Search the Community

Hi I have upgraded an existing x86 Armbian system with kernel 6.6.63 and zfs 2.3.2 to the suggested kernel 6.12.32-current-x86, but I cannot get the zfs kernel module loaded after the latest updates to Armbian 25.5.1 noble. I also tried on other kernels, only the old 6.6.63 seems to work. Normally when you select a different kernel in the armbian-config menu, it should automatically compile the zfs modules if it is activated. It just skips it. But you can of course compile it with the provided DKMS system: the build just finishes fine, without any error, also the install, but when you try to load the module: it responds with: dmesg: I have zfs 2.3.2 on kernel 6.12.32-current-bcm2711 running just fine on a Raspberry Pi 4, so I tested what would happen if I just build a small kernel driver module: root@armbian:/usr/src/dummydriver# cat dummydriver.c root@armbian:/usr/src/dummydriver# cat Makefile So when I run this on the Raspberry Pi 4, I can load the module and unload But when I run this on the x86 machine I get the same error: root@armbian:/usr/src/dummydriver# modinfo dummydriver.ko root@armbian:/usr/src/dummydriver# gcc --version I also tried gcc 11.4.0 Here is my armbianmonitor -u: https://paste.armbian.com/orepumazam Any help welcome! Philippe

This is what I get when I select the "Direct download" link. See the attached screenshot:

Many of us are using Armbian not just on ARM single board computers but also on servers (bare metal & virtual). We use our builds since we trust it more then Debian, Ubuntu, not to mention other distributions that are recklessly updating and one ends up as an OS tester and not OS user. Personally I use Armbian Jammy on Ryzen 9 workstation with great success. My primary use case is development / productivity. For the road I used to have 13" Dell notebook which recently suddenly died. It was out of warranty so I had to get something new. After some testings of various devices I settled with 12th Gen Intel i5-1240P powered Lenovo. Then I tried many general purpose distros to see how well they work and all had some (minor) troubles ... We are having UEFI images (common image) since some time, but UEFI nor desktops were fine tuned nor ready for such performance daily driver desktop usage. We were close, but not close enough to just run it. Past two weeks we have been lifting general UEFI support, fixed many bugs and what came out is "Armbian ultimate developers desktop build". - improved support in GRUB (armbian wallpaper) & HiDPI GRUB support - all preinstalled applications are normal apt packages - current 5.15.y kernel, Jammy userland (5.19.y has some strange issues) - snapd is not installed (user can install it) - HiDPI support (automated adjustments on big screen resolutions) - NVIDIA graphics acceleration with proprietary driver (x86 only) - Intel graphics acceleration also works out of the box - preinstalled Google Chrome (x86 only) - preinstalled Microsoft Visual Studio Code (x86 only) - ZFS 2.1.5 ready (apt install zfsutils-linux zfs-dkms) - face unlock works perfectly fine on this laptop - installation to SSD drive to dual boot with Windows 10/11 is supported Armbian classical way by transferring actual live image to the prepared partition via nand-sata-install. All you need to do is prepare spare space on your drive, Windows 10/11 or Linux, UEFI support (most if not all hardware for past 10 years has it). I have tweaked images (XFCE, Gnome, Cinnamon) a bit to my personal needs, but making changes is welcome. Nice to have: disk encryption within nand-sata-install, small bug fixing, additional DEs. Currently we have CLI, XFCE, Gnome and Cinnamon. Others are too buggy. https://www.armbian.com/uefi-x86/ https://www.armbian.com/uefi-arm64/ Please report where it works and how (well)!

hi all, I was looking for some unified os for more "rpi zero" clones and found beautiful armbian; and I am quite new to linux still, longtime/decades windows user; to "dogfood", I am also considering use of armbian on my "tiny-big" uefi-x86 (now NUC10, but got now new amd ryzen7 8845hs gmktec nucbox k8 plus), so I tried as very first setup on that ryzen7 latest armbian "ubuntu gnome" - monitor output is attached, so far so good, although I dont know if everything around usb3/4 is working well (log contains some red messages, dont understand them) - it was only simple install, and I have this comments: https://www.gmktec.com/products/amd-ryzen-7-8845hs-mini-pc-nucbox-k8-plus usb-live boot was okay, I then executed armbian-config where in "storage" I proceeded with default installation (I didnt read well the instructions to run armbian-install in fact, this is not in set of icons after usb-live boot also...), which it seems selected nvme1 instead of nvme0 ??? (will try again with other variants as xfce again), so after this way of installation, reboot was into grub rescue, so I did it again forced to nvme0 (deleting all from nvme1 also by gparted) and the reboot was okay ... although, when I am powering-off linux from menu then nucbox pwr button green led switches off, BUT after removing usb and swiching on the nucbox by button nothing happens, black screen (long time, nothing) - I expected some longer boots because of DDR5 behavior (new to me too) but this is not the case. I must force OFF the nucbox by holding power button for 4secs and then re-powering on is okay ... this is not nice behavior 🙂 this nucbox K8 plus has very open APTIO BIOS, nothing is simplified and I left everything on auto for now, it seems secure boot is disabled and what surprised me too is that install to nvme storage did only MBR partitions, not GPT. hope its all handled well for offsets and blocksizes - are possible (good?) 4KB sectors for most efficient nvme flash ssd? I dont know if some defaults changes in bios can force armbian to defalt to GPT partitions, even if it is necessary. in windows, I have 2 big disks now and data/user are is only selected logically by virtuall drive letters (visualsubst), I use lots of them to separate areas and need this to mimic somehow in linux; its question if separate "user" partition with fixed size is okay too ... on windows, I do backups by onedrive syncing and by ZIPs to second drive and even to usb attached sata disks too and only for "really" user data, not everything the same way - its question if on linux its simpler to backup entire partitions (??) I was also quite surprised that "ubuntu gnome" variant boots only to some "tablet only?? ui" very simple ui without any menu, windows without minimize icons ... I am new to linux, what is this "style"? this is "unity" or some tablet variant selected by sone defaults? ... very weird for me, too simple, not useable as desktop, so I will try XFCE and KDE Neon too, sure ... When I tried to add language for regional date/time formats support , trying to download CZ (Czech) failed, probably some minor quirk too; I had no chance to test everything, but I was surprised that it during boot found the WIFI and installation was really deadly easy and sexy, despite that first default bad selection of nvme1 as target (I am not sure if I didnt it in fact .... will try again similar way) ... but what is shown in icons/apps set is contrary to some getting started doc pages, where is mentioned "armbian-install" (not necessary as armbian-config - storage did it too??), btw red config and configng icons launch the same script; I understand that this is lightweight setup and I in fact like it a lot, but that simplistic (tablet?) desktop was like something for kids )) so, thanks to all NicoD videos (I saw tens of them) as my primary intention to test faster "rpi zero" clones is to run some Sinclair QL emulator on them, something with SMSQE, ideally, somehow, there are variants of it; on windows, best/fastest is probably QPC2/SMSQE but this is not full emulation, its hybrid where interfacing to fast windows host is often accelerated on it, so this is not linux-aware emulator, and I cant imagine if it would be possible in wine, probably not; other emulators exists, one of them for SMSQE is based on java too - goal was simply to make some low-power portable Sinclair QL (with SMSQE) machine, so I need to select best/fastest "rpi zero" clone with working GPU acceleration for sure. https://www.kilgus.net/qpc/what/ youtube: yU0ptNyNqcI It is not yet clear if I will converty my main big machine to linux, but having one unified system for "everyhting arm" is definitely nice, it seems that armbian can be my primary linux distro even in virtual machines, I like the concept and systematic approach in documentation and development and even contribution, I read lot of docs and its very nice, it seems. So will be glad also to support you, as much as possible. Thanks, Petr

I would like to run Armbian on my multi boot PC. i came across a video on how to install Armbian on an X86 PC. How you have to use Gnome Disk to Restore Image to your drive. Does anybody know if it would work correctly doing that on a multi boot PC? I know I would need to update Grub afterwards for it to show in the list.

Hello, I am trying to install Armbian UEFI-x86 into this very small mini PC, but with secure boot enabled it only shows this screen: Disabling the secure boot isn't an option, because every time I turn it off and then turn it on the next morning, the BIOS settings are being reset, then the secure boot is enabled once again (I believe it is intentional, because the CMOS battery only keeps the clock & date). Moreover, I want to use it as a headless computer, so no keyboard will be attached. Is this fixable or Armbian isn't compatible with secure boot? Thanks in advance.

Hi, I'm running Armbian UEFI x86 on a Radxa Rock X4 and I'm struggling to find, where to put the kernel parameters. The armbian-config SY003 suggests /boot/armbianEnv.txt. So I've put a line with extraargs=, but it is ignored. Then I've tried /etc/default/grub adding the parameters to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT= and then doing update-grub, but it is also ignored. Where should I put the kernel parameters?

I've got an NVME SSD formated to 4Kn block size which means `dd`ing the .img file to the drive isn't going to work. Is there a recommended way to install Armbian in this situation?

Hello @Igor I have installed Armbian 24.2.4 Jammy Kde-neon Kernel: 6.6.21, Size: 1.9GB, Release date: Mar 12, 2024 on a mini pc J4125 Celeron based. What I noticed that is during initial boot, when finds the timezone and asks to accept or select a diff one, i tried 2 times. I selected accept and then took minuted to complete and enter the desktop First time I killed it and second clean i waited.:-) I checked in armbian-config the locales and noticed that ALL options were checked. Which makes sense why I waited so long If this a know bug or needs to be fixed? Just wanted to bring to your attention. Rest work smooth and fast! Tx for your work

I have tried all known possible combos to hide the grub menu on boot but no luck I tested on the /etc/default/grub and /etc/default/grub.d/98-armbian.cfg Is there another config file Im missing that ignores above, especially later? Tried also with custom override config at boot. Any advise is welcome

I have a 32-bit Celeron notebook with 1Gb RAM. It boots only from DVD. Will it work with Armbian? Thanks.

Hi community, Context I build my own custom Arabian image on arm 32bit (prod), and experimenting running the following armbian image configuration on Qemu with console/serial only support for uefi-x86 and uefi-arm64 boards to speed up development/test. Problem I stumble upon something odd: both "uefi-*" boards are configured to only run GRUB in gfxterm mode ONLY. BOARD: uefi-86 -> BOARDFAMILY="uefi-x86". -> UEFI_GRUB_TERMINAL="gfxterm" [0] BOARD: uefi-arm64 -> BOARDFAMILY="uefi-arm64". -> UEFI_GRUB_TERMINAL="gfxterm" [1] [0] https://github.com/armbian/build/blob/2afd8fe9bb8aca33a2a3913e931fc43c43c8e309/config/sources/families/uefi-x86.conf#L11 [1] https://github.com/armbian/build/blob/2afd8fe9bb8aca33a2a3913e931fc43c43c8e309/config/sources/families/uefi-arm64.conf#L10 Image built from these boards should be runnable as CLI image (no gui) or Desktop image (gui). However, when running with qemu -nographic ... these image can't boot up to a working shell and produce an error: "GRUB: gfxterm is not supported" Proposed change I would like to submit a patch to change UEFI_GRUB_TERMINAL to "gfxterm vga_text console serial" to cover a large set of virtualised hardware configurations. 1. Is this something you guys are interested in ? 2. Does this fix need more than the proposed change to achieve the desired objective ? Thanks

Hello, Is anybody able to install and install Armbian bookworm on Proxmox (OVMF uefi, Q35)? I tried multiple times but proxmox doesn't recognize the UEFI partition and I can only boot from the USB... Debian boots fine tho.

Hello, I wanna test Armbian x86 on virtual machine. Is possible to convert its img file to some format (vdi or vmdk) and boot on Virtualbox? I made a attempt but it wont boot.. VBoxManage.exe convertfromraw --format VDI armbian.img ambian.vdi Thx a lot

I was curious if anyone has experience with using Armbian on older x86 server hardware systems. This would be for a home-lab sort of setup. In the past, I fought with Ubuntu Server and found that I missed the Armbian-Config utility that made setup a breeze. (Specifically looking at WIWYNN LYRA-M SV315, INTEL XEON E5-2670 V2 SR1A7 2.5GHZ 10-C0RE) I am planning to run a MariaDB instance for a scientific database. My past test use was using Armbian on an 8 GB Raspberry pi 4B, with MariaDB, and it worked very well, until the SD card failed. Any thoughts or points of caution before attempting this would be appreciated. I have generally had a very positive experience with Armbian so far.

hello i am new user of armbian and i really like it. so i am experimenting with it a little. yesterday i successfully installed armbian on one of my old laptops in the lab (Armbian Bullseye with XFCE desktop with kernel 5.15.y released on feb 27, 2023), so currently it boots from internal hard drive. today i wanted to try another image, so i wanted to do the same thing: 1. boot from USB key 2. download the new image on USB key 3. run xzcat armbian.img.xz | dd of=/dev/sda status=progress 4. reboot laptop (to new system) but the step 1 failed - instead of booting the system from USB key (yes - i selected the USB key on laptop start), system started from the laptop's hard drive. i think, this is not expected behavior. or am i missing something and it is really a feature? 🙂 anyway - thanks for the project. it gives my old laptops new life mirek

Is it possible to install the x86 version in the RockPIX emmc? The nand-sata-install command doesn't solve it. Thank you

Hi all, I have a bit of an odd application, but given the recent effort being put into UEFI boot, I thought I'd ask for some help. I have a Gigabyte R152-P30, which is an Ampere 80 core, single socket server. Flash drive boot works just fine, but nand-sata-install onto the server's NVMe SSD has been troublesome. I've tried several permutations of having partitions and not having partitions on the NVMe drive, but none seem to actually create a bootable result. I see on the generic armbian image page that it suggests creating an EFI partition which I do (nvme0n1p1). It then proceeds to leave that partition empty. I also have another btrfs partition on the same nvme drive (nvme0n1p2). The second partition is the one that shows up in the nand-sata-install config menu. The script sucessfully moves all files onto this new btrfs drive, and I can see it all when I mount it. If I remove the EFI partition, nothing shows up in the servers boot optoins menu. If I leave the EFI partition in, I get an option in the boot options menu, but it does nothing (black screen). I assume this is because the EFI partition is empty. I'm still pretty new to understanding the Linux boot sequence, so please forgive me if I've forgotten anything trivial. My best guess was simply CP-ing over the flash drives efi folder to the nvme drive's but naturally that didn't work (unknown filesystem) and just dropped me into grub rescue. Attaching logs from the servers BMC (apologies that they're screenshots). If needed I can figure out a way to get armbianmonitor -U out to you guys. Thanks! pics: https://imgur.com/a/yunzvJy

Hello, when I try to update the kernel via armbian-config (System -> Other ), I always get the message "Test installed failed. Can't change firmware". I use the Image "Armbian_22.08.5_Uefi-x86_bullseye_current_5.15.73" The /tmp/switch_kernel.log says the following linux-image-current-x86=22.08.6 linux-dtb-current-x86=22.08.6

Hi All , I try to install Armbian_22.08.7_Uefi-x86_bullseye_current_5.15.69_gnome_desktop.img.xz and using rufus to create bootable flashdisk to install on mini pc z83 but found the result as error: attempt to read or write outside of disk 'hd0' , is anyone here know what is the problem and what should I do? Thx in advance

I'm writing from a limited perspective, so constructive criticism appreciated. In this thread, I'm recording some thoughts about how the OS gets from files into the memory of various boards, and what might make this more unified and easier and/or more flexible. Current U-boot My knowledge comes from the mvebu64 and rockchip64 families. At this time, the board boot process starts from code in the processor that attempts to find u-boot, and u-boot runs a script from its environment that searches for a UEFI application or a boot.scr file. They call this "Distro-boot" Armbian uses the boot.scr to load an uncompressed kernel image and a compressed initramdisk, along with a device tree. These use u-boot legacy image format. U-boot then passes control to the kernel. On mvebu64 (espressobin), u-boot is contained within the SPI on the board, along with its environment. U-boot 2022.04 on this board can do network booting as well as searching emmc, sd, or sata devices for a boot device based on a GPT type or simply the existence of files within the first partition on each device. On rk3399, some earlier stage attempts to launch idbloader from sector 64, which loads u-boot.itb from sector 16384, from whatever device can be detected: SPI, USB, eMMC, SD. The boot.scr loads the legacy uboot images from the first partition on the device, then applies overlays - I believe this enables HATs on boards that can use them. U-boot capabilities Boot process: UEFI. U-boot can load the linux kernel through the UEFI stub, or the GRUB bootloader. As far as I can tell, it's not a drop-in replacement for a legacy kernel boot. Boot file format: Flattened uImage Tree. This is a monolithic file that has one or more of kernels, initramdisks, and device trees, along with "configurations" that can be selected to tell u-boot which files to actually load. Additionally, the components of this file can be compressed, as u-boot can uncompress the kernel before passing control. Boot media: dhcp(v6) to tftp. U-boot can attempt to boot an EFI application from tftp, before it attempts to run a script from dhcp, before it attempts to PXE boot. Extlinux script: u-boot can read /extlinux/extlinux.conf where a menu of kernels can be provided, with paths to kernel, initrd, and dtb, and an entry for the cmdline. Each kernel on the system would need to contribute a fragment of this config, which isn't currently done. Image Layout Currently, many armbian images use an MBR partition table. It's the default, and a device needs to request GPT during the build to get it. But with GPT come a few advantages. The systemd/freedesktop people seem to have a vision of a single layout that would allow a linux system to boot on several architectures, and then auto-configure based on "discoverable partitions". There are partition type uuids for such things as ARM64 root partition, or dm-verity superblock and signature partitions. These features would give a read-only, integrity checked, signed image. There are partition flags for things like "read-only" (60), "no auto" (63), or "grow-file-system" (59). Beyond this, the ESP (EFI System Partition) has a structure to allow multiple kernels/OSes to deconflict the storage of their files. Boot Sequence Type #1 Boot Loader Specification: $BOOT is the (typically) vfat partition with type "bc13c2ff-59e6-4262-a352-b275fd6f7172", or the ESP (VFAT, "c12a7328-f81f-11d2-ba4b-00a0c93ec93b"). Under $BOOT/loader/entries/, there would be files (e.g. ${machine-id}-${uname -r}-${os-release}.conf) that give configuration to find kernel and initrd at $BOOT/${machine-id}/${uname}/{linux,initrd,dtb,dtbo} Type #2: Unified kernel image - EFI PE w/ stub loader, initrd, and commandline, and can be signed cryptographically. These are at $BOOT/EFI/Linux/*.efi I assume these are handled by GRUB, as they do not seem to match u-boot's distro-boot. Armbian currently uses the boot.scr from u-boot's distroboot sequence to boot off the filesystem where boot.scr was found. First-boot and nand-sata-install When armbian builds the image, it does so through chroot and debootstrap. This results in artifacts like /etc/machine-id or /etc/ssh/ssh_host_*_key, which shouldn't be on multiple systems. They're removed as part of the image creation. Partition UUIDs ought to be changed too, but these are less likely to be a problem. The nand-sata-install attempts to create partitions to make a filesystem on some other block device, and then rsync's the running armbian system over to the new block device. It also tries to manage the u-boot bootloader and all the possible ways that can exist. (Goal) SD card partitioning sgdisk -n 14:${biosstart}:${biosend} -c 14:bios -t 14:ef02 -n 15:${uefistart}:${uefiend} -c 15:efi -t 15:ef00 -n 1:${rootstart}:0 -c 1:root -t 1:8305 -A 1:set:59 ${SDCARD}.raw This produces a GPT-formatted disk with the first partition (numbered 14) with a BIOS type (recommended 1 mb, or covering u-boot and files), an ESP (recommended 550 MB, to mount on /efi/), and an auto-detected ARM64 root partition that is labeled to grow to fill the disk when booted. Linux should be stored in a UEFI or FIT image, preferably as a UEFI boot method. U-boot environment variables for a given board should be able to select the appropriate armbian kernel, allowing the root filesystem to have multiple kernels for different boards installed and an SD card that boots on multiple boards.