Very Unusual Request - ZeroDesktop MiiPC M1140

[fss-hacks]

Hello,

Thru various and sundry means, I have acquired this unusual specimen; a ZeroDesktop MiiPC M1140. 
This was originally intended to be a "family desktop PC" that runs on Android Jelly Bean and was released in 2013. 
It looks like a TV box had a child with a NUC. 
The machine runs a Marvell Armada 1500 Plus processor with 1GB of RAM and 4GB of storage. 

The company, Zerodesktop, ran a Kickstarter campaign to fund producing these - my model is one of the Kickstarter Editions.
I know that the Marvell Armada 1500 was used in the Google Chromecast 2, along with a bunch of set top boxes. 
ZeroDesktop no longer exists as a company, having only produced these machines between 2013-14 then going belly up. There are no software updates to the Android system available (nor any mention of the device or the Armada 1500 as a supported processor for Android distributions at all). 
The only resources online about this device are about 7 out of date (mostly negative) tech reviews from the era. 

 

I want to make this thing run Armbian. Does anyone have a clue how to do it? I see that there are 2 development boards made by Marvell listed here but they are vastly different processors. I'm definitely an advanced user but have never compiled my own build before, especially when the system components are so mysterious and info is unavailable like this. 

I am up for the challenge if anyone can assist. Thank you!

[laibsch]

Brace yourself, this is going to take a long time, most likely months to years and most likely you will never get this to run.

 

That being said, to get yourself started, you probably ought to start compiling stuff and getting yourself familiar around the armbian build framework.  Do you have another SBC that is supported by Armbian?  If not, it's probably best to target one of the virtual system options. I wish the documentation for this stuff was better.  As of now, it is scattered throughout.

[fss-hacks]

So my experience with Armbian is pretty broad, starting with Raspberry PI, then taking a hard left turn at Albuquerque with me successfully running a docker server on an Allwinner H3 based T95 super TV box. I’ve also run it on SBCs like the yeayeetoo Rockchip series. 

I’ve just never compiled a build and it is so hard to find any info from anywhere about the Armada 1500 running anything. What is the virtual system option?

[Igor]

9 hours ago, fss-hacks said:

is so hard to find any info from anywhere about the Armada 1500 running anything

 

Welcome to custom hardware / division exotics / subdivision retro  It is hard already when its new custom hardware and main division. If nobody ported HW to mainline Linux and keep it operational, its usually quite a long path. Armbian provides build framework, that helps in the process, but hard work is still on the one that will deal with the SoC - here you can hope to find someone on forum(s) to share some specific ideas.

 

Adding is fairly straightforward https://docs.armbian.com/Process_Contribute/#adding-a-new-board but if there are sources for boot loader, sources for kernel, or better - support in the mainline kernel. Even when you have all this, it can still be quite challenging. Each such board usually require more people, a team. 

 

On 7/1/2025 at 7:34 AM, fss-hacks said:

I see that there are 2 development boards made by Marvell listed here but they are vastly different processors.

 

When I recall how many months we lost on one of Marvell's 🤔 Espressobin is an example how board support can be made super complicated - check history from day one. If board support package is on that level ... its worse out of all we have seen here. And now its an old hardware, not interesting so much. And remain broken as we don't have anyone to deal with it / its not worth.

[laibsch]

On 7/2/2025 at 9:32 AM, fss-hacks said:

What is the virtual system option?

 

The ones I linked. 

 

You mentioned that you have no experience to compile stuff.  One option is to target another SBC or a virtual machine so that you can focus on learning the build framework (explicit instructions are already given in some of the links) instead of having to deal with a multitude of issues (setting up your compilation host, getting compilation to succeed, finding the artifact to flash, only to then run into the next issue that armbian currently does not support your board).  With a virtual system, you can be sure that you should get a working image.  You can then focus on the compilation and familiarize yourself with that before jumping into real hardware enablement.