Support is never done

31.05.2020. It has been three months since our last major release. During this period we developed many new features, fixed numerous of bugs, but many tasks still remain for the future.   Our primary focus continues dealing with low-level support, which is prioritized by supported hardware and by basic device functionality.

Unfortunately, this means the desktop remains unchanged for years as we've been focusing on higher priority items.  Despite being underpowered community supported project, we continue to make significant progress and stay in front of critical issues. 

Finished projects

  • [AR-108] - Upgrade remaining kernels to 5.4.y
  • [AR-158] - Update 3rd party wireless drivers
  • [AR-159] - Switch fake-hwclock to hardware RTC on mvebu family
  • [AR-168] - Add NanoPi R2S board support
  • [AR-180] - Update Wireguard drivers on kernels below 5.4.y
  • [AR-184] - Improve slow booting on Rockchip RK3399 devices
  • [AR-185] - Change download images compression format
  • [AR-190] - Update wireless driver for RTL88x2BU
  • [AR-196] - Upgrade u-boot to 2020.04 where possible
  • [AR-201] - Introduce CI autotest facility
  • [AR-207] - Merge rockpis-dev into rockchip64
  • [AR-208] - Consolidate u-boot variants for mvebu family
  • [AR-210] - Add support for more HDMI resolutions on Rockchip RK3288 devices
  • [AR-215] - Move meson64 dev branch to 5.6.y
  • [AR-221] - Upgrade imx6 current to 5.6.y
  • [AR-222] - Port Docker image building to Ubuntu 20.04
  • [AR-226] - Add Hardkernel Odroid C4 mainline u-boot / kernel
  • [AR-236] - Attach Meson64 CURRENT to 5.6.y
  • [AR-238] - Updating hostapd, PSD and theme package in repository
  • [AR-247] - Revitalise Udoo board
  • [AR-250] - Improve usage of external patches
  • [AR-253] - Add prerm script for headers
  • [AR-254] - Add Banana Pi M2 Zero
  • [AR-257] - Bring Odroid C1 back from the EOL with latest upstream kernel
  • [AR-260] - Add Nanopi A64 board support
  • [AR-261] - Add Rockpi S mainline board support
  • [AR-262] - Move Allwinner development branch to 5.6.y
  • [AR-278] - Add snap free Chromium to Ubuntu Focal
  • [AR-279] - Add Hardkernel Odroid C4 stock kernel

Solved bugs

  • [AR-109] - Upgrade is not done properly on some boards
  • [AR-165] - Instability with Rock64 and Rock PRO
  • [AR-177] - No serial gadget console on Nanopi Neo2 black
  • [AR-181] - Odroid N2 crashes during USB rsync backups
  • [AR-198] - Olimex Lime 2 doesn't boot from eMMC
  • [AR-204] - CPUfreq defaults missing on update
  • [AR-205] - No sound output with OrangePi 4 in dev and current
  • [AR-211] - Chrony fails to start on Ubuntu Focal
  • [AR-212] - Random MAC on Nanopi R2S
  • [AR-220] - Disable 3D support in Bionic due to broken mesa packages
  • [AR-231] - Unstable stmmac network driver on Meson64
  • [AR-237] - Desktop install on Ubuntu Focal installs Gnome3 desktop
  • [AR-239] - Chrony fails to start on Focal
  • [AR-240] - Broken VFAT kernel upgrade
  • [AR-244] - Thermal throttling on H5 doesn't work properly
  • [AR-245] - Hostapd doesn't go up
  • [AR-248] - Odroid C4 CPU speed is limited to 1.5Ghz
  • [AR-249] - Problems with CI testings
  • [AR-251] - Fix kernel 5.7.y packages patch
  • [AR-255] - Fix Debian mirrors URL
  • [AR-263] - Fix audio on Renegade
  • [AR-269] - Add correct CPU regulator configuration for the NanoPI R1
  • [AR-274] - Add missing iozone3 package to the minimal image
  • [AR-277] - Distinguish nightly and stable images at the download pages
  • [AR-286] - Armbian-resize-filesystem fails on first run due to missing fdisk in Bullseye
  • [AR-287] - Make sure cryptsetup-initramfs is installed in any case

Closed tasks

  • [AR-150] - Disable Stretch image creation for Helios4 and Clearfog
  • [AR-157] - Add Ubuntu Focal 20.04 as a supported build host
  • [AR-186] - Blacklist 3D engine on headless images
  • [AR-189] - Move wireless driver for 8189ES from patch to git
  • [AR-195] - Adding Ubuntu 20.04 to all builds
  • [AR-209] - Disable CONFIG_VIDEO_DE2 in u-boot for Allwinner devices
  • [AR-213] - Make manual for .xz images and check their authentication
  • [AR-228] - Enable audio and USB on Nanopi A64
  • [AR-229] - Bump with AUFS for DEV kernels
  • [AR-232] - Switch Odroid XU4 DEV branch to Libreelec branch
  • [AR-234] - Disable ZSH update prompt on every two weeks
  • [AR-242] - Enable SELinux
  • [AR-252] - Improve source code cleaning
  • [AR-258] - Enables PCIE PHY with Mezzanine NVME
  • [AR-259] - Add mp8859 regulator to current for RK3399-ROC-PC
  • [AR-264] - Enable RTL8723DS WiFI driver
  • [AR-265] - Remove Xenial from supported host OS
  • [AR-266] - Fix dependency for native building on Linux Mint and Debian Buster
  • [AR-267] - Enable Cedrus video acceleration on Allwinner kernels
  • [AR-268] - Add higher clock for Allwinner H6
  • [AR-270] - Add support for alternate console UARTs in Allwinner H3 u-boot
  • [AR-271] - Lower DDR clock rate to 504MHz for H5 boards
  • [AR-280] - Update CONF, CSC and WIP statuses according to support level
  • [AR-285] - Improve thermal throttling on Allwinner H6
  • [AR-288] - Add vendor name to the board config files

Infrastructure improvements

  • [AR-201] - Introduce CI autotest facility
    We want to provide best possible Linux support since they day one. To achieve better quality, we need more and better testings. We are adjusting, developing and porting drivers round the clock which is why a public kernel testing services such as kernel-ci is little to no use to us. They also don't cover all types of hardware that we deal with. During past few months, we developed our own testing facility, currently consistent from 40-50 boards. Currently we can monitor overall support status at any moment or to see how our changes manifests on a hardware before we push an update to you. We can detect issues much sooner, which saves us a lot of time, but still, lack of resources to fix problems remains - our income are your donations - we can't hire help. Thanks to the @kobol_io for donating 48-port switch and thanks to @A13_technology for a stash of SD cards needed to setup this facility.

  • [AR-290] - Order first batch of Armbian autotests hats

    For the last eight months we were developing a hardware to support testings. Development was lead and covered by @Hijax, while boards were assembled with help of Olimex and others that were involved in this. Board is a Rpi compatible HAT.

    What this tool can do? It can run automated tests on up to 8 boards per unit. It can burn SD card, get serial console, power the client on and off. We plan to put them in function by 2020.08. If you are an Armbian (close to) kernel developer and want to make use of this, don't hesitate to contact us. If you are a project contributor, we might still (limited quantity) have a free sample for you.

  • [AR-289] - Improve IRC server support
    We manage to make #armbian on freenode alive. It suites our daily communication and knowledge exchange. It is serving as a release meeting channel to push things forward with a faster speed than forum. We added channel logger (irc.armbian.com) and a bot with some useful and fancy features.

Work in progress

  • [AR-45] - Make first login more user friendly
  • [AR-163] - Systematically cleanup distribution defaults
  • [AR-176] - Clarify meaning and process of RC Images
  • [AR-179] - Update wireless firmware
  • [AR-182] - Unify / merge kernel configs
  • [AR-194] - Implement parameters handling for armbian-config
  • [AR-197] - Creating images with GPT parititon
  • [AR-206] - Improve memory performance on Renegade (roc-rk3328-cc) in current
  • [AR-224] - Support for http-only repository
  • [AR-225] - Introduce new parameter PACKAGE_LIST_BOARD and PACKAGE_LIST_FAMILY
  • [AR-233] - Discuss if changing DEV to EDGE makes sense
  • [AR-235] - Implement Device Tree Editor
  • [AR-241] - Cleanout NAND hacks from packaging
  • [AR-243] - Add AP mode testing to autotests
  • [AR-283] - Discuss how to deal with snap in Ubuntu
  • [AR-284] - Discuss if there is a cleaner way to install Chromium
  • [AR-292] - Add USB3 support to H6 u-boot
  • [AR-199] - No eMMC support on Nanopi T4 with legacy kernel
  • [AR-282] - Rockpi 4B 1Gb doesn't boot modern kernel / u-boot
  • [AR-293] - H6: Verify HDMI audio output
  • [AR-2] - Improving download infrastructure
  • [AR-42] - Merge packaging patches
  • [AR-50] - Optimise armbian-config dependencies
  • [AR-71] - Create a document: How we will use Jira
  • [AR-151] - Integrate JMCCs Multimedia script
  • [AR-175] - Improve the recreation of "released" images
  • [AR-200] - Improving Desktop images
  • [AR-201] - Introduce CI autotest facility
  • [AR-202] - Drop packaging patches and introduce own packaging
  • [AR-214] - Jenkins improvements
  • [AR-227] - Move Espressobin current to K5.4
  • [AR-230] - Decide what to do with TVboxes
  • [AR-273] - Improve CI autotests facility


Next planned release is August 2020 with minor bug fix releases in between. Please report all bugs to designated bug tracking forum sections. Your help is highly appreciated!

Tribute

A special thanks goes to the contributors, sponsors and all sympathisers who supports Armbian with their ideas, questions and resources.

Please support Armbian

Our primary goal is to reinforce overstressed volunteer crew with professionals.