Armbian is an established Linux for single board computers that is used in enterprise, IOT microservices and various hobby deployments. Recent desktop improvements bring the platform on-par with key players in the Linux desktop arena while keeping the key advantage – you can easily build your own Linux distribution.

Armbian Budgie desktop

Armbian provides stable releases every three months. They are driven by CURRENT LTS kernel. Adventurers which likes rolling releases, can check EDGE releases which are using latest daily kernel builds with fresh packages from sid, hirsute or impish userland.

Armbian has powerful build system which can build a whole Linux distribution, an OS image or a kernel. Key advantages are simplicity, speed and excellent hardware support. Provides native or cross compilation.

This release is hard work of exceptional individuals who have contributed their time and expertise into this release. Many thanks to – in alphabetic order – @150balbes, @andpp, @AristoChen, @Azq2, @belegdol, @EvilOlaf, @Haraade, @heisath, @henkiejan1, @iav, @Icenowy, @igorpecovnik, @juanesf, @lanefu, @paolosabatino, @piter75, @psztoch, @redchenjs, @RichNeese, @rpardini, @The-going, @ThomasKaiser, @tparys, @Tonymac32, @Uglymotha.

Special thanks to users and vendors @orangepi, @friendlyelec, @khadas and @olimex that understand the importance of our work and supports the project with donations of cash, hardware & expertise.

Enjoy!

Highlights

  • minimal, server or XFCE, Cinnamon and Budgie desktop
  • fast and effective automated language selection on first run
  • regular stable and daily beta & EDGE updates
  • CLI is powered with ZSH or BASH
  • added automated kernel upgrade on EDGE 5.13.y kernels
  • added mainline based SPI boot support for Odroid HC4
    added Qemu virtual Armbian builds
  • added CSC images for Tinkerboard 2, Rockpi N10,
  • added ZFS upgrade to v2.1
  • improved Github Actions CI and CDN network
  • added Cinnamon and Budgie desktop
  • enabled 3D support wherever its possible and works reasonble well
  • added Khadas VIM1-3 & Edge boards, Avnet Microzed
  • enabled VPU support for Rockchip
  • added legacy kernel support for OrangepiZero2, Nvidia Jetson
  • declare Ubuntu Hirsute and Debian Bullseye packages as stable
  • added Ubuntu Impish and Debian Sid as beta build targets
  • added KDE plasma DE as a beta build target

Detailed

Armbian XFCE desktop

What’s Left

  • long term armbian-config refactoring
  • upgrading Rockchip u-boot from 2010.y to latest
  • resolving Allwinner boot troubles on last u-boot
  • enable 3D on Meson G12 / SM1
  • infrastructure improvements: mirros, runners, publishing.
Detailed

Tough Decisions

  • Odroid C4/HC4 boot problem has to remain unresolved in CURRENT 5.10.y kernel since fixing it would break Khadas boards. Problem was properly solved in EDGE kernel.
  • We had to disable 3D on latest Amlogic boards due to instability
  • Leaving behind published Deepin, Enlightenment, Gnome, i3, KDE plasma, Mate, Xmonad desktop due to space constrains and lack of maintenance. These options are still available within the build tool.

Known problems

  • XFCE desktop is missing package gvfs-backends and xarchiver
  • bullseye doesn’t properly detect locales
  • Helios64 eMMC IO errors with CURRENT kernel
  • OrangepiZero2 EDGE kernel based image doesn’t boot. Will be fixed in bug fix release.