Armbian on the Odroid C1 sends some rubbish over HDMI.

[Damian Giebas]

Hi.

Looking for help. I have uploaded Armbian v6.12 Desktop Ubuntu to a card and run on my device. You can see in the screenshot (video of the boot here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_1dm1rP33tbYISPUsta7nZV1eKPy3Plq/view?usp=drive_link) that some rubbish is displayed. I would also add that the device is sending a signal that is only displayed by the TV. No other monitor in the house is able to display anything that is sent from the device. This is even stranger, as when I upload the old ubuntu 18.04 to the same card, the device connected under any display displays my desktop. Any suggestions or suggestions? Maybe an older version? I want to make myself a RetroPi from the device, but that requires something newer than the old ubuntu.

 

 

 

[laibsch]

If I were you, I would first try to get headless working, log in via ssh and fix things from there.

[oloco]

Hi,

 

I own a odroid c1+ and I use the same image as you (same kernel). Did you do something especial in order to make HDMI work? My odroid gets started, but no imagen no the screen. I tried multiple monitors with no luck.

 

root@odroidc1:~# uname -a

Linux odroidc1 6.12.28-dirty #2 SMP Thu Aug 13 19:47:10 UTC 2026 armv7l GNU/Linux

root@odroidc1:~#

 

Best regards!

[Werner]

1 hour ago, oloco said:

6.12.28-dirty #

never heard of that kernel in Armbian. Probably using 3rd party OS.

[Damian Giebas]

Hi. I Will check it again. Thanks for reply.

[Damian Giebas]

Hi.

I downloaded the latest version of Armbian, but nothing has changed. I'm still having the same problem, even though it works fine with the original Ubuntu. Video with the result is below. Maybe it does not work with non standard displays?

EDIT: I’ve also replaced the SD card – I bought a new one, but the problem is still there. Is there possibility to copy driver from hardkernel.com official image and use it on Armbian?

 

Edited August 30 by Damian Giebas

[Igor]

On 8/30/2026 at 1:55 PM, Damian Giebas said:

copy driver from hardkernel.com official image

Not that simple. Official software stack is very different from the one we use. Drivers are often written from the scratch as frozen sw support provided by vendors is often very low quality. Its made in "do not touch or change anything" and it will work, else it will fail. And you ended up using 10years old SW stack that never got any update.
 

https://docs.armbian.com/user-guide/faq/#why-things-stop-working

[Damian Giebas]

I think we can close the topic. I've used Lakka (https://www.lakka.tv/get/). It works out of the box. Thanks for all. Best regards.

[Igor]

On 9/3/2026 at 9:01 AM, Damian Giebas said:

I've used Lakka

If you check random image from our archives, you will 100% find one that has no troubles for you. 
https://fi.mirror.armbian.de/archive/

https://fi.mirror.armbian.de/oldarchive/

 

Odroid C1 / C2 has SD cards compatibility troubles. Lakka probably uses old bootloader from 2011, which will be slightly better in this compatibility, while modern 2026 boot loader, which we use for 80% of this time, is not polished. This is very old hardware that support would normally be long dead.

 

P.S.
This is a forum, not a personal support channel. Things are changing all the time, and discussions may become relevant again later. We don't close topics here.

[Damian Giebas]

Thanks for the reply. I tried two older images, and the problem still persisted. Maybe I just had bad luck, and a few factors happened to coincide at once, causing it not to work. In any case, I have a working Odroid C1, which, if all goes well, won’t end up in the trash but will be used to play classic retro games. Good luck with Armbian! I think it’s a great project.

[Igor]

17 hours ago, Damian Giebas said:

Maybe I just had bad luck, and a few factors happened to coincide at once, causing it not to work.

Odroid C1 has been troublesome since ever. Mainly due to SD card compatibility issues and powering is also not the best. And I have to correct myself - we also use stock uboot from 2011 as it seems this board never received anything more recent. Such ancient code is getting increasingly challenging to compile.
 

Board is still in our automatic test system https://docs.armbian.com/status/board-tests/ but system is currently offline as one of the core PoE switches died and we wait for replacement. Will check soon.

Thank you!