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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

🏆 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 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 Force board Maskrom Mode

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

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 Ninkbox N1 Max RK3318 by @enigmasphinx 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: Archived images - built by Armbian servers and GPG-signed: https://imola.armbian.com/dl/rk3318-box/archive/ Nightly stables - built from trunk by Armbian servers and GPG-signed: https://github.com/armbian/community Stables provided by me (unsigned): https://users.armbian.com/jock/rk3318/ 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

@flikz I am glad to read that it works for your v5.1 board (your board is secure boot board). when you have time please post a photo of your board (if possible) it may help others. You can follow the bellow instructions to add hardware acceleration for your h264 videos on your Tv-Box. Is working for me (on bookworm). NOTE: Unfortunately hardware video acceleration is not completed yet but the above instructions seems to work with mpv. however when test it on (firefox / youtube) it does not makes any difference.

Hi, how to force set a boot resolution for this system on rockchip rk322x box? on armbian s9xx tv box images, I append this 'video=HDMI-A-1:1920x1080M@60D' to the kernel boot line and this will force the boot resolution to be the desired one, due to its tiny font on a 4k monitor. With the image here for rk322x, there's no uEnv.txt, but a similar armbianEnv.txt, I tried to add 'video=HDMI-A-1:1920x1080M@60D' to be the last line in this file, but it has no effect. my rk322x borad, it will think my 4k monitor HDMI is 5k , or 60hz, actually its only 4k@30Hz on HDMI, the result is it will blackscreen after the uboot output. when this board connected to a Full HD monitor, it outputs fine from start to end .. root@rk322x-box `:]x**j-,' --------------- .,+t***********z\<" OS: Armbian bookworm 24.11.0-trunk.192 armv7l ?******************; Host: Generic RK322x Tv Box board '*n` .'`^,;;,^`'. ,cc. Kernel: Linux 6.6.52-current-rockchip -<. .[l Uptime: 7 mins // ^^ ^^ \\ Packages: 714 (dpkg) !^ ^^ ": Shell: bash 5.2.15 'tt}` !~]rj_ ")t/. Display (U2879G6): 3840x2160 @ 30 Hz in 28″ [External] Itttt?' ~~]rr] `{tttt, Cursor: Adwaita \tttttt!""I_]r("""~tttttt1 Terminal: /dev/pts/0 '_tttttttttttt)ftttttttttttti. CPU: Generic DT based system (4) @ 1.39 GHz \*ztttttttttttttttttttttttttf**[ GPU: Rockchip rk3228-mali [Integrated] l**c)tttttttttttttttttttttttt(z**, Memory: 331.82 MiB / 977.04 MiB (34%) .z*x.`tttttttttttttttttttttttt.`u*n Swap: 0 B / 488.52 MiB (0%) >` (tttttttttttttttttttttt] "I Disk (/): 1.86 GiB / 6.94 GiB (27%) - ext4 ,tttttttttttttttttttttt` Disk (/var/log): 7.38 MiB / 46.84 MiB (16%) - ext4 ./tttttfttttttttfttttt( Local IP (end0): 192.168.19.162/24 'I)))(\()(tt))|\()({;' Locale: en_US.UTF-8 .~~~~~~~|)~~~~~~~< '[)))))1|()))))))? ",,," ",,,^

Hello, I am having some problem following the tutorial for this board (identified as R69): I thought of using the multitool to burn an image to the tv box, but after picking an image and inserting the sd card, it did not respond, since it booted from the original firmware and ignored multitool. I also tried using a usb sd card adapter, but same thing. My questions are: what is happening? Did this happen to someone alrealdy? Was it solved? How to solve it? I am almost sure I did the process right, since I already did it to some tv boxes and got good results... I would have attached some log, but don't know if there is one, since the multitool didnt even open. Thanks a lot in advance!

In armbianenv.txt, erase the overlay “tve” (abbreviation of tv signal encoder) if you don’t use any analog outputs, can the pins be used as GPIO?

I followed the steps outlined in the instructions, and they worked very well for me with (10 ISPs) 4G dongles using PPP connections. TV Box Model tested: MXQ Pro 4K, 5G (H3 Allwinner), ISO: Sunvell 69. I started with Debian 10 and later upgraded to Debian 11. I also use a second USB 3.0 LAN card, as well as the dongles connected through a USB hub with an independent power supply. For more information, you can check the following resources: Installing the Perl dependencies took some time. Net-ISP-Balance Documentation https://lstein.github.io/Net-ISP-Balance/ Net-ISP-Balance GitHub Repository https://github.com/lstein/Net-ISP-Balance Thanks to Lincoln D. Stein

@sicxnull Yesterday i make a fresh clone of : git clone https://github.com/sicXnull/armbian-build.git --branch X96Q-TVBOX-LPDDR3 --single-branch But when compile it I get an error [Error context msg [ Check MD5 sum of installed packages failed ..] I also tried to use FORCE_CHECK_MD5_PACKAGES=no but I receive the same error. after i clone the : git clone https://github.com/sicXnull/armbian-build.git and is compiled without errors, And finally i make a bookworm image (with secure boot) After i test the image on my tv-box (Z1): The Tv-box boots from SD card, however when i try to copy my image from SD card to eMMC then the Tv-box does not boot al all. I solve this problem with my old noble (secure boot) image (when i copy the bootloader to eMMC via armbian-config) Something is changed on u-boot ?

How do i boot and install armbian on a T95m tv box? i held the reset button, plugged in power and released after about 5 seconds but it keeps booting into android...

can you help me with this? i can't find an image, and i can't figure out how to make the box show up on my pc. its a T95m android tv box, i don't know the manufacturer because the stickers are all worn off.

Hello, I am working on an alternative fd6551 and clones led driver for our tv boxes front displays. It is getting up in very good shape, but requires some tuning up; I would like to ask anyone who owns a box with a front led panel and is interested to report the board name, the display chip (common chips are fd6551, fd650, tm1650, etc...) and the original stock dts if possibile. It would make things easier to support already existing boards. Thank you! edit: for source code and reference: https://github.com/paolosabatino/leds-fd6551

@rafman oh excellent. thanks for the tip. Still getting acquainted with this. I was just going for consistency since I had another old box running it. considering I can get the Q1 for $40 CDN on amazon - its a really good deal to put together a quick pihole for a friends and family. I feel like the tv-box producers are missing an opportunity in not building their own armbian version will full support. They would sell more boxes!

🏆 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! H96 MAX V56 RK3566 8gb Ram SD-Card unofficial images: Tutorial SD-Card Version v0.5 DEBIAN12 BETA unofficial Tutorial SD-Card Version v0.5 ARMBIAN23 BETA unofficial H96 MAX V56 RK3566 8gb EMMC Chainloader to mainline HotnikQ unofficial images: Tutorial EMMC Version V0.7 ARMBIAN23 BETA unofficial H96 MAX V56 RK3566 8gb EMMC Mainline Boot Hzdm unofficial images: Tutorial EMMC Version v0.8 ARMBIAN unofficial Armbian 23.08.0 Jammy Kernek 6.2 Desktop v0.8 Beta unofficial H96 MAX V56 RK3566 8gb EMMC Mainline Boot Hzdm unofficial images: Tutorial EMMC Version v0.9 ARMBIAN BETA unofficial H96 MAX V56 RK3566 8gb EMMC Chainloader to mainline HotnikQ unofficial images: Tutorial EMMC Version v1.0 ARMBIAN unofficial Armbian 23.11.0 Server Kernel 6.2 Minimal V1.0 unofficial Armbian 23.11.0 Desktop Kernel 6.2 Gnome V1.0 unofficial Debian 12 BookWorm Kernel 6.2 Server Minimal v1.0 unofficial Debian 12 BookWorm Desktop Kernel 6.2 Gnome v1.0 unofficial H96 MAX V56 RK3566 8gb EMMC Hzdm Mainline Boot Custom unofficial images: Tutorial Build Your own Armbian EMMC unofficial image Armbian 23.11.0 Server Minimal Kernel 6.2 Custom unofficial Build Armbian 23.11.0 Desktop Cinnamon Kernel 6.2 Custom unofficial Build Armbian 23.11.0 Desktop XFCE Kernel 6.2 Custom unofficial Build Armbian 23.11.0 Server Standart Kernel 6.2 Custom unofficial Build H96 MAX V56 RK3566 EMMC Raspiblitz HotnikQ unofficial images: Tutorial Build Raspiblitz on EMMC Armbian Bullseye unofficial Armbian 23.11.0 Debian Bullseye Kernel 6.1.54 Custom unofficial Build Armbian_Raspiblitz Debian Bullseye kernel 6.1.54 Backup unofficial H96 MAX V56 RK3566 8gb EMMC Hzdm Mainline Boot unofficial images: Tutorial Build Your own V1.1 Armbian EMMC unofficial image H96 MAX V56 RK3566 8gb EMMC Ning Mainline Kernel: Tutorial Build Your own V1.2 & V1.3 Armbian EMMC official image Armbian Desktop Gnome kernel The Latest official Debian BookWorm Server Kernel Minimal The Latest official Google Driver Alternatives 24.8.0 Trunk6 Armbian 24.8.0 Noble Desktop Kernel 6.6 official Debian 12 Bookworm xfce Kernel 6.6 official Armbian 24.8.0 Jammy Server Kernel 6.6 official Armbian 24.8.0 Jammy Desktop Kernel 6.6 official H96 MAX V56 RK3566 8gb Vendor Kernel 6.1.43 Tutorial Build Your own Armbian Rockchip Kernel vendor Kernel 6.1.43 Armbian Tutorial Build Your own Joshua Riek Rockchip with Armbian base image H96 MAX V56 RK3566 Desktop Mainline Kernel 6.6.34 Pre-Build Desktop 22.04 Armbian Test Image (PT-BR) 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 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 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

@Perry S thread for rk3288 tv boxes was not too far away. Try this:

Hello I want to change the original logo of Android Tv box IK316Q-EMCP_v4.1 and use our company logo. Therefore, I need the firmware editor. Who can help me? Best regards

These instructions are for Amlogic CPUs for TV Boxes. Note: If you have previously run other distributions on the box such as coreelec the below installation will not work. You will need to restore the original android firmware before attempting the install. coreelec changes the boot environment in ways that are incompatible with these Armbian builds. Download links: Weekly Community Rolling Builds: https://www.armbian.com/amlogic-s9xx-tv-box/ or build your own image using the Armbian build framework Once you download your chosen build, you need to burn the image to an SD card. Generally balenaEtcher is recommended as it does a verification of the burn. Also be sure to use high quality SD cards. Once you have the SD card with your chosen build, then you need to edit the boot configuration file on the SD card. In the BOOT partition of the SD card there will be a file /boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf, that you need to edit. There will also be a extlinux.conf.template file to use as a reference. You will need to add a line into the extlinux.conf file for the Device Tree (dtb) file you will be using for your box. Place this line before the APPEND line as shown in the .template file. Basically you need to have the correct dtb for your box. You may need to attempt to use different dtb files until you find the one that works the best for your box's hardware (there are a bunch of dtb files in /boot/dtb/amlogic/... to try depending on your cpu architecture and hardware). It is unlikely that there will be a matching dtb file for your TV box. The idea is to find the one that works best for your box. This may mean that you try booting with different dtb files until you fine one that works good enough for your needs. By searching the forums you will find information about what dtbs other users have found work best for different boxes. Because you are booting from an SD card, you can easily try different dtb files. The dtd files are named by cpu family. So for example dtb files for the s905x2 cpu are named meson-g12a-*. Below there is a table that shows the identifiers for each familiy (g12a for s905x2 in this case). Next you need to copy the correct uboot for your box. This is needed for how these builds boot on amlogic boxes. There are four different u-boot files located in the /boot directory: u-boot-s905, u-boot-s905x-s912, u-boot-s905x2-s922, u-boot-s905x3 You need to copy (note copy not move) the u-boot file that matches your cpu to a new file named u-boot.ext in the /boot directory So for example with a TX3 mini box that has an s905w cpu you would copy u-boot-s905x-s912 to u-boot.ext: cp u-boot-s905x-s912 u-boot.ext (See table below for more details on which u-boot to use for which cpu) Once you have your SD card prepared you need to enable multiboot on the box. There are different ways documented to do this, but the most common is the "toothpick" method. The "toothpick" method means to hold the reset button while applying power to the box. The reset button is often hidden and located at the back of the audio/video jack connector. By pressing that button with a toothpick or other such pointed device you can enable multiboot. What you need to do is have the box unplugged, have your prepared sd card inserted, then press and hold the button while inserting the power connector. Then after a bit of time you can release the button. (I don't know exactly how long you need to hold the button after power is applied, but if it doesn't work the first time try again holding for longer or shorter times). You should now be booting into armbian/linux. Note that the first boot takes longer as it is enlarging the root filesystem to utilize the entire SD card. After you are satisfied that your box is working correctly for your needs you can optionally copy the installation from the SD card to internal emmc storage (assuming your box has emmc). (Note: Installing to emmc has some risks of bricking your box. Don't do this unless you feel you understand how to reinstall your box's android firmware) You install armbian to emmc by running the shell script in the /root directory: install-aml.sh. Note: It is not possible to install into emmc on boxes with the s905 cpu (s905x, s905w, s905x2, etc however should all be supported). It is recommended that you make a backup of emmc first. Also be prepared if anything goes horribly wrong with your emmc install to reinstall the android firmware using the Amlogic USB Burning Tool to unbrick your device. If you have or can find an original android firmware on the internet and you can generally (but not always) recover a bricked box using the Amlogic tool and the original firmware file. Mapping from CPU to uboot and dtb: u-boot-s905 s905 - gxbb u-boot-s905x2-s912 S905X - gxl S905W - gxl S905D - gxl S905L - gxl S805X - gxl S912 - gxm A311D - gxm u-boot-s905x2-s922 S905X2 - g12a S922 - g12b u-boot-s905x3 S905X3 - sm1 Not supported or not tested S805 - S905W2 - S905X4 - S805X2 - s4 A113D - axg A113X - axg Note: Followup posts in this thread should be limited to comments to improve or better understand these instructions. Other issues should be posted as new questions in the Amlogic CPU Boxes sub-forum.

@eibrog I am glad to read that you succeed. This Tv-Box (Q1) works fine with Armbian. @svsruof You can also give a try with the above image to your box to see if Armbian is booting with secure boot.

Hey! I'm very new to this topic, do you mind helping? I installed your Multitool on an SD card, got the TV box backup, but now I have a 5 GB backup.gz file, and when I open it, theres a file without extention there. What programs would you advise to use (i'm on Windows 10) to extract the firmware from it and then put it back to this format later? If I understand it correctly, I need to decompress it with some program, edit, then compress it back with something and then flash to the TB box? Maybe there's some noob friendly guide out there that I didn't find, or you can explain the details yourself? My goal is to get the firmware, then edit it - translate to another language, add some games, etc, then flash it back to the TV box. Thank you!

No problem, everything is a lesson even if it succeeds or not. The good point of this research is that now i have two dead boxes alive and running (well). I made a free account on github and I order another one tv box (Transpeed 8k Android 12 TV BOX Allwinner H618 4GB Ram and 64 GB Rom) for further research (is on the way now).

Does anyone know how to extract (old) Allwinner eGON files from the BPI M3 with dumpimage (or other Linux software?) To change the HDMI screen resolution. (720P is too big for TV/monitor, need 1360x768). dumpimage -l BPI_M3_720P.img Allwinner eGON image, size: 32768 bytes

Belena Etcher Uncompresses the image then writes image then verifies image. I switched to just clicking on compressed image and use linux default restore image using Disks. I now try using extracted image and usb image writer. this does not work I am using Linux Mint but can also boot win10. I check out rufus too. i also have many other on my win10 drive. thanks for your help update: using Rufus to burn image to sdcard gives same result black screen on tv and led clock blank Do i need press any buttons inside box ? what should i expect to see if it works ? Checking my ram spec it is DDR3L so will need boot loader "board-h616.tanix_tx6s_lpddr3" RAM: K4B4G0446D-BYK0 DDR3L-1600 (11-11-11) https://image.semiconductor.samsung.com/resources/data-sheet/DS_K4B4G0846D_BY_M_Rev1_3-0.pdf I confident my SDCard image is ok and not the issue I need to learn how to change boot loader

I tried booting with Tanix Tx6 images burned with balenaEtcher-linux-x64. micro sdcard has boot and root partitions I get nothing black screen on LG TV and clock LED blank. Do i need to copy dts file or edit file ? never done this before.