Armbian_25.11.1_Odroidn2_noble_current_6.12.58_xfce_desktop, missing internet browsers and other problems

EDM · Friday at 08:04 PM

Armbianmonitor:

https://paste.armbian.com/betibuwafi

FYI, Device is Odroid N2+ 4 GB.

Some months ago I installed/ran:

Armbian_25.2.1_Odroidn2_bookworm_current_6.12.13_xfce_desktop.img

with no issues that I could not overcome. I re-downloaded it yesterday and re-installed/ran it on another Odroid N2+ 4GB with no issues.

However when I try to install/run:

Armbian_25.11.1_Odroidn2_noble_current_6.12.58_xfce_desktop.img

"* Desktops are very simple and minimal but containing standard features such as Chromium, Firefox browser, Office tools etc."

It leads to a number of issues, but the most important one is no internet browsers are installed that are either visible from the Applications Menu, or that can be fixed/updated through either "apt" or by using "synaptic". Trying to update Firefox through "synaptic" leads to this error:

W: Failed to fetch http://mirror.vinehost.net/armbian/apt/pool/noble-desktop/f/firefox/firefox_133.0+build2-0ubuntu0.24.04.1~mt1armbian1_arm64.deb
Could not open file /var/cache/apt/archives/partial/firefox_9%3a133.0+build2-0ubuntu0.24.04.1~mt1armbian1_arm64.deb - open (2: No such file or directory) [IP: 143.20.69.35 80]

OR

W: Failed to fetch http://armbian.lv.auroradev.org/apt/pool/noble-desktop/f/firefox/firefox_133.0+build2-0ubuntu0.24.04.1~mt1armbian1_arm64.deb
Could not open file /var/cache/apt/archives/partial/firefox_9%3a133.0+build2-0ubuntu0.24.04.1~mt1armbian1_arm64.deb - open (2: No such file or directory) [IP: 23.186.113.5 80]

etc

I have installed and verified the sha256sum on at least 3 microsd cards with the same result for the Armbian_25.11.1_Odroidn2_noble_current_6.12.58_xfce_desktop.img. version. Again the "bookworm" has no issues but "noble" seems to be broken.

I tried the Armbian_25.11.1_Odroidn2_noble_current_6.12.58_gnome_desktop.img as well. It has the same issues.

I realize that at this time of the year our minds are on the holidays/festive season. I hope that some clarity can be had as I have never seen this type of problem with a linux distro before this.

Thank you for your time, patience, and help!

laibsch · Friday at 08:42 PM

37 minutes ago, EDM said:

W: Failed to fetch http://mirror.vinehost.net/armbian/apt/pool/noble-desktop/f/firefox/firefox_133.0+build2-0ubuntu0.24.04.1~mt1armbian1_arm64.deb

FWIW, the file in question is available from the mirror. Are you sure you do not have network issues?

EDM · Friday at 10:24 PM

I wish it was that simple!

I am on a different computer here...on the exact same network.. and yes I can download that file from here, different machine, different distro.

However from the Odroid N2+ it is a different story. I have with a few experiments found that WAN pings would not work from the Odroid N2+ machine with the "noble" distro. But that problem is NOT present with the "bookworm" distro. I thought it was the initial installation, but the problem is persistent in "noble" and never an issue with "bookworm".

Thanks for your reply, and any other ideas?

laibsch · Saturday at 04:22 AM

well, so it does indeed sound like you DO have network issues on the Odroid N2+. Something related to the network is not working right in noble for you.

eselarm · Saturday at 10:38 AM

On an ARM computer:

cat Armbian_25.11.1_Odroidn2_noble_current_6.12.58_xfce_desktop.img.xz.sha
1f3816553377dd63a12e46a476f7ff20b8c5118f63f879f8d3d7d27073c97b35 Armbian_25.11.1_Odroidn2_noble_current_6.12.58_xfce_desktop.img.xz
unxz Armbian_25.11.1_Odroidn2_noble_current_6.12.58_xfce_desktop.img.xz
losetup --show -fP Armbian_25.11.1_Odroidn2_noble_current_6.12.58_xfce_desktop.img
mount /dev/loop0p2 2 
passwd -d root --root $(pwd)/2/
systemd-nspawn -bD 2

Only as root login.

Browsers are installed:

Creating a new user account. Press <Ctrl-C> to abort

Desktop environment will not be enabled if you abort the new user creation

Please provide a username (eg. your first name): ^C
Disabling user account creation procedure

root@odroidn2:~# apt list --installed | grep -i -e firefox -e chromium 

WARNING: apt does not have a stable CLI interface. Use with caution in scripts.

chromium-browser/noble,now 2:1snap1-0ubuntu2 arm64 [installed]
firefox/noble,now 1:1snap1-0ubuntu5 arm64 [installed,upgradable to: 9:133.0+build2-0ubuntu0.24.04.1~mt1armbian1]

Running as a container without DE is very minimal, but packages are there and also networking is up. Things might go wrong when starting DE for the first time, the the occasions I had that in the past decade are rare an due to bad storage or so or something failing with graphics HW/stack.

You should maybe specifically look at what is managing network and what is managing DNS. Math permutation leads to 4 possibilities already if I look at what is installed. That is excluding all sorts of options you may have with your router or LAN.

EDM · Saturday at 02:24 PM

9 hours ago, laibsch said:

well, so it does indeed sound like you DO have network issues on the Odroid N2+. Something related to the network is not working right in noble for you.

Quote

I thought it was the initial installation, but the problem is persistent in "noble" and never an issue with "bookworm".

The "bookworm" distro of Armbian does not have this problem. So what is different with the "noble" distro? I am using the exact SAME hardware/device, "bookworm" works, "noble" does not.

As mentioned I am able to ping the local LAN router without any problem with the "noble" distro, but DNS is not working for WAN, with the "noble" distro. The 'bookworm" distro can ping both LAN and WAN "right out of the box" on exactly the same hardware without issue.

What else can I do?

I sent this yesterday: https://paste.armbian.com/betibuwafi

Thanks!

eselarm · Saturday at 03:31 PM

Easy is what standard Debian (12 and 13) does: NetworkManager and openresolv/resolvconf , even for complex setup of VLANs and bridges, Virtual Machines.

Canonical/Ubuntu have invented netplan.io, so they manage NM and systemd-networkd with a yaml script. Easy for them as large organization for business customers. Might not for you as image downloader, as it introduces extra yaml while .nmconnection files are easy to copy between hosts.

Also, systemd-resolved might be used, which is actually a sort of local DNS server. It should enable high performance I guess, by default caching enabled, but is that applicable for a simple ARM SBC connected to an ISP router, I don't know. I know is needs extra work for me. So you need to dig into that. Or not use Ubuntu at all. I anyway do not use images, only for testing for others, not to use them myself. It is simply using apt for (dist-)upgrades and so I use standard Debian upgrade method to get from Bookworm to Trixie and keep my KDE as I use that mostly. Also switching kernel, just via apt removals/installs and/or bootmanager.

If you get stuck, use sudo nmtui to set an extra network profile connection with fixed IP, known DNS maybe. Done that many times to get things running although not permanent good solution.

EDM · 2025-12-14T14:33:36Z

23 hours ago, eselarm said:

It is simply using apt for (dist-)upgrades and so I use standard Debian upgrade method to get from Bookworm to Trixie and keep my KDE as I use that mostly. Also switching kernel, just via apt removals/installs and/or bootmanager.

If you get stuck, use sudo nmtui to set an extra network profile connection with fixed IP, known DNS maybe.

You have PM, please reply when you have a moment.
Thanks

eselarm · 2025-12-14T14:54:36Z

No need to reply in a PM; just run standard Debian tool:

sudo tasksel

and select what you want and follow the steps.

EDM · 2025-12-15T02:34:59Z

11 hours ago, eselarm said:
No need to reply in a PM; just run standard Debian tool:
sudo tasksel
and select what you want and follow the steps.

AFAIK, this is only good for installing a desktop,etc, NOT upgrading a version of Debian.

Quote

I wrote you:

Many thanks for giving me some idea as to why the "noble" distro is failing. I do have a pi-hole in the DNS loop here. But it has never had this kind of trouble.

In the "noble" distro I had to manipulate the network connection such that an explicit call out to the pi-hole DNS address was used. That "seemed" to work but by then I had mangled that "noble" release so much I figured that I would have to start from scratch to make sure that other surprises would not happen.

I have download the "Trixie IOT" distro and have begun to manually install Mate on top of it. Needless to say that is a lot of fooling around. Though I might have to end up doing exactly that, unless there is an Armbian release forthcoming. I am not a fan of the current Gnome interface!

I am not well versed in all that is Linux, even after almost 20 years of using various distros on many platforms. Installing a desktop from scratch although novel for me, is not in my wheelhouse, as the purpose of getting the Odroid N2+ up and running is for a very different purpose. In short having a distro that just works ... out of the box...is only half of the work needed.

I wonder if there is either a script that can build the desktop solution like the "xfce_desktop" or maybe a "Mate desktop" from a minimal distro like "Minimal Armbian 25.11.1 Trixie Minimal / IOT" that is currently available?

Otherwise, would you have a script for updating a full "xfce_desktop"Bookworm to "xfce_desktop" Trixie?

I am trying to stay on topic here. So yes, "tasksel" will allow me to install a desktop but what is more pertinent to the situation I have would be to upgrade from "bookworm" to "trixie", if the "noble" release is going to be a stubborn problem for me. There is some other strangeness with the "noble" distro where for example I cannot run "synaptic" from the XFCE menu, instead I have to open a terminal and use "sudo synaptic". I am sure there are other issues as well.

I doubt very much it is the pi-hole as the "bookworm" distro of Armbian has no DNS issues, nor do any Linux Mint/Dietpi distros that I currently use. Ditto with the Armbian "trixie IOT" distro currently available, that has no issues with DNS either.

It would be ideal if there was a list of all the software that is installed in the current "bookworm" distro such that if I use the "Trixie IOT of Armbian" I can duplicate the desktop setup/installation which includes LibreOffice, Emacs, Firefox, etc.

Where can I find that information or is there an install script that is used that can be downloaded for Armbian to install the software suite?

Thanks for your help and understanding.

eselarm · 2025-12-15T20:00:38Z

17 hours ago, EDM said:

It would be ideal if there was a list of all the software that is installed in the current "bookworm" distro such that if I use the "Trixie IOT of Armbian" I can duplicate the desktop setup/installation which includes LibreOffice, Emacs, Firefox, etc.

Where can I find that information or is there an install script that is used that can be downloaded for Armbian to install the software suite?

If you learn yourself a strategy not to wipe existing installation, but dist-upgrade it and also have a flexible backup and restore for yourself, you don't need lists or so as the same set of software keeps being there. I clone installations from 1 computer to the other, so do not use new images. With tasksel you can remove and add Desktop Environments, sudo systemctl set-default <target> to changes from GUI to CLI and vice-versa. Make sure you have a serial console cable working (for CLI and no HDMI/kbd/mouse connected).

But you can use 'sudo apt list --installed' on Debian systems.

Cloning on x86 is easy, for ARM, you need change bootloader and kernel and some other packages. Until also all ARM computers come with UEFI bootloader/firmware.

https://www.debian.org/releases/trixie/release-notes/upgrading.en.html#preparing-apt-sources-files

https://digint.ch/btrbk/doc/readme.html

https://btrfs.readthedocs.io/en/latest/Send-receive.html

Edited 47 minutes ago by eselarm