Choice of TV box.

[hexdump]

this is just a quick note that in my experience the amount of tv boxes with fake specs has grown quite a bit in the last months and that this is something to always have in mind when getting a box for a surprisingly cheap (i.e. quite a bit cheaper than usual or most of the other offerings) price - you might be lucky and it will be a bargain or you might hit one with fake specs. some examples i saw recently: a qplus 4g ram / 32g emmc ended up to be 2g ram and 16g nand, a h6 box sold as 4g ram / 32g emmc ended up as 2g ram / 16g emmc, a x96mini 2g ram / 16g emmc ended up at only 1g ram / 16g emmc, a r39 2g ram / 16g emmc with rockchip rk3229 ends up as 1g ram / 16g emmc and an allwinner h3 cpu and so on. the fake specs are not that easy to spot: in android they even fake the storage size shown in the storage settings and with a terminal installed even the "free" command tells you most of the time that the memory amount is proper. what usualy works for storage is "cat /proc/partitions" and watching for the device itself (for instance mmcblk0) - this also quickly shows you if its emmc (=mmcblk) or nand (=nand) and for memory "dmesg | grep -i mem" (do this immediately after booting android, otherwise the memory lines from the bootup might run out of the log buffer) - both of course called in a terminal app. booting one of balbes150's armbian images usually quickly shows you the real specs of the box too.

 

good luck at not ending up with fake boxes and best wishes - hexdump

 

p.s.: one thing to keep in mind is that allwinner h6 boxes always only can use 3g ram, even if they have 4g installed - this is a limitataion of the soc ...

[Beppe]

15 hours ago, dbsharpe said:

Try /amlogic/meson-gxbb-p201.dtb and then every other /amlogic/ .dtb file. Failing that,
use usb ethernet or try an older armbain image. Bugs creep into the kernel and dts file so things
start and stop working.
Also https://forum.armbian.com/topic/7930-armbian-for-amlogic-s9xxx-kernel-5x/?do=findComment&comment=71063 might be some help.

Thank you @dbsharpe!
I tried some dtb, I managed to get the ethernet to work with the meson-gxbb-odroidc2.dtb file, wifi does not work and sometimes some services won't start at boot but okay anyway, I only use it as proxy and vpn.
Any advice for buying an cheap TV Box that has good compatibility with armbian?

Many thanks!
Beppe.

[dbsharpe]

17 minutes ago, Beppe said:

Thank you @dbsharpe!
I tried some dtb, I managed to get the ethernet to work with the meson-gxbb-odroidc2.dtb file, wifi does not work and sometimes some services won't start at boot but okay anyway, I only use it as proxy and vpn.
Any advice for buying an cheap TV Box that has good compatibility with armbian?
 

 

Unfortunately, you can't guarantee 2 of the same box will have identical hardware so its pot luck.
Getting a box with S905X chip historically was a good bet for Armbian but things have moved on.
I'm looking at S905X3 based boxes even though there are some Armbian compatibility issues. Acquiring one 2nd hand from ebay may limit your losses if you get something too slow or incompatible.
If any other forum users could make hardware recommendation, here are my key requirements:

- Gigabit Ethernet
- Usb ports (connect 2 external drives, mirrored with /proc/mdadm device
- enough CPU & RAM to Run VNC server for virtual desktop for browser (thin client, cloud etc).
 Nice to have - wifi

[Beppe]

1 hour ago, dbsharpe said:

 

Unfortunately, you can't guarantee 2 of the same box will have identical hardware so its pot luck.
Getting a box with S905X chip historically was a good bet for Armbian but things have moved on.
I'm looking at S905X3 based boxes even though there are some Armbian compatibility issues. Acquiring one 2nd hand from ebay may limit your losses if you get something too slow or incompatible.
If any other forum users could make hardware recommendation, here are my key requirements:

- Gigabit Ethernet
- Usb ports (connect 2 external drives, mirrored with /proc/mdadm device
- enough CPU & RAM to Run VNC server for virtual desktop for browser (thin client, cloud etc).
 Nice to have - wifi

Thanks for your suggestions @dbsharpe!
I asked not why it really needs but only because it fascinates me to see how well Linux runs on devices such as TV boxes.
Maybe could use one as a mini PC for the internet, office, music ... obviously not demanding jobs.

Thanks,
Beppe.

[balbes150]

1 hour ago, dbsharpe said:

I'm looking at S905X3 based boxes even though there are some Armbian compatibility issues. Acquiring one 2nd hand from ebay may limit your losses if you get something too slow or incompatible.

Information for reflection. Earlier (at the beginning of the year), I already warned about reducing support for new Amlogic in my builds. Support will be limited to the minimum "as is"level. So don't be surprised if your new hardware doesn't work correctly or doesn't work at all. Now for me the main direction is Rockchip and Allwinner.

[balbes150]

1 hour ago, dbsharpe said:

If any other forum users could make hardware recommendation, here are my key requirements:

- Gigabit Ethernet
- Usb ports (connect 2 external drives, mirrored with /proc/mdadm device
- enough CPU & RAM to Run VNC server for virtual desktop for browser (thin client, cloud etc).
 Nice to have - wifi

IMHO for this task I would choose rk3399 with NVMe or eMMC (or SATA). Make an automatic daily backup to an external USB (if the data is critical), or less frequently as needed. Options. If the data size is large (>32-64GB). RockPI 4B has a built-in SPI (for u-boot placement) and can be used immediately starting from NVMe (without the cost of an eMMC module). If the data size is less than 32GB, you can use NanoPI M4 with the eMMC module. If the data size is greater than 100-200GB, NanoPC T4 or Renegade Elite with NVMe are optimal (they have a significantly higher speed with NVMe). But if you really want RAID to use the additional circuit Board for SATA.

[root-stas]

6 hours ago, balbes150 said:

Several dozen different models from s805 to s922\a311d. (I will not list all the options)

To finish our discussion, Orange Pi 4 board is nice for Blender 3D working or do not ready yet? Or you know something better by 50...80$? Or now better wait few month to get new one SoC?  

[balbes150]

11 hours ago, root-stas said:

Orange Pi 4 board is nice for Blender 3D working or do not ready yet?

I don't have Orangepi 4, I don't know how well supported this model is. But the rk3399 chip itself is better than the s905x3.

 

11 hours ago, root-stas said:

Or you know something better by 50...80$?

I don't work with Blender, but I read that @NicoD is actively working with this program using Nanopi M4 (rk3399).

 

11 hours ago, root-stas said:

Or now better wait few month to get new one SoC?  

This depends on the tasks that need to be solved.

[balbes150]

More information to think about.

In the near future, I will receive several more variants of TV boxes with RK chips (RK3188 RK3288 RK3368). It is absolutely not a fact that I can make them work with Armbian and Libreelec, but there is a chance ....

The 3368 variant is particularly interesting, it has 8 cores, but the GPU is closed and there will obviously be no HW support for it. I.e. this model may be interesting for computing or as a microserver.

[root-stas]

2 hours ago, balbes150 said:

More information to think about.

In the near future, I will receive several more variants of TV boxes with RK chips (RK3188 RK3288 RK3368). It is absolutely not a fact that I can make them work with Armbian and Libreelec, but there is a chance ....

The 3368 variant is particularly interesting, it has 8 cores, but the GPU is closed and there will obviously be no HW support for it. I.e. this model may be interesting for computing or as a microserver.

Good to know that 

S912 too has 8 core, but looks like end life of support?

For Blender 3D I mean Linux have open GPU driver and granted nice performance (300 or more score in glmark2 I think good representation of that).  

Can you post here score for rk3399 from glmark2 and glmark2-es2, I will be happy for that 

[balbes150]

5 minutes ago, root-stas said:

S912 too has 8 core,

No. The s912 has 4 (frequency 1000) + 4 (frequency 1500) cores this != 8 identical cores.

 

8 minutes ago, root-stas said:

For Blender 3D

With all questions about Blender, you need to contact @NicoD, I don't use it (I don't know it).

[root-stas]

@NicoD Hi, can you post here score for rk3399 from glmark2 and glmark2-es2 on panfrost driver, I will be happy for that  

[hexdump]

the actual blender requires opengl 3.3 which is not supported by any arm soc (except maybe the nvidia jetson if you want to count it in) - otherwise you will be limited to blender 2.79 ...

[NicoD]

7 hours ago, root-stas said:

@NicoD Hi, can you post here score for rk3399 from glmark2 and glmark2-es2 on panfrost driver, I will be happy for that  

For blender the S922X is by far the best for rendering an image. But not for editing.
For that the RK3399 is better with panfrost. And indeed the Jetson Nano. That one has a slow CPU. But you can render animations on both CPU and GPU at the same time. So for animations that one is best.
S912 performs bad for an octa-core. The Samsung S5P6818 octa core from the NanoPi T3+ is a lot faster for rendering. It outperforms the RK3399. But has slower single core what editing also needs.

 

In my render farm I use the NanoPi M4 RK3399 for editing, and the A311D(S922X) of khadas VIM3 + NanoPi T3+ + RockPi4 for rendering animations.
These three together can render a lot more than a rather high end PC for a lot less power consumption.  The VIM3 for HQ images alone. It's screeming fast...

Check my review videos on Youtube for Blender results.
And indeed 2.8x seems to have problems on lots of SBC's. So 2.79 is for now beter to use.
The RPi4 seems to have issue's with stabillity in Blender.

P.S. I don't have panfrost running now. I still use legacy daily.

[root-stas]

@hexdump Thanks, I forgot about that, on llvmpipe Blender 2.8 working with 2-5 sec input lag but possible do sculpting job my intel gpu don't do that

@NicoD thanks for sharing your experience, "legacy" means driver from mali site? I order orange pi 4 and try work with panfrost driver when get board .     

[epson950]

Friends, help choose TV Box. I bought X96Max (S905x3) from China, but it doesn 't run Armbian. I can give it to my brother, but I want to buy myself a reliable TV Box that Armbian will definitely stand on. I need Octoprint! Prompt what to choose?

[amirul]

My vote is with the Magicsee N6 Max 

[epson950]

On 6/2/2020 at 11:51 AM, amirul said:

My vote is with the Magicsee N6 Max 

Great choice. But I am a beggar, I would buy up to 25 usd

[ThatUnknownGuy]

On 6/1/2020 at 11:07 PM, epson950 said:

Friends, help choose TV Box. I bought X96Max (S905x3) from China, but it doesn 't run Armbian. I can give it to my brother, but I want to buy myself a reliable TV Box that Armbian will definitely stand on. I need Octoprint! Prompt what to choose?

 

Are you sure? I actually run many X96 Air and some X96Air even said X96Max when booting up lol. They're all running armbian just fine.

have you tried the meson-sm610 dtb?

[balbes150]

15 hours ago, ThatUnknownGuy said:

They're all running armbian just fine

Don't mislead people. Launching Armbian on s x96air models and other clones s905x3 from unknown manufacturers, occurs with significant difficulties and some of the equipment will not work at all. Those who decide to use them must be ready, there will be no support and everything must be done by themselves.

[ThatUnknownGuy]

3 hours ago, balbes150 said:

Don't mislead people. Launching Armbian on s x96air models and other clones s905x3 from unknown manufacturers, occurs with significant difficulties and some of the equipment will not work at all. Those who decide to use them must be ready, there will be no support and everything must be done by themselves.

I dont think I'm misleadign people... All I'v said was that my X96Air are running just fine.

I've got uptimes of over a month and for what I use them that's perfectly fine

[Madasafish]

19 hours ago, ThatUnknownGuy said:

I dont think I'm misleadign people... All I'v said was that my X96Air are running just fine.

I've got uptimes of over a month and for what I use them that's perfectly fine

 

I have a X96Air P3 4/64MB with 1GB ethernet. I can confirm Wifi, Bluetooth and HDMI audio are not working with Armbian and the Ethernet speed is only 100Mb.  For me, it is not a question of uptime but question of ALL things working with Armbian.

[ThatUnknownGuy]

5 hours ago, Madasafish said:

I have a X96Air P3 4/64MB with 1GB ethernet. I can confirm Wifi, Bluetooth and HDMI audio are not working with Armbian and the Ethernet speed is only 100Mb.  For me, it is not a question of uptime but question of ALL things working with Armbian.

 

I have the base model, so it's only a 100Mbps link. Have you tried enabling speed 1000 in ethtool?

[Peyton]

On 5/19/2020 at 11:06 PM, NicoD said:

Check my review videos on Youtube for Blender results.
 

I can't find it. Seeing some game test on sbc only and guitar plays

[NicoD]

1 hour ago, Peyton said:

I can't find it. Seeing some game test on sbc only and guitar plays

https://youtu.be/2Yu8Rj7o9lk?t=468

And for every SBC there's a seperate video too.

[heroes1412]

X3 mini (4gb, 32gb ram, S905x3) only see 2gb of ram... maybe it is fake...

[Skull Sherbet]

Hi, I've been trying to find a cheap and effective tv box to run armbian on the eMMc.

I've had a bit of bad luck, I bought the new sunvell r69 H3, and unfortunately it doesn't even have an eMMc it had NAND,

which is basically impossible to run linux on let alone the lack of support for the H3 ( all the support is on the H2).

Next I bought the TX3-mini-p (1g/8g) and that was also a nightmare, the armbian 5. and 4 kernals would not run on it. 

Only the 3 kernal would run from the sd card but when I tried to dd the os to the eMMc it bricked the board because the uBoot is very old.

 

My only requirement is a tv box that has eMMC.

If anyone knows a tv box that is cheap and has eMMc and has armbian images that run on it please reccomend to me.

 

 

[jock]

17 hours ago, Micael Illos said:

Hi, I've been trying to find a cheap and effective tv box to run armbian on the eMMc.

I've had a bit of bad luck, I bought the new sunvell r69 H3, and unfortunately it doesn't even have an eMMc it had NAND,

which is basically impossible to run linux on let alone the lack of support for the H3 ( all the support is on the H2).

Next I bought the TX3-mini-p (1g/8g) and that was also a nightmare, the armbian 5. and 4 kernals would not run on it. 

Only the 3 kernal would run from the sd card but when I tried to dd the os to the eMMc it bricked the board because the uBoot is very old.

 

My only requirement is a tv box that has eMMC.

If anyone knows a tv box that is cheap and has eMMc and has armbian images that run on it please reccomend to me.

 

 

H3 is very well supported in armbian and linux mainline, but I don't know if there is a NAND driver actually.

The choice of the box vastly depends on what you need to do and how much horsepower you need with that one.

If you want to be sure you get what you actually want, buy a proper SBC with eMMC and a case.

Hardware of tv boxes, expecially cheap ones, is always a lottery, as you already experienced by yourself.