odroidm1
By Ricardo Pardini / General purpose • NAS / 0 Comments

Odroid M1

Installation instructions:

  1. Write image to SD using BalenaEtcher.
  2. Boot from SD by holding the recovery (RCI) button while powering the board.
  3. Release RCY button after the blue LED flashes once.
  4. Once booted, use armbian-install to write u-boot to MTD (SPI flash). This completely and irrevocably removes Petitboot, replacing it with mainline u-boot.
  5. You can also install to NVMe, USB, or eMMC. NVMe or eMMC is recommended.
Notebook
By Igor Pečovnik / IOT • NAS • Networking • Desktop • General purpose / 0 Comments

ARM64

Better then Ubuntu? No Canonical proprietary solutions. Better then Debian? More recent package base.

Better then both:

  • HiDPI support for GRUB and desktop (automated adjustments on big screen resolutions),
  • immutable firmware (kernel upgrade locked to additionally enhance stability),
  • kernel headers preinstalled (easy additional drivers install),
  • ZFS 2.2.2 ready (apt install zfsutils-linux zfs-dkms),
  • face unlock works perfectly (if your camera is supported),
  • additional (hibernation) power saving method comes pre-configured (since standby doesn't always works),
  • snapd is not installed (user can install it).

Installation to HDD/SSD drive is done by transferring live image to the target (sudo armbian-install).

Notebook
By Igor Pečovnik / General purpose • IOT • NAS • Networking • Desktop / 0 Comments

Intel / AMD

Better then Ubuntu? No Canonical proprietary solutions. Better then Debian? More recent package base.

Better then both:

  • kernel is maintained by Armbian and kernel community,
  • HiDPI support for GRUB and desktop (automated adjustments on big screen resolutions),
  • Intel graphics acceleration works out of the box,
  • preinstalled Google Chrome and Microsoft Visual Studio Code,
  • ZFS 2.2.4 ready (apt install zfsutils-linux zfs-dkms),
  • snapd is not installed (user can install it).

Installation to HDD/SSD drive is done by transferring live image to the target (sudo armbian-install). In case you want to install it to computer and keep Windows 10/11 (dual boot) you will need to disable "Secure Boot" / TPM in BIOS, disable BitLocker and shrink partition to make free space you need for Armbian Linux.

odroidhc4.png
By Ricardo Pardini / NAS • General purpose / 0 Comments

Odroid HC4

If you have variant with LCD display – here you can download driver.

Important: To be able to boot clean Armbian mainline based u-boot / kernel experiences, you need to remove incompatible Petitboot loader that is shipped with the board.

Try one of the following methods:

Bootloader Bypass Method

This is now the preferred method.  It is easier, and be performed without a display via SSH

    1. Install an SD Card with a fresh Armbian image
    2. Flip device upside down
    3. With a tool, press and hold down the black button.
    4. Continue holding button and plug in power to device
    5. Login to console or SSH and perform follow normal setup procedures
    6. Verify system can access SPI FLASH device and Erase
    7. Reboot
odroidhc4:~:# ls -ltr /dev/mtd*
crw------- 1 root root 90, 0 Nov  6 21:38 /dev/mtd0
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 31, 0 Nov  6 21:38 /dev/mtdblock0
crw------- 1 root root 90, 1 Nov  6 21:38 /dev/mtd0ro
odroidhc4:~:# flash_erase /dev/mtd0 0 0
Erasing 4 Kibyte @ fff000 -- 100 % complete
odroidhc4:~:#

 

Petitboot Console Method

Attach the device to a display and keyboard.  Power on.  Petitboot will load

From the Petitboot menu, go for “Exit to shell” and these commands to remove the Petitboot:

# flash_eraseall /dev/mtd0
# flash_eraseall /dev/mtd1
# flash_eraseall /dev/mtd2
# flash_eraseall /dev/mtd3

This will make your SPI flash memory empty and would start from SD on next boot.

In case you want to put Petitboot back to the board, user those instructions.

FAN support

Create a file in /etc/fancontrol with the following content:

INTERVAL=10
DEVPATH=hwmon0=devices/virtual/thermal/thermal_zone0 hwmon2=devices/platform/pwm-fan
DEVNAME=hwmon0=cpu_thermal hwmon2=pwmfan
FCTEMPS=hwmon2/pwm1=hwmon0/temp1_input
FCFANS= hwmon2/pwm1=hwmon2/fan1_input
MINTEMP=hwmon2/pwm1=50
MAXTEMP=hwmon2/pwm1=60
MINSTART=hwmon2/pwm1=20
MINSTOP=hwmon2/pwm1=28
MINPWM=hwmon2/pwm1=0
MAXPWM=hwmon2/pwm1=255

followed by:

sudo systemctl restart fancontrol

With kernel 5.15.y -> you need to remove FCFANS=hwmon2/pwm1=hwmon2/fan1_input in /etc/fancontrol

nanopim4v2
By Test Test / NAS • Desktop • General purpose / 0 Comments

Nanopi M4 V2

  • UART is accessible on a standard connector but with unusual speed: 1500000
  • If you don’t have USB Type-C PSU, you can power the board via pins 4 (5V) and 6 (GND) of the 40-pin GPIO1 header
  • Powering related troubles are possible since USB Type-C is not PD-compliant. In fact you have to use dumb 5V PSU or device won’t boot up.
orangepi-rk3399
By Igor Pečovnik / NAS • Desktop • General purpose / 0 Comments

Orange Pi RK3399

  • UART has unusual speed: 1500000
  • boot from SD card is possible by shorting TP50265 to the ground and powering the board. After Armbian boots up, you can overwrite eMMC. You need to do this procedure only once or in case you totally brick your system.
  • once you have Armbian booting from eMMC, you can boot SD card in more simple manner: stop booting from UART console and execute those commands: setenv devnum 1 followed by run mmc_boot
  • you need to use EXPERT="yes" to build kernel or images.
rockpro64
By Joe Khoobyar / General purpose • NAS • Desktop / 0 Comments

RockPro64

  • UART is accessible on pin 6 (GND),8 (TX) and 10 (RX) and with unusual speed: 1500000
  • flash the 128M SPI memory to also boot from USB or PXE (it if goes wrong, follow these instructions)
  • short-pressing (~1s) the power button turns the board on, long-pressing it (~3s) turns it off. If it gets stuck while halting, press the reset button. If it does not boot (ie the white led does not come up), reset, then power on.
  • if you experience USB3 storage lack of reliability (error messages followed by filesystem corruption), check your power supply, usb cable and connectors and disk/ssd. All these factors can lead to undervoltage issues (some ssd could produce power consumption spikes triggering undervoltage).
nanopct4
By Oleg Ivanov / Desktop • General purpose • NAS / 0 Comments

Nanopc T4

  • UART is accessible on a standard connector but with unusual speed: 1500000
  • If you want to boot from your SD card you need to hold boot button while powering up/resetting