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First of all, a huge thank you for your work on bringing Armbian to RK3128 TV boxes. Your guide is incredibly detailed and practical — not just theoretically correct, but actually usable in real-world scenarios where hardware varies wildly. That’s something many tutorials lack. It’s clear you spent a lot of time testing across different boards, and it really helps people like me who are dealing with these unpredictable cheap TV boxes. I also want to say I truly appreciate how you approached the NAND installation process using rkdeveloptool. The way you structured the workflow, especially handling boot components and low-level flashing, made it much easier to understand what’s actually happening under the hood instead of just blindly following commands. I happen to have a bunch of RK3128 devices myself, and thanks to your work, I’ve successfully brought several of them back to life. Even with different variants of RK3128, I was able to get them running properly on NAND with kernel 4.x, which is honestly impressive given how inconsistent these boards can be. That said, I’d like to ask if you might consider extending your approach to RK3228/RK3229 devices using rkdeveloptool on Windows, similar to what you’ve done for RK3128. I’ve been trying to replicate a similar workflow based on your guide and also by studying the multitool source, especially the step-nand function. So far, I’ve attempted: Reusing trust.img and legacy U-Boot from the multitool BSP folder Manually creating a GPT at 0x8000 Writing the image with dd while skipping the first 4MB (similar to step-nand logic) Unfortunately, none of these attempts have worked so far. The main challenge is that many RK3229 boards don’t have an accessible SD card slot (or even pads for one), which makes recovery and testing much harder. If SD boot were available, this would be much easier to debug and iterate. Since you’ve already done the hard work of figuring things out for RK3128 using rkdeveloptool, I was wondering if you might be willing to give RK3229 a try using a similar method. Even a partial guide or some hints about differences in bootloader layout, trust image, or NAND handling would be extremely helpful. Thanks again for your contribution — it’s genuinely valuable for the community. Hopefully RK3229 can be the next one to crack Cheers!

Excuse me for asking, I'm a total noob when it comes to TV boxes. But how do I install this on a ROM? I have an Android TV ROM that works fine but without Wi-Fi.

Hello averyone I'm trying to download the multitool.img.xz can someone please help me find it or share a valide link?

Hello. I'm running Armbian on a Ugoos AM3 TV box. I downloaded the Armbian_26.05.0_amlogic_s912_bookworm_6.18.20_server_2026.04.01.img.gz image from https://github.com/ophub/amlogic-s9xxx-armbian/releases/download/Armbian_bookworm_arm64_server_2026.04/ Armbian_26.05.0_amlogic_s912_bookworm_6.18.20_server_2026.04.01.img.gz I'm using an 8GB USB flash drive. I formatted the flash drive to FAT32. I burned the image to the flash drive using Win32 Disk Imager. After burning the image, I found the u-boot-s905x-s912.bin file in the root directory of the flash drive and renamed it to u-boot.ext. In the /dtb/amlogic/ directory, I found the meson-gxm-ugoos-am3.dtb file and edited the path in the extlinux/extlinux.conf file in the FDT line. The resulting line was: FDT /dtb/amlogic/meson-gxm-ugoos-am3.dtb I connected a monitor via HDMI to the TV box, a network via Ethernet, a USB keyboard, and inserted a USB flash drive into the TV box. Armbian loaded normally. I followed the steps to create a user and install locales. No network setup messages appeared during setup. After setup and booting, I ran the command as the user ip a I saw that the TV Box hadn't received an IP address. I tried running the command sudo systemctl restart NetworkManager , but the IP address didn't appear. I turned off the TV Box using the command sudo poweroff. I disconnected the USB flash drive and booted into the TV Box in Android (I'm using a slimBox). I checked the network in Android—both Ethernet and WiFi were working. I switched the WiFi status in Android to off, and then re-enabled the WiFi. I inserted the USB flash drive with Armbian into the TV Box and booted into Armbian—the Ethernet network was working. I tried shutting down the system using the command sudo poweroff. I disconnected the TV Box from the power supply. After that, I booted the TV Box into Armbian again—both Ethernet and WiFi were still not working. If I re-enable the network in Android, the Ethernet will work again until the power is cut off. I tried using the dtb files meson-gxm-q201.dtb and meson-gxm-q200.dtb, but the Ethernet also doesn't work after a power outage. My TV box uses an LTM8830 WiFi module and an Amlogic S912 ARM Cortex-A53 processor. RAM is 2 GB.

not getting internal wifi from "amlogic s905x3" "x96 max plus" tv box wifi chip "CDTech 47W3155" board version "Q5X3-141 V4.1"

I recently got this tv box emulator thing but i now emulate games on my laptop for convineince. I decide to download armbian on the tv box so that i can set up pi-hole for network wide ad blocking. Ive tried multiple times but i cant see to get it working. Cpu: Amologic S905L Ram:2 gig DDr3 ive been downloading this version https://github.com/ophub/amlogic-s9xxx-armbian/releases/download/Armbian_jammy_arm64_server_2026.02/Armbian_26.02.0_amlogic_s905l_jammy_6.1.161_server_2026.02.02.img.gz been using this dtb meson-gxl-s905x-p212.dtb been using this u bootfile named: u-boot-s905x-s912 To reboot the system there is no button in the AV port and the box refuses to download any apk or app for terminal emulator, Developer tools are not available,threfore i prefer to do it through the update method. the file structure Ive been following these instructions from gemini https://gemini.google.com/share/1e335432197f https://gemini.google.com/share/0a6ce8a19d0c Please ask me if you need more info I also asked in reddit btw

Hello everyone, I'm trying to locate a specific older Armbian build for an RK3318 TV box and hoping someone in the community might have it archived. I'm looking for: Version: Armbian 22.05.1 (or similar from that era) Kernel: Legacy 4.4.213 Base: Debian Buster Desktop: XFCE (or even a CLI version is fine) The original download link from users.armbian.com/balbes150/ is now a 404. I understand this is a very old "Community Maintained" build and that RK3318 support has moved to newer kernels . I'm specifically seeking this kernel version for a project. If anyone has this image file or a similar legacy build (kernel 4.4.x) for the RK3318 stashed away, could you please share it or point me to an alternative source? Any help would be greatly appreciated! Hardware: (e.g., H96 Max RK3318 - please specify your exact box model) Thank you

Hello everyone, I own this android box and I followed this tutorial https://ragone.dev/post/install-linux-on-android-tv-box which is based on tutorials on armbian website, I tried to install Armbian 25.8 server with Debian. Everything went fine until the step "5. Flash Armbian to the internal eMMC", despite me running the install-aml.sh script and getting a complete message in the end (see following images for script execution output), when I reboot it just always starts from the sd (see the following screenshot showing that the mounted storage is 16 GB, but my box internal storage is 8 GB). fdisk -l output to also show the internal mmc (in the screen /dev/mmcblk1) If I remove the sd and then turn it on, it is just stuck in a loop, having the following errors: Can you please help me in solving this problem? I already tried looking on the web and found these two topics: https://github.com/ophub/amlogic-s9xxx-armbian/issues/3032 But they didn't help me. Kind regards

Can I enable wifi (SV6256P) in H616 DDR3 Tv box https://github.com/paolosabatino/ssv6x5x/tree/master or build from old kernel 4.4.x

Hello guys i want to use linux on mx pro tv box from pendrive when i flash armbian image to pendrive and click the secret button on box nothing boots up can any one guide me on this thankyou:)

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 is CSC Armbian for XT-Q8L-V10 boards, also known as Chiptrip Q8, Vsmart Q8, ENY 3288 Q8, etc... All source code has been merged into Armbian mainline project. I still keep my personal public Armbian fork for experimental features: https://github.com/paolosabatino/armbian-build Nightly images: download directory Quick installation instructions on eMMC: Build or download your preferred Armbian image from Download directory 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 sd card, then push the power button for 1 second (the led will turn blue) After 10 seconds HDMI will turn on and you will get logging messages; 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 armbian-config to configure timezone, locales and other personal options Congratulations, Armbian is now installed! Boot from SD Card/USB stick (with Armbian already installed in eMMC, empty eMMC or no eMMC😞 Build or download your preferred Armbian image from Download directory; Burn the image on your SD card/USB stick; Plug the SD card/USB stick in the device; Push the power button for 1 second (the led will turn blue); After 10 seconds HDMI will turn on and you will get logging messages; 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 armbian-config to configure timezone, locales and other personal options Congratulations, Armbian is now installed! Boot from SD Card/USB stick (with original firmware or other firmware): In case your box has the original firmware installed, use the Multitool to erase the internal flash. Don't worry, you will not brick your box: once the eMMC is emptied, the box will automatically boot from SD Card. This is called Maskrom mode and is common to all Rockchip devices. Instructions and download links for the Multitool are at the bottom of this post. After erasing the internal eMMC, just follow the "Boot from SD Card" procedure above and then you are fine. Boot priority: Newer images (those with mainline kernel >= 4.14.50) now support booting from multiple devices. Priority is fixed and boot devices are probed in this order: External SD card External USB storage device (Any USB Stick/Hard drive attached to USB host ports) Internal eMMC This way even if you install armbian to internal eMMC, you can still easily test different images booting from external devices. Experts notes: when armbian is installed into eMMC you get U-boot installed too in eMMC. This is important to know because the box won't boot in Maskrom Mode, but instead will always boot the embedded U-boot, no matter if you put an sdcard/usb stick. In practice the embedded U-boot is totally responsible for the boot priority. If you want to restore the Maskrom Mode, just erase U-boot from eMMC using this command: dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/mmcblk2 seek=64 count=8128 conv=sync,fsync Current status: Wireless: works. pretty fast and stable, signal is strong on my box; Bluetooth: works. I was able to transfer files and stream audio without problems USB ports: works, with autosuspend too. A quick benchmark show that transfer rate is quite good (topped at 34 MB/s) USB OTG: works in host mode. Transfer rate is very good (> 40 MB/s) MMC: works and is perfectly accessible as storage device. The images above with "eMMC friendly" have been tested and work when installed in eMMC using the standard armbian-config eMMC installer SDCard: works. legacy kernel is limited to high speed, while mainline works fine in UHS mode too. A quick benchmark with a Samsung EVO card shows the promised 48Mb/s read speed. Gigabit Ethernet: works, fast and reliably HDMI: works perfectly Serial: works Audio: both HDMI audio and SPDIF connector works IR remote: works on legacy and mainline kernels Reboot/Suspend process: rebooting the device is a working in progress, at the moment sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Suspend is still not available. Hardware acceleration: everything which works for rk3288 boards applies here too. This guide or maybe the Media Testing Script will help you gain an hardware accelerated X11 and Chromium (using GL4ES I enjoyed Quake 2 from the start till the end, but also Quake and Quake III Arena work flawlessy, here a quick how-to to compile and install GL4ES) Multimedia: On mainline kernel 3D acceleration is provided by Panfrost driver and is already enabled. Hardware video decoding: https://forum.armbian.com/topic/19258-testing-hardware-video-decoding-rockchip-allwinner/ Multitool: The Multitool is a small but powerful tool to easy operate on internal eMMC flash of RK3288 devices. Features: Backup the content of internal eMMC Restore a previously backed-up image to eMMC Erase the eMMC (via fast blkdiscard or zero-fill as fallback) Burn an Armbian (or LibreELEC) image directly on the eMMC Provide a recovery shell for manual maintenance Windows-friendly: everything is placed in a NTFS partition Image compression format autodetection: they are decompressed on-the-fly during burn process Network support for remote maintenance via SSH (instructions to access via network here) Instructions are simple: Download the image from here Burn it on an sdcard Open the NTFS partition with your preferred file manager Place the images you want to burn on the device in images directory (backups will be stored in backups directory) Plug the sd card in the RK3288 device Power the device and wait few seconds, the Multitool menu will appear on screen and can be navigated with the keyboard Last edit: 07/06/2020 - updated installation instructions

@Sergioclr Well that is the u-boot root directory. Where the main Makefile is located. I added my own root_key.pem in the patch. You don't have to generate one. The root_key.pem for Allwinner H616/618/313 devices is not a single, universal file, but rather an RSA private key file used for signing bootloader images (TOC0) in secure boot implementations. In many commercial H616-based TV boxes, Secure Boot is enabled by the manufacturer, but the efuses (which store the root key hash) are not permanently locked, allowing the use of custom keys openssl genrsa -out root_key.pem

This week, Collabora is at the YouTube Device Partner Summit in Tokyo showcasing our ongoing work with YouTube, notably on their TV app and the RDK platform, which has resulted in the RDK's integration as a core platform for Cobalt development. View the full article

I'm trying to install Armbian on the Tanix Tx1 Soc Allwinner H313 Mini TV Box, but this box doesn't have an SD card slot. How do I install Armbian on this box without an SD card?

Hello, I have some troubles with this TVBOX: it runs armbian and other distros correctly, using the meson-gxm-t95z-plus.dtb but sometimes wifi goes into kernel panic at boot, and when it does, the whole system becomes unstable (i.e. not rebooting, eth0 hangs...). I have extracted the original .DTB from the only firmware that exists for this box, the ancient 6.0 Marshmellow Android (I guess it's a 3.x kernel...). I attach it to this message hoping someone more expert than me can help in making it work ina more stable manner. I attach a picture of the board also, it reads "M8S". Box has 2GB ram and 16GB eMMC, brcmfmac wifi/bt and ZTE PHY chip. meson1.dtb

Debug (Phoenixsuit) original software loaded (emmc) Photo from TV Box recovery menu: Thanks in advance.

Hi, I would like to know if its possible to boot from SD card in my model of Android TV BOX. It does not have a reset button but has an update app. Its a Giga TV Box HD890 4K. It has an Amlogic CPU I do all the process of installing Armbian in the SD card, Android starts an update and it says: "Map file is too short". I really dont know what I have to do to enable multi boot. Installation is aborted. Im getting really upset for not being able to install Armbian. Any help to this issue would be really welcome. Sorry for my bad english

First of all thanks to the people maintaining armbian for helios64. I recently upgraded (well I reinstalled) to trixie and everything mostly runs stable for me. However I have a problem with the 2.5GB adapter. It is connected to a 2.5GB switch and when for example running iperf3 I get proper results close to 2.5 GBit. So in general it seems to be running ok. I have a DLNA server (minidlna) running on that machine and when I stream from my TV (streaming via VLC from my laptop triggers the same problems) the network connection drops for a moment and works again after a few seconds (which you can guess is super annoying when watching something). I am not sure what exactly is triggering this. most of the time the network is super stable but during streaming I get hickups. This is what my kernel log spits out when this is happending: ``` Apr 09 17:45:54 hermann-walter kernel: xhci-hcd xhci-hcd.0.auto: Event TRB for slot 4 ep 3 with no TDs queued Apr 09 17:45:54 hermann-walter kernel: xhci-hcd xhci-hcd.0.auto: Event TRB for slot 4 ep 3 with no TDs queued Apr 09 17:45:54 hermann-walter kernel: xhci-hcd xhci-hcd.0.auto: Event TRB for slot 4 ep 3 with no TDs queued Apr 09 17:45:54 hermann-walter kernel: xhci-hcd xhci-hcd.0.auto: Event TRB for slot 4 ep 3 with no TDs queued Apr 09 17:45:54 hermann-walter kernel: xhci-hcd xhci-hcd.0.auto: Event dma 0x00000000053f8f10 for ep 3 status 1 not part of TD at 00000000053f8ed0 - 00000000053f8ed0 Apr 09 17:45:54 hermann-walter kernel: xhci-hcd xhci-hcd.0.auto: Event dma 0x00000000053f8f20 for ep 3 status 1 not part of TD at 00000000053f8ed0 - 00000000053f8ed0 Apr 09 17:45:54 hermann-walter kernel: xhci-hcd xhci-hcd.0.auto: Event dma 0x00000000053f8f30 for ep 3 status 1 not part of TD at 00000000053f8ed0 - 00000000053f8ed0 Apr 09 17:45:54 hermann-walter kernel: xhci-hcd xhci-hcd.0.auto: Event dma 0x00000000053f8f40 for ep 3 status 1 not part of TD at 00000000053f8ed0 - 00000000053f8ed0 Apr 09 17:45:54 hermann-walter kernel: xhci-hcd xhci-hcd.0.auto: Event dma 0x00000000053f8f50 for ep 3 status 1 not part of TD at 00000000053f8ed0 - 00000000053f8ed0 Apr 09 17:45:54 hermann-walter kernel: xhci-hcd xhci-hcd.0.auto: Event dma 0x00000000053f8f60 for ep 3 status 1 not part of TD at 00000000053f8ed0 - 00000000053f8ed0 Apr 09 17:45:54 hermann-walter kernel: xhci-hcd xhci-hcd.0.auto: Event dma 0x00000000053f8f70 for ep 3 status 1 not part of TD at 00000000053f8ed0 - 00000000053f8ed0 Apr 09 17:45:54 hermann-walter kernel: xhci-hcd xhci-hcd.0.auto: Event dma 0x00000000053f8f80 for ep 3 status 1 not part of TD at 00000000053f8ed0 - 00000000053f8ed0 Apr 09 17:45:54 hermann-walter kernel: xhci-hcd xhci-hcd.0.auto: Event dma 0x00000000053f8f90 for ep 3 status 1 not part of TD at 00000000053f8ed0 - 00000000053f8ed0 Apr 09 17:45:54 hermann-walter kernel: xhci-hcd xhci-hcd.0.auto: Event dma 0x00000000053f8fa0 for ep 3 status 1 not part of TD at 00000000053f8ed0 - 00000000053f8ed0 Apr 09 17:45:59 hermann-walter kernel: r8152 2-1.4:1.0 enx646266d00873: NETDEV WATCHDOG: CPU: 0: transmit queue 0 timed out 5152 ms Apr 09 17:45:59 hermann-walter kernel: r8152 2-1.4:1.0 enx646266d00873: Tx timeout Apr 09 17:46:00 hermann-walter kernel: r8152 2-1.4:1.0 enx646266d00873: Tx status -2 Apr 09 17:46:00 hermann-walter kernel: r8152 2-1.4:1.0 enx646266d00873: Tx status -2 Apr 09 17:46:00 hermann-walter kernel: r8152 2-1.4:1.0 enx646266d00873: Tx status -2 Apr 09 17:46:00 hermann-walter kernel: r8152 2-1.4:1.0 enx646266d00873: Tx status -2 Apr 09 17:46:02 hermann-walter kernel: r8152-cfgselector 2-1.4: reset SuperSpeed USB device number 3 using xhci-hcd ``` the usb related messages are not always there but the r8152 related messages are always there. I found a similar problem here: https://github.com/openwrt/openwrt/issues/22130 I tried replacing the firmware but that didn't help and I later found out that the helios64 uses a different firmware so that explains why it didn't help: ``` Apr 10 05:48:30 hermann-walter kernel: r8152 2-1.4:1.0: Loaded FW: rtl_nic/rtl8156a-2.fw, sha256: 7b50f4a307bde7b3f384935537c4d9705457fa42613eb0003ffbc4e19461a1e0 Apr 10 05:48:30 hermann-walter kernel: r8152 2-1.4:1.0: Loaded FW: rtl_nic/rtl8156a-2.fw, sha256: 7b50f4a307bde7b3f384935537c4d9705457fa42613eb0003ffbc4e19461a1e0 ``` does anybody know what is going on? I am quite sure that the problem wasn't there before the upgrade (but I might be mistaken because I only started observing the helios64 again after the upgrade. also it seems to be related to the amount of network traffic going on. i.e. lower bitrate streams seem to not trigger the problem). Streaming via the 1GBit NIC is working fine.

Hey everyone, I’ve cross-flashed a MXQ 4K 5G (Allwinner sun8iw7p1 / H3) firmware onto a different H3-based TV box. Everything works surprisingly well, except for the IR Power-On/Wakeup. Since the hardware is different, my box's IR receiver is sending a scancode that the MXQ firmware doesn't recognize as the "Wakeup" key. Because this is an Allwinner (sunxi) build and not Rockchip, I know I can't just edit a remote.conf file in the system partition to fix the cold-boot power button. My questions: Where exactly is the Hardcoded IR Wakeup/Power-on scancode stored in these Phoenix-style Allwinner images? Is it buried in the Device Tree Blob (DTB) under a specific IR controller node, or is it hardcoded in the U-Boot/SPL? If I unpack the boot.img or kernel, what hex patterns should I search for to find the Power-key scancode table? If anyone has experience patching the primary boot scancode for sun8i chips, I’d love some guidance on which partition/file to hex-edit. Thanks!

@savznkvo if you followed my compile.sh steps from above, you should have a file Armbian-unofficial_26.05.0-trunk_Orangepirv2_trixie_current_6.18.21_minimal.img in ./output/images ready to be flashed to your SD card. Insert and boot. At this point you need TV / Kbd or UART to finish the wizard (set root PW etc). Now start armbian-install (see screen shot). Transfer *.img to /dev/nvme0n1, use netcat or similar. Then power down, remove SD and eMMC (if plugged). Restart from NVME, now you have to complete first time wizard again. Tested with current main and it works flawlessly. Addon: if you apt-get dist-upgrade, a newer kernel package from Armbian nightly builds is installed and the bcmdhd wifi kernel driver module is recompiled - which needs some time. This will DOWNGRADE from 6.18.21 to 6.18.20 currently - this works as designed. HTH // Sven-Ola

@savznkvo Installing headless (blind / via network) on a board this new will fail probably. Get a TV and connect an HDMI display or get a serial adapter and connect that for debug. I'll check later with a spare NVME, but I am pretty sure it works (provided, that you compiled the correct firmware). HTH // Sven-Ola

Hey everyone! I have a TV Box labeled “In Xplus”, running on an Allwinner H313 (most likely a generic/rebranded device). I was able to install Linux on it using Armbian 26.2.0-trunk (Trixie). The system boots normally, but I’m facing network issues: - Wi-Fi is not working (no interface detected) - Ethernet is also not working (only interface is lo) So basically, the system runs fine, but I have no network connectivity at all. My questions: - Is this a current limitation of Armbian support for the H313? - Is there any specific DTB or patch that could fix Wi-Fi/Ethernet? - Is there a more stable Armbian version or another distro with better support? - Has anyone managed to get networking working on this chip? Any help or shared experience would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

3D Graphics Acceleration on T95N (A98X Jackbox) - RK3229 with 2GB RAM / 16GB eMMC - Educational Project for Schools Hi, I’m working on a project using a specific TV Box model (A98X Jackbox) to repurpose these boxes as low-cost computers for schools. The goal is to provide students with a platform to use AI tools and basic productivity, but I need better browser rendering. Hardware Specs (Confirmed via board teardown and logs): Board ID: T95N-RK3229_512X4_V1.5 CPU: Rockchip RK3229 RAM: 2GB (Confirmed via free -m) Storage: 16GB eMMC (SanDisk SDIN9DS2-16G) OS: Armbian 21.08.8 Bullseye (Legacy Kernel 4.4.194-rk322x) What I have done so far: Installed the Minimal image and set up LXDE with LightDM. Optimized the system (Governor set to performance, swappiness set to 10). Ran glxinfo -B which confirms it's currently using llvmpipe (Accelerated: no). Tried searching for Mali drivers via apt, but armbian-config is not available in the repositories for this specific build/architecture. Verified Wi-Fi functionality (working fine with LED config 2 via rk322x-config). The system is stable and surprisingly fast thanks to the 2GB RAM, but the CPU is struggling with 100% spikes during browser rendering (Epiphany WebKit) because it lacks GPU acceleration. Question: Is there a way to enable Mali-400 MP2 drivers for X11 on this Legacy 4.4 kernel? Are there any specific packages, blobs, or workarounds to get hardware acceleration working and replace llvmpipe? I’m available to run any tests or provide further logs if needed. Thanks for this amazing project!

Hello, I'm new to embedded linux installation, so please bear with me. So I purchased an android tv box labeled h96max S905L3 from TEMU. Specifications (if the label is trustworthy): RAM: 2GB, ROM:16GB, running android 14.0. On the pcb it says: s905_zx02_v01. It features an ethernet port, 2 USB, HDMI, AV port (looks like a headphone jack) and no hidden reset button or sd card slot. I was trying to install any kind of linux to it using a bootable usb, I just need a simple shell capable of running an http server. I have tried using the remote control to trigger boot to linux, but nothing works. I have then opened the thing, and connected uart to a RP2040 and wrote a simple script as a uart bridge. I now have access to u-boot shell, interupted setup. So far I used chatgpt to guide me, but couldn't get it to boot properly. It told me how to boot manually the image from the usb, but it failed every time. It told me to set these env vars, and over time it showed me different addresses. It said the issues were related to overlapping of the addresses, or using address range that was reserved. It also said the dtb which I used, the meson-gxl-s905x-p212.dtb won't work, since the device always threw an error bad_magic, even though I checked fdt header, and the magic was correct. setenv kernel_addr_r 0x20000000 setenv ramdisk_addr_r 0x24000000 setenv fdt_addr_r 0x21000000 I would then load the files fatload usb 0:1 ${kernel_addr_r} linux-android.img fatload usb 0:1 ${ramdisk_addr_r} uInitrd fatload usb 0:1 ${fdt_addr_r} vendor-expanded.dtb Notice: I used different images, firstly the Image file, and the meson-gxl-s905x-p212.dtb. After failed boots, chatgpt told me to expand, i.e. add padding to the dtb (first with the meson...dtb, and after that with the vendor.dtb). It didn't work, so it told me to generate an android like image using mkbootimg \ --kernel Image \ --dtb vendor-expanded.dtb \ --cmdline "console=ttyAML0,115200 console=ttyS0,115200 root=/dev/sda1 rootwait rootdelay=10 rw" \ --base 0x0 \ --pagesize 2048 \ --kernel_offset 0x1080000 \ --dtb_offset 0x1000000 \ -o linux-android.img and boot using the extracted vendor.dtb (pulled from android) and using bootm ${kernel_addr_r} instead of booti ${kernel_addr_r} ${ramdisk_addr_r} ${fdt_addr_r} The bootargs I used are setenv bootargs "root=/dev/sda1 rootfstype=ext4 rw rootwait console=ttyAML0,115200n8 console=tty0" Please, any help would be appreciated as I already spent over 6 hours with this little cheap bastard that wouldn't boot anything but that chinese android. I will post output of anything, just let me know if something is needed. I'm sorry for the messiness of this post, but I tried a lot of things that chatgpt told me, explained the errors, and supplied commands for the u-boot shell.

And the email system for is emailing with me erroneos info about bedno report 2x a day, so call off the quard dogs, it been solved without any help from this forum. you've been yelling about dhcp w/out once offering me a single clue as to how I should configure it even when I showed you the results. FYI I have been doing odd things with little machines for a lot longer that most of you have been breathing on your own starting with an rca 1802 in 1978. Do any of you have a track record that long? That bit of production tooling for a medium market tv station was still in use 20+ times a day when the station burned to the ground in the late 90's. I prefer to call it efficiency since most production equipment at a tv station is so heavily used & long since worn out before the IRS lets them amortize the cost. I am also a CET, a test 95% of the EE's out there cannot pass. I call a backup server that draws 19 watts at full song in the middle of backing up 8 machines here, efficient. Took me a while to figure it out the hardware and around $1500 in hardware. But it works as fast as my cat6 wired local net can run.