Orange Pi 6 Plus -- Does not start desktop environment

Hi,

I have an Orange Pi 6 Plus and I am booting it from a USB stick with Armbian (Ubuntu Desktop 26.04 GNOME). After the initial setup of username/password, timezone, and locale, the last message it shows is "Now starting desktop environment". After that, nothing happens. It just sits there. (It's not a glitch as it happened twice.)

Any ideas?

Has anyone successfully booted OPi6+ from an Armbian stick/card all the way to the desktop? What media did you use? Since I get through part of the process, I supposed UEFI settings are fine (mostly factory defaults) or is there something to tweak there?

Thanks,

Petr

PS: Based on https://forum.armbian.com/topic/62058-i-am-unable-to-boot-from-any-image-on-my-orange-pis/ I will try different media (but I have previously used this one to boot Ubuntu (not Armbian) just fine; still worth trying I suppose).