uploads the logs online) attach a serial converter to the device and provide the output of the serial port; Multimedia: Mainline kernel: 3D acceleration is provided by Lima driver and is already enabled. Hardware video decoding: https://forum.armbian.com/topic/19258-testing-hardware-video-decoding-rockchip-allwinner/ Legacy kernel: If you need multimedia features, like OpenGL/OpenGL ES acceleration, hardware accelerated Kodi, ffmpeg and mpv you can take a look to this post Installation (via SD card): Building: You can build your own image follow the common steps to build armbian for other tv boxes devices: when you are in the moment to choose the target board, switch to /TVB/ boards and select "rk3318-box" from the list. Prebuilt images: Nightly stables - built from trunk by Armbian servers and GPG-signed: https://github.com/armbian/community Multitool: Multitool - A small but powerful image for RK3318/RK3328 TV Box maintenance. Download it from here Quick installation instructions on eMMC: Build or download your preferred Armbian image and a copy of the Multitool; Burn the Multitool on an SD card; once done, place the Armbian image in images folder of the SD card NTFS partition; Plug the SD card in the TV box and plug in the power cord. After some seconds the blue led starts blinking and the Multitool appears; OPTIONAL: you can do a backup of the existing firmware with "Backup flash" menu option; Choose "Burn image to flash" from the menu, then select the destination device (usually mmcblk2) and the image to burn; Wait for the process to complete, then choose "Shutdown" from main menu; Unplug the power cord and the SD card, then replug the power cord; Wait for 10 seconds, then the led should start blinking and HDMI will turn on. The first time the boot process will take a couple of minutes or more because the filesystem is going to be resized, so be patient and wait for the login prompt. On first boot you will be asked for entering a password for root user of your choice and the name and password for a regular user Run rk3318-config to configure the board specific options Run armbian-config to configure timezone, locales and other personal options Congratulations, Armbian is now installed! Despite the procedure above is simple and reliable, I always recommend to first test that your device boots Armbian images from SD Card. Due to the really large hardware variety, there is the rare chance that the images proposed here may not boot. If a bad image is burned in , the box may not boot anymore forcing you to follow the unbrick section at the top of this post. Quick installation instructions to boot from SD Card: If you are already running Armbian from eMMC, skip to the next step. Instead if you are running the original firmware you need to first erase the internal flash; to do so download the Multitool, burn it on an SD Card, plug the SD Card and power the TV Box. Use "Backup flash" if you want to do a backup of the existing firmware, then choose "Erase flash" menu option. Build or download your preferred Armbian image; Uncompress and burn the Armbian image on the SD Card; Plug the SD Card in the TV Box and power it on; Wait for 10 seconds, then the led should start blinking and HDMI will turn on. The first time the boot process will take a couple of minutes or more because the filesystem is going to be resized, so be patient and wait for the login prompt; On first boot you will be asked for entering a password for root user of your choice and the name and password for a regular user Run rk3318-config to configure the board specific options Run armbian-config to configure timezone, locales and other personal options, or also to transfer the SD Card installation to internal ; Congratulations, Armbian is running from SD Card! Tutorial - How to install Armbian on your TV Box (by @awawa) : https://www.hyperhdr.eu/2022/01/tv-box-mania-i-part-x88-pro-10.html A note about boot device order: With Armbian also comes mainline U-boot. If you install Armbian, the bootloader will look for valid bootable images in this order: External SD Card External USB Stick in OTG Port Internal The Multitool does not boot / How to burn image directly on eMMC: Some boards have the sdcard attached to an auxiliary (called also sdmmc_ext or external) controller which is not the common one. Forum findings declare that those boards are not able to boot from sdcard with stock firmware and they neither do in maskrom mode: the stock firmware always boots even if you put the multitool on sdcard. In such case, burning images directly on eMMC is the only way to have a working Armbian installation. You can follow these instructions by @fabiobassa to burn images directly on eMMC: https://forum.armbian.com/topic/17597-csc-armbian-for-rk3318rk3328-tv-box-boards/?do=findComment&comment=130453 Notes and special hardware: Script to change DDR memory frequency here Wireless chip AP2734, SP2734, HY2734C and similars: they are clones of AmPAK AP6334 which is combo wifi + bluetooth of broadcom BCM4334/B0 chips. You may need a special nvram file, instructions by @paradigman are here Critics, suggestions and contributions are welcome! Credits: @fabiobassa for his ideas, inspiration, great generosity in giving the boards for development and testing. The project of bringing rk3318 into armbian would not have begun without his support! @hexdump for his precious support in early testing, ideas and suggestions @MX10.AC2Nfor his patience in testing mxq-rk3328-d4 board support All the rockhip64 maintainers at Armbian project who have done and do most of the work to support the platform

Hello there, I followed from afar the advancement of the support on TV boxes for a while already, and I happened to stumble uppon a very cheap one on my local market. The specs are the following : -Amlogic S905W -2GB of ram -16GB of EMMC Following are some pictures I took, that shows the bare PCB. I hope that it will help answering questions I have. After looking into many written tutorials on getting armbian to boot on such machine, I have tested all .dtb files that are available, as long as quadruple-checked the u-boot file that needed to be used with that specific chip. I made sure to also press that buttom behind the jack-port before plugging in the board to hopefully boot onto the armbian install. Here are a few things I have observed. On all 3 available DTB files for the s905w, when using the u-boot-s905x-s912 file, none of them got me a picture after the first "splash screen". I have watched the power consumption during the "boot" and have seen the power fluctuating between 1.6 and 2.4W, until it setteled to 1.4W and stopped fluctuating. My very premature conclusion is that it somehow booted armbian but did not give me picture. The display that I am using was also showing that something was powered on, trying to send a picture but was not giving correct signal. Here's where my abilities end off. I do not know where to go next and what to try. I have not seen obvious pads to try connecting to UART, and I need assistance with going forward with that specific board. If anyone with experience can guide me, I'd appreciate it grately! Thank you in advance and hope this message finds the right person PS: The board boots fine to Android 7.1 otherwise, when not trying to boot to the SD card, so the machine is confirmed to be working!

I'm getting this weird graphical artifact on a Radxa Rock 4SE connected to a TV via HDMI. It covers roughly a third of the right side of the display, note that the terminal window is covered by the artifact but the cursor is above it. I started from a Debian minimal image and added the desktop environment via armbian-config. The artifact is visible on both GNOME and KDE Plasma (with fully updated system on both rolling and stable) but not with XFCE. It also disappears with resolutions lower than 4K or switching to tty. Any idea what might be causing this?

Help for install ambian 22 or 23 in box TV with soc rk3528 i have instaled in box with amlogic no problème but with rockchip no support no boot......

DISCLAIMERS (PLEASE READ): - Everything in this post is provided AS-IS. This is not an official Armbian-supported target, and neither the Armbian project nor I am responsible for any damage, data loss, or broken devices caused by flashing or testing these images. - As with other TV boxes, please assume there may be board variants, undocumented hardware changes, weak power supplies, and marginal NAND/eMMC chips. Test carefully before writing anything to internal storage. - Please keep discussion and support in the forum thread, not in the official Armbian issue tracker. Hi all, I would like to share my work on bringing Armbian to Rockchip RK3128 TV boxes. These boxes are quite old now, and I do not think they are especially common anymore. Still, I suspect a lot of people may have one lying around somewhere in a drawer, unused after Android updates stopped or the original firmware became too slow to care about. I also had several of them lying around at home, which is what pushed me to start this project in the first place. Since I could not find an RK3128 Armbian effort comparable to the RK322x one, I decided to try doing the port myself. Another important motivation was simply to reduce e-waste: if even some of these old boxes can be turned into usable Linux machines again instead of being thrown away, that already feels worthwhile to me. First and foremost, I want to send special thanks to @jock and @fabiobassa for their RK322x TV box work on this forum. Their work was the foundation that made this RK3128 effort much easier to start from. 1. Main references and source code: Blog post with the full write-up: https://chieunhatnang.de/p/building-armbian-for-rockchip-rk3128/ Follow-up post for kernel 6.6.89 work: https://chieunhatnang.de/p/building-armbian-for-rockchip-rk3128-part-2/ Build scripts and releases: https://github.com/chieunhatnang-personal/RK3128-Linux-SupportingScripts RK3128 kernel 4.4 tree: https://github.com/chieunhatnang-personal/linux-kernel-4.4-rk3128-tvbox RK3128 kernel 6.6 tree: https://github.com/chieunhatnang-personal/linux-kernel-6.6-rk3128-tvbox 2. Current status At the moment I have two kernel lines: `4.4.194`, the older vendor-based line, which is already usable in practice `6.6.89`, the newer line, which allows these boxes to run a more up-to-date Armbian userspace What works in the current build: Custom U-Boot based on Rockchip U-Boot 2017.09 All four CPU cores, up to 1.2 GHz CPU frequency scaling and governors DRAM frequency control, both dynamic and fixed NAND, eMMC, SD card, and USB booting. The booting order is: USB >> SD Card >> NAND/eMMC (NAND and eMMC cannot be enabled at the same time because they share pins) OTG and EHCI/OHCI USB support Ethernet Wi-Fi support for SSV6051P, ESP8089, and several Realtek chips GPU acceleration UART1 and UART2, configurable Kernel `6.6.89` status in a bit more detail: CPU DVFS is stable after replacing the inherited/leakage-based OPP assumptions with a board-specific RK3128-safe table. The stable points I ended up using are `216 / 408 / 600 / 816 / 1008 / 1200 MHz` DMC / RAM devfreq works. In practice, simply enabling `dmc` works much better than I first expected, and boards can settle at different normal rates such as `396 MHz` or `456 MHz` GPU on `6.6.89` uses `Lima`, not the old Mali blob stack. That gives a maintainable Mesa/DRM path and hardware-accelerated OpenGL ES instead of depending on a legacy userspace blob VPU/video decode is still the weak point. I tried both `RKMPP` and `Hantro/V4L2` directions, but video processing is still limited, so I do not consider this a polished media-playback setup yet What does not work yet / known limitations: Bluetooth: not implemented or at least not validated, because I do not have a board with Bluetooth to test VPU / hardware video decoding is not in good shape yet SD card and SDIO Wi-Fi are currently using PIO mode on both kernel lines. This is slower than DMA, but stable enough for normal use 3. Image implementation I also made two RK3128 Armbian images based on existing RK322x Armbian images rather than building everything from scratch: Armbian 22.02: Based on the build provided by @jock, running kernel 4.4.189 Armbian 26.02: Based on the official Armbian build for rk322x, running kernel 6.6.89 In both cases, the idea was the same: keep the working RK322x Armbian userspace as a base, then replace the RK322x-specific parts with RK3128 ones, while the kernels themselves are based on Rockchip kernel sources. Compared with the original RK322x images, the RK3128 work mainly replaces or adds: boot.cmd / boot.scr changes so the boot flow can handle NAND and USB properly RK3128-specific Wi-Fi drivers and boot-time module loading logic rk3128-config a delayed Wi-Fi loader service RK3128-specific motd information the RK3128 kernel, DTB, and overlays For the `6.6.89` image specifically, there is some extra image-level cleanup and repackaging: remove the RK322x kernel / dtb / u-boot / BSP packages from the donor image pin those RK322x packages so they do not come back on upgrade install the RK3128 `6.6.89` Debian kernel packages rebuild the BSP package under the RK3128 name 4. Quick installation notes All required files are available from the releases page: The releaes page: https://github.com/chieunhatnang-personal/RK3128-Linux-SupportingScripts/releases Armbian 26.02 image: https://github.com/chieunhatnang-personal/RK3128-Linux-SupportingScripts/releases/download/kernel-6.6-armbian-26-v1.0/A26-release-20260415.zip Armbian 22.02 image: https://github.com/chieunhatnang-personal/RK3128-Linux-SupportingScripts/releases/download/kernel-4.4-armbian-22-v1.1/release-20260412.zip There are three installation layouts that are currently supported: 1. SD card only Pros: safest option, does not touch internal storage, easy to test and easy to remove, and if a board has an SD slot it can still be useful even when NAND/eMMC is completely dead Cons: slower than internal storage, and not every board has an SD slot Best for: first boot, testing, and boards where you want to keep the original Android install untouched 2. Full install to NAND / eMMC Pros: fastest and cleanest setup, uses the internal storage already present on the board Cons: overwrites the original Android install, and old NAND/eMMC may already be unreliable Best for: boards with healthy internal storage when you want a fully self-contained install 3. Hybrid install: bootloader on NAND / eMMC, rootfs on USB or SD card Pros: usually the most practical option for old TV boxes, works well when internal storage is only reliable enough for bootloader pieces, and can also help on boxes with problematic Android boot behavior Cons: more manual than the other methods, still depends on internal storage for the bootloader, and performance depends on the USB drive or SD card used Best for: boxes with weak or aging internal NAND/eMMC, or boxes where you want to avoid a full install to internal storage I describe each method in more detail below. 4.1. Install and boot from SD card Prepare: idbloader.img uboot.img trust.img rootfs.img Create an MBR partition table on the SD card, leave the first 16 MB empty, create one Linux partition, then write: idbloader.img to the raw device at seek=64 uboot.img to the raw device at seek=16384 trust.img to the raw device at seek=24576 rootfs.img to the first partition, not to the whole disk Example: DEV=/dev/sdX sudo parted -s "$DEV" mklabel msdos sudo parted -s "$DEV" mkpart primary ext4 16MB 100% sudo partprobe "$DEV" sudo dd if=idbloader.img of="$DEV" seek=64 conv=fsync sudo dd if=uboot.img of="$DEV" seek=16384 conv=fsync sudo dd if=trust.img of="$DEV" seek=24576 conv=fsync sudo dd if=rootfs.img of="${DEV}1" bs=4M status=progress conv=fsync sync I also provide a bootcardmaker.sh helper script in the same release directory to simplify this process. 4. 2. Full install to NAND / eMMC Prepare: rkxx_loader_vx.xx.xxx.bin parameter.txt uboot.img trust.img rootfs.img Then: Boot the board normally Connect a USB cable to the OTG port Open RKDevTool v2.69 In Advanced Function, erase the first 0x10000 sectors with Start LBA = 0x0 and Count = 0x10000 Press ResetDevice Wait for the board to return in MaskROM mode Go to Download Image Flash Loader, parameter, U-Boot, Trust, and rootfs 4. 3. Hybrid install: bootloader on NAND / eMMC, rootfs on USB or SD card This is the layout I use most often, and in practice it is probably the most useful one for old TV boxes. It is especially useful when internal NAND/eMMC is still good enough for Loader / parameter / U-Boot / Trust, but not reliable enough for a full root filesystem. A common symptom on these old boxes is that Android starts to boot and then hangs, or that the internal storage is simply too unreliable to trust with a full install. In this hybrid layout: Internal NAND/eMMC stores Loader, parameter, U-Boot, and Trust The root filesystem lives on USB or SD card Important: rootfs.img is a filesystem image, not a full disk image Write rootfs.img to a partition such as /dev/sdX1, not to the whole device Tools like BalenaEtcher are the wrong fit for this particular image layout Example: sudo dd if=rootfs.img of=/dev/sdX1 bs=4M status=progress conv=fsync sync 4.4. Post-install configuration After the board boots successfully, you can configure it either from the local console over HDMI or remotely over SSH if Ethernet is connected. Default login: user: root password: 1234 The first login will ask you to change the password. After that, run: rk3128-config This is the board-specific configuration tool for enabling and adjusting hardware features that may differ between RK3128 boxes. The most important options are: Wi-Fi chip selection RAM dynamic frequency: disabled by default. Enabling it can improve performance, but on some boards it may cause kernel hangs. If that happens, switch it back to disabled SD card storage enablement when booting from another device Display resolution OTG mode selection 5. Testing feedback is welcome If anyone here has RK3128 boards and wants to test, feedback would be very useful, especially for: Board photos and PCB markings Whether the board uses NAND or eMMC Boot method that works: SD, USB, NAND, eMMC Which Wi-Fi chip is present Serial logs, dmesg, and failure reports If there is enough interest and enough board coverage, I would be happy to keep improving this, cleaning it up further, and making it easier for other people to test. 6. Credits - @jock and @fabiobassa for the RK322x TV box work on the Armbian forum, which provided the main starting point, the images and practical reference for this RK3128 effort - Rockchip for the original kernel code base used as the foundation for both kernel lines

🏆 Become a sponsor, help to add other boards in armbian standart, you don't need to be a programmer to help the community, just need a copy of the ARM BOARD and a x86 computer to compile new versions. If you like what you see here and want to help: Donate Armbian the like button only costs a few dollars. Armbian Needs you help! This Armbian adventure was summarized in my Public Github Repository. H96 MAX V56 RK3566 8gb EMMC Ning Mainline Kernel: Armbian EMMC official image Armbian Desktop Gnome kernel The Latest official Debian BookWorm Server Kernel Minimal The Latest official Software description: V0.5 = @armbian The Armbian SD card image "Compiled From Armbian Project" V0.8 = @hzdm Project with Mainline Bootloader "Boot the 64gb Emmc Armbian with Mainline Rockchip" V0.9 = @hzdm Release Mainline Bootloader "Boot the 32gb and 64gb Emmc Armbian with Mainline Rockchip" V1.0 = @hotnikq The Armbian SD card inside the Android Legacy Rockchip Image "Two Original Glued Images: Android boot for Linux" V1.2 = @ning Release Device Tree and Bootloader to longterm 6.6.27 Kernel "Boot with Mainline Rockchip" V1.3 = @Hqnicolas Github PR Enable h96 Rk3566 TV-Box device for Kernel 6.8 V1.4 = @pocosparc Github PR Enable OpenVFD and IR controller V1.5 = @dfahren Github PR Update U-boot 2025.01 for Kernel 6.12+ @fevangelou Linux Flash Tutorial @WINEDS Build Armbian for Maxios Lan Chip Board unofficial images: Edge: [Link] Desktop Resolute Server Resolute Server Trixie Current: [Link] Desktop Resolute Server Resolute Server Trixie How to Flash it: [Link] Emmc Video drivers: https://developer.arm.com/downloads/-/mali-drivers/bifrost-kernel https://docs.mesa3d.org/download.html https://docs.mesa3d.org/drivers/panfrost.html Wifi Driver: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1B1LmAylalETcnBEWiPiJHL0MjK5xlIV4/view?usp=sharing For Boards Newer than 2025: Follow @WINEDS method to compile Armbian with the ethernet and wifi drivers Front Panel Display: Tutorial Repo: https://github.com/jefflessard/tm16xx-display UEFI: https://github.com/hqnicolas/h96v56_uefi/releases/tag/v1.2.1 Or Just Live install Wifi Driver: cd /lib/firmware/brcm/ sudo wget https://github.com/CoreELEC/brcmfmac_sdio-firmware-aml/raw/master/firmware/brcm/fw_bcm4335b0_ag.bin sudo ln -s fw_bcm4335b0_ag.bin brcmfmac4335-sdio.h96-TVbox,rk3566.bin sudo reboot now nmcli dev wifi sudo rmmod brcmfmac_wcc brcmfmac brcmutil modprobe brcmfmac Topic description: This topic aims to demonstrate the path taken to the Armibian EMMC solution. In our path we create a lot of ready-to-use ROM files, some users burn an use this images without learning with the Linux compilation process. the name of the topic is efforts but that's no effort at all, you should try compile your own images. Device Capability Test: Using Rockchip SoCs NPU. Drivers: https://github.com/rockchip-linux/rknpu2 User Guide: https://github.com/rockchip-linux/rknpu2/blob/master/doc/Rockchip_RKNPU_User_Guide_RKNN_API_V1.4.0_EN.pdf OpenCV: https://opencv.org/blog/2022/11/29/working-with-neural-processing-units-npus-using-opencv/ A discussion on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/OrangePI/comments/12b3jmj/accessing_the_npu_on_the_orange_pi/ Transformers models: https://github.com/usefulsensors/useful-transformers Usage: https://www.crowdsupply.com/useful-sensors/ai-in-a-box/ Usage: https://youtu.be/pN8mKZ5wpdQ

These Chinese people are very creative. I never imagined seeing a TV box with a SATA port. @Astlin You will need to interact with the .dts file to build a .dtb file with this capability. Before taking any action, check if your board is not from this other JP-Box project. https://github.com/armbian/build/blob/main/patch/kernel/archive/rockchip64-7.1/dt/rk3566-jp-tvbox.dts The topic you should interact with is this one here: https://forum.armbian.com/topic/31887-jianpian-rk3566-tv-box-8g32g-develop-log/#comment-175700 I don't actually have access to the JP-box @Astlin. If you are using the H96 max RK3566 firmware, the SATA port may not be enabled, but you can enable kernel changes within the Armbian compilation menu and insert your changes into the board's DTS file. https://github.com/armbian/build/blob/main/patch/kernel/archive/rockchip64-7.1/dt/rk3566-h96-tvbox.dts I believe the person responsible for this sign is @tdleiyao @ning have tested our DTB file on JianPian device https://github.com/armbian/build/blob/main/config/boards/jp-tvbox-3566.tvb If you have time, we can update the JP-box project in the correct topic. https://forum.armbian.com/topic/31887-jianpian-rk3566-tv-box-8g32g-develop-log/#comment-175700 I have maintained a sample repository with the necessary data to enable RK3566 cards in Armbian. https://github.com/hqnicolas/ArmBoardBringUp The reason JP-box isn't working is that it was enabled in kernel 6.6, and we're already on 7.1, nobody updates this since then. You can use the H96 modifications as start point. this modifications apply to the JP-box, but some functions, such as the SATA port, require customization.

Tell me please. TV Box JPTV RK3566 8GB RAM eMMC 32GB, WIFI/BT, USB2, USB3, there is no SATA. There is no microSD connector and wiring for it on the board. (I can attach additional photos of the board). Android 11 was working fine. According to the instructions, I flashed on Armbian_community_26.2.0-trunk.904_Jp-tvbox-3566_trixie_current_6.18.29_minimal.img. When loading in the terminal, I got this error: Then I tried to flash on Armbian_community_26.2.0-trunk.904_H96-tvbox-3566_resolute_current_6.18.30_kde-plasma_desktop.img - the board started and I was able to safely run a couple of tests for the presence of a decoder/encoder through the terminal and ssh: but SATA does not work. Can you tell me why the "native" firmware for this board does not start?

🏆 Become a sponsor, help to add other boards in armbian standart, you don't need to be a programmer to help the community, just need a copy of the ARM BOARD and a x86 computer to compile new versions. If you like what you see here and want to help: Donate Armbian the like button only costs a few dollars. Armbian Needs you help! Product Specification: Chipset: Rockchip RK3576 Octa Core ARM Mali G52 MC3 WIFI: WiFi6 11ax 1x1 80 MHz wifi controller: AP6275P RAM: DDR4 4GB/8GB ROM: eMMC 32GB/64GB/128GB OS: Android 14.0 || Armbian Vendor 6.1 Ethernet: 1000M Standard RJ-45 Bluetooth: BT 5.0 The RK3576 is indeed a lower-cost SoC but features four Cortex-A72 and four Cortex-A53 cores instead Android Base Files: H96-RK3576-ANDROID.dts H96-RK3576-ANDROID.dts H96-RK3576-BOX.dtb H96-RK3576-BOX.dtb RK3576_MiniLoaderAll.bin Vendor Kernel DTS: @RealAn H96-RK3576-VENDOR.dts Mainline status: Verify wifi controller: AP6275P Wifi Driver: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1n6x4tg5Xh24nWllOTJTq1ldVyDkK8W2Q/view?usp=sharing Flashing Tools: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nLgPCBN0qmbzufWDFmISYc92JUpvwMPc/view?usp=sharing build_armbian.csc: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VNR5QJlPylPsce9PI9O2TB3wOpshK2Bh/view?usp=sharing @hzdm Stock Firmware: method https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zLGvIxLE6vf8iSTjsyEr-Ly4MZ6ZahBB/view?usp=sharing Flashing Firmware Tutorial Factory Firmware for H96 Max M9 https://disk.yandex.ru/d/pWGEtRel0P9ejg https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1g63F8fGSLEA9iK2_Mqzd6F0xfaTRnGlm?usp=sharing Factory Firmware for H96 Max M9S https://disk.yandex.ru/d/H17eGTYCjgmCsg https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Q360l5XbTVsWIvWkqy2xJ0sLpqHRSApM?usp=sharing TTL debug: RX TX GND pins: Enable SDCARD Reader: @rustamt method from 4pda Force board Maskrom Mode Maskrom Pins:

Hello. I'm trying to run Armbian on an Acemak KII TV box (Amlogic S812 processor). From the page https://armbian.com/boards/aml-s805-mxq I downloaded the Armbian image Armbian_community_26.2.0-trunk.792_Aml-s805-mxq_trixie_current_6.12.28_minimal.img Using Win32DiskImager, I burned the Armbian image to a MicroSD card. In the armbianEnv.txt file, in the dtb_file line, I specified the path: dtb_file=/dtb/meson8m2-mxiii-plus.dtb I inserted the MicroSD card into the TV box. The TV box boots, Ethernet works, but there is no HDMI signal on the monitor. I tried specifying different dtb file variants in armbianEnv.txt. I found that if I specify the path dtb_file=/dtb/ meson8b-mxq.dtb , HDMI works (the console is displayed), but Ethernet doesn't. I decompiled the meson8b-mxq.dtb and meson8m2-mxiii-plus.dtb files, but I can't combine the files so that both Ethernet and HDMI work. I've attached the decompiled files. Please help me prepare a combined .dtb file meson8m2-mxiii-plus.dts meson8b-mxq.dts