How to get Armbian running on a X86_64 with multiboot?

[gounthar]

Hi there,

I have too many SBCs running Armbian with very recent kernels (even two Raspberry Pi 3B), and I love the consistency of my herd.
I will change job next month, and I will at last be able to have a Linux machine as my daily driver...
The thing is, I will need Windows too for video editing so that I need to keep it available when needed.
I was thinking of Manjaro or Linux Mint for the freshness of their kernels (as the laptop hardware is pretty recent), but I gave a try yesterday at Armbian on x86_64, and it went almost well.
I did not go as well as @NicoD's attempt in his latest video, but it is encouraging anyhow.

So... Is there anything like "write to NAND" for X86? How could one have a multiboot with Armbian?

Thanks.

[Igor]

2 hours ago, gounthar said:

So... Is there anything like "write to NAND" for X86? How could one have a multiboot with Armbian?

This part is under construction. Its pretty much turnkey live build. If you plan to run it from USB, you just flash and run. I do this for two build runner machines where internal SSD is used for data storage (KVM images). Boot from USB is more then enough.

 

When I was installing Armbian on Threadripper I burned image to USB key, boot from another and DD Armbian directly to SATA boot drive. So I had a fresh start with auto expansion to that boot drive. Which is 64Gb SATA SSD. Those are viable workarounds for now ...

[gounthar]

Ok, thanks.
That won't work for me as I have to keep Windows working, and it's a laptop with no more room for any other disk.

But if I can afford another laptop, I will run only Armbian on it.

[Igor]

15 minutes ago, gounthar said:

Ok, thanks.
That won't work for me as I have to keep Windows working, and it's a laptop with no more room for any other disk.

But if I can afford another laptop, I will run only Armbian on it.

If you already have grub, DD-ing partition will also work. But, yes, this hacking is not very user friendly and has to be sorted out.

[gounthar]

Got it.
So I could totally install another distro with Grub, and then switch to Armbian. 🤔
interesting.

[TRS-80]

On 3/23/2022 at 10:00 AM, gounthar said:

I have to keep Windows working, and it's a laptop with no more room for any other disk.

 

If the (one) disk is large enough, you could also dual boot.

[gounthar]

I got the laptop yesterday, and it's way too specific to install Armbian on it (Asus).
So I'll go with Manjaro on this one.

But... I think I will have to buy a laptop for home in the coming months, so if I don't go the arm way (Lenovo ThinkPad anyone?), I would love to have my daily driver laptop running Armbian.

[TRS-80]

Do you have something against regular vanilla Debian?  As a long time Debian user myself, I would feel much more out of my depth on Manjaro, personally.

[hexdump]

@gounthar - if you are looking for arm laptops for use with linux, then you should also consider arm chromebooks. best supported are the mediatek mt8183 based kukui and the snapdragon 7c based trogdor devices - nearly everything is working for them with mainline with only very few to no patches required and they are available used or new really cheap (by a factor lower than any other arm laptop option). both have 8 cores, 4gb (some 8gb) ram and 64+/-gb fast emmc. performance wise they are above odroid n2 level. if you can get (not easy due to supply issues) or build (there are a few docs with instructions online) a suzyqable you even get features like a serial console on a laptop which you usually never get. the build quality and reliability of such chromebooks is usually way higher as for average sbc's and with mainline on the above mentioned series you get: panfrost gpu support, working suspend/resume and power saving modes, working wifi, bt, sound and for most of them even camera(s). maybe have a look at cadmium: https://github.com/Maccraft123/Cadmium or my linux on arm chromebooks page: https://github.com/hexdump0815/linux-mainline-on-arm-chromebooks to get started.

 

the best supported other arm laptop is the a few years old lenovo c630 (not the chromebook version) and it is still missing some basic functionality here and there (sleep/suspend etc.). another option - the pinebook pro - is in a different performance and quality league (sadly downwards).

 

best wishes - hexdump

[gounthar]

22 hours ago, TRS-80 said:

Do you have something against regular vanilla Debian?  As a long time Debian user myself, I would feel much more out of my depth on Manjaro, personally.

Nope, I do like Debian, but the laptop I got is very specific (Asus) and it looks like the only supported distros are Arch based.

 

Thanks a lot @hexdumpfor this detailed workaround.
I could go the arm laptop/chromebook route, of course. Most of my use will be web surfing and using my x86 Linux laptop through vnc, so I don't need a powerful laptop.
I tried to buy the PineBook Pro a long time ago, at the very worst moment (just when it disappeared from the store in fact). It never came back.

[TRS-80]

On 4/2/2022 at 4:59 PM, gounthar said:

I tried to buy the PineBook Pro a long time ago

 

I have been wanting to buy one for what seems like months (a year?) now and they have not been able to do a production run due to the supply chain shortages (mainly screens, apparently).  I follow them pretty closely, there was some hope maybe after CNY 2022 but then they announced no they could not source screens after all.

 

So your information is really timely @hexdump, thanks a lot for that. 

[hexdump]

@TRS-80 - i would recommend a kukui = mt8183 chromebook - you can get them used for really cheap (around 100 $ or euro) and it looks like with v5.18 and a few patches on top nearly everything is working (except external display via usb-c and the webcams on some models - on most models the webcam is usb video class and thus even working) and you do not have to struggle with all the pain points of the pinebook pro like strange noises and a really lowest quality touchpad ...

[lampra]

I am posting at this topic as per the download page instructions. If a new topic is needed, please split

 

I want to try Armbian on an old Intel Atom Z3735F (Mele PCG03) with burned emmc, and I am wondering if the Generic Intel / AMD image will boot from usb. Z3735F uses 32b efi with 64b processor. With my previous tests, I was able to install only debian from the net image. The other images (installers) as well as Ubuntu installers could not identify & install 32bit efi.

 

PS: It seems that (probably due to burned emmc) POST is failing at boot (even if I disable emmc from BIOS), so I can't boot without a monitor attached (though I could boot headless windows10 with the emmc). Any hint or pointers how to deal with this in order to boot linux without monitor?

[gounthar]

On 5/16/2022 at 12:48 AM, TRS-80 said:

 

I have been wanting to buy one for what seems like months (a year?) now and they have not been able to do a production run due to the supply chain shortages (mainly screens, apparently).  I follow them pretty closely, there was some hope maybe after CNY 2022 but then they announced no they could not source screens after all.

Pine64 announced today that they would sell some from June on.

[TRS-80]

On 5/31/2022 at 6:37 PM, gounthar said:

Pine64 announced today that they would sell some from June on.

 

Yep, by now they are available in the store!

 

Too bad I had to move and been spending money like a drunken sailor buying things for the new place.  I might not have enough left now for a PBP.