Linux on an SBC project Armbian releases version 22.02
(2022/03/03)
- Reference: 1646317296
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/03/03/armbian_project_releases_version_2202/
- Source link:
The latest [1]update to Armbian brings a mainline-kernel based Ubuntu- and Debian-compatible environment to dozens of small single-board computers.
This includes both Arm and x86-based hardware UEFI booting – and 64-bit builds for Raspberry Pi hardware.
Armbian [2]supports over 60 different single-board computers, including various models of [3]Banana Pi , [4]nVidia Jetson , [5]Pine64 and dozens more.
[6]
The problem it addresses is similar to what [7]postmarketOS is trying to do with smartphones. Your snazzy little SBC is shipped bundled with a Linux of some kind, customised for the hardware – but like a budget smartphone, all too often you will only get one update ever (if you're lucky), and then that's it. Soon the vendor has a new device to sell, and that device gets newer software versions, not last year's model.
[8]
[9]
Armbian isn't exactly a Linux distro, but you could [10]confuse it for one if you squint a bit. Armbian is a [11]framework that lets you build enough of a Linux system – a kernel, plus tools to get that kernel into memory, and if necessary the core of a root filesystem – to put the rest of Debian or Ubuntu on top.
Building the Internet of Things with Raspberry Pi et al , DIY-style [12]READ MORE
As well as this tooling, the project also publishes complete installable OS images – depending on the device, based on Ubuntu 20.04, or the forthcoming Ubuntu 22.04, or Debian sid , or some combination thereof. Armbian 22.02 includes kernel 5.15, with ZFS support, plus an "EDGE" version based on 5.16 for some boards.
It supports both Grub and u-boot, and for the first time, this release offers UEFI boot images for both Aarch64 and x86. Preliminary work-in-progress support for the Raspberry Pi means that it boots and runs, including Wifi, Bluetooth and 3D acceleration, but without sound for now.
On PCs, this stuff is easy, because there's lots of infrastructure that OS developers can assume will be present: firmware that will let you boot a disk partition, a VGA-compatible display, standard input devices and so on. By comparison, [13]SBCs are a bit more Wild West , without even defined standards for firmware – a situation the [14]Linaro project was established to simplify.
Gemini rising
As a relatively high-profile parallel example: the author, along with thousands of other people, bought a [15]Gemini keyboard-driven PDA . It came with Android 7.1, and a while later, Planet Computers [16]offered an update to Android 8.1 – and that was the last [17]release .
The Gemini uses a MediaTek [18]Helio X27 from 2016.
Both Planet Computers and MediaTek have long since moved on; MediaTek with four new product families (Helio A, P, and G, then Dimensity), and Planet Computers with the [19]Cosmo Communicator and then the [20]Astro Slide .
There's no commercial incentive for MediaTek to do the considerable work involved in porting newer versions of Android to an SoC it hasn't sold since 2018. It's not Planet Computers' fault: if MediaTek doesn't update Android, then Planet Computers can't either.
By the way, if you have a Gemini and are worried about an older version of Android, then Jolla's [21]Sailfish 4.01 still supports the Gemini, so that may be your best bet.
It's frequently not the vendor's fault. These devices are almost always based on some form of SoC: small, cheap, highly integrated devices which sell in huge numbers and so often have very short lifecycles. If the SoC vendor doesn't update its drivers or OS package, then it's very hard for anyone selling devices built around them to do so.
[22]Linux 5.16 to bring mainline support to Raspberry Pi 4 Compute Module – and the nifty devices built around it
[23]Open hardware smartphone PinePhone Pro starts to ship – to developers only, for now
[24]Tough Banana Pi: a Raspberry Pi for colour-blind diehards
[25]Beagleboard peeps tease dual-core 64-bit RISC-V computer with GPU, AI acceleration, more for $119
If you are running a small Arm box as some kind of headless server somewhere, though, you probably don't care about a GUI, or web browsers or other end-user apps and chrome like that. What you want is a recent kernel that boots and supports storage, networking and so on. This is where Armbian comes in.
The project puts together custom kernels for each supported device, along with drivers, bootloaders, and so on, so you can run a mainline Debian or Ubuntu-based Linux distro. Putting these things together means that your tiny machine remains useful, and can get security updates and so forth.
[26]
If you have well-supported, mainstream device such as a Raspberry Pi, you probably don't need it. If you have something more niche, though, Armbian could significantly prolong your device's lifetime. ®
Get our [27]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.armbian.com/newsflash/armbian-22-02-pig-release-announcement/
[2] https://www.armbian.com/download/?device_support=Supported
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2014/11/28/banana_pi_review/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/06/nvidia_gtc_roundup/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/08/pinephone_ships_developers/
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YiD0OzjmeRoCanWS6CP2lQAAAIo&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[7] https://postmarketos.org/
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YiD0OzjmeRoCanWS6CP2lQAAAIo&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YiD0OzjmeRoCanWS6CP2lQAAAIo&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[10] https://armbian-documentation.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
[11] https://github.com/armbian/build
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2015/05/09/book_review_iot_diy_at_home_projects_for_arduino_pi_beaglebone/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2014/01/29/arm_standardization_sbsa/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2010/06/03/linaro_arm_distro/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2018/02/21/planet_gemini_pda_production_hands_on/
[16] https://support.planetcom.co.uk/index.php/Gemini_Android_8_Upgrade
[17] https://support.planetcom.co.uk/index.php/Gemini_Firmware
[18] https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/mediatek/helio/mt6797x
[19] https://www.theregister.com/2018/11/05/planet_computers_cosmo_communicator/
[20] https://www.theregister.com/2020/03/30/planet_computers_astro_slide/
[21] https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/release-notes-koli-4-0-1/4542
[22] https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/09/linux_pi_compute/
[23] https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/08/pinephone_ships_developers/
[24] https://www.theregister.com/2014/11/28/banana_pi_review/
[25] https://www.theregister.com/2021/01/14/beaglev_riscv/
[26] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YiD0OzjmeRoCanWS6CP2lQAAAIo&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[27] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
This includes both Arm and x86-based hardware UEFI booting – and 64-bit builds for Raspberry Pi hardware.
Armbian [2]supports over 60 different single-board computers, including various models of [3]Banana Pi , [4]nVidia Jetson , [5]Pine64 and dozens more.
[6]
The problem it addresses is similar to what [7]postmarketOS is trying to do with smartphones. Your snazzy little SBC is shipped bundled with a Linux of some kind, customised for the hardware – but like a budget smartphone, all too often you will only get one update ever (if you're lucky), and then that's it. Soon the vendor has a new device to sell, and that device gets newer software versions, not last year's model.
[8]
[9]
Armbian isn't exactly a Linux distro, but you could [10]confuse it for one if you squint a bit. Armbian is a [11]framework that lets you build enough of a Linux system – a kernel, plus tools to get that kernel into memory, and if necessary the core of a root filesystem – to put the rest of Debian or Ubuntu on top.
Building the Internet of Things with Raspberry Pi et al , DIY-style [12]READ MORE
As well as this tooling, the project also publishes complete installable OS images – depending on the device, based on Ubuntu 20.04, or the forthcoming Ubuntu 22.04, or Debian sid , or some combination thereof. Armbian 22.02 includes kernel 5.15, with ZFS support, plus an "EDGE" version based on 5.16 for some boards.
It supports both Grub and u-boot, and for the first time, this release offers UEFI boot images for both Aarch64 and x86. Preliminary work-in-progress support for the Raspberry Pi means that it boots and runs, including Wifi, Bluetooth and 3D acceleration, but without sound for now.
On PCs, this stuff is easy, because there's lots of infrastructure that OS developers can assume will be present: firmware that will let you boot a disk partition, a VGA-compatible display, standard input devices and so on. By comparison, [13]SBCs are a bit more Wild West , without even defined standards for firmware – a situation the [14]Linaro project was established to simplify.
Gemini rising
As a relatively high-profile parallel example: the author, along with thousands of other people, bought a [15]Gemini keyboard-driven PDA . It came with Android 7.1, and a while later, Planet Computers [16]offered an update to Android 8.1 – and that was the last [17]release .
The Gemini uses a MediaTek [18]Helio X27 from 2016.
Both Planet Computers and MediaTek have long since moved on; MediaTek with four new product families (Helio A, P, and G, then Dimensity), and Planet Computers with the [19]Cosmo Communicator and then the [20]Astro Slide .
There's no commercial incentive for MediaTek to do the considerable work involved in porting newer versions of Android to an SoC it hasn't sold since 2018. It's not Planet Computers' fault: if MediaTek doesn't update Android, then Planet Computers can't either.
By the way, if you have a Gemini and are worried about an older version of Android, then Jolla's [21]Sailfish 4.01 still supports the Gemini, so that may be your best bet.
It's frequently not the vendor's fault. These devices are almost always based on some form of SoC: small, cheap, highly integrated devices which sell in huge numbers and so often have very short lifecycles. If the SoC vendor doesn't update its drivers or OS package, then it's very hard for anyone selling devices built around them to do so.
[22]Linux 5.16 to bring mainline support to Raspberry Pi 4 Compute Module – and the nifty devices built around it
[23]Open hardware smartphone PinePhone Pro starts to ship – to developers only, for now
[24]Tough Banana Pi: a Raspberry Pi for colour-blind diehards
[25]Beagleboard peeps tease dual-core 64-bit RISC-V computer with GPU, AI acceleration, more for $119
If you are running a small Arm box as some kind of headless server somewhere, though, you probably don't care about a GUI, or web browsers or other end-user apps and chrome like that. What you want is a recent kernel that boots and supports storage, networking and so on. This is where Armbian comes in.
The project puts together custom kernels for each supported device, along with drivers, bootloaders, and so on, so you can run a mainline Debian or Ubuntu-based Linux distro. Putting these things together means that your tiny machine remains useful, and can get security updates and so forth.
[26]
If you have well-supported, mainstream device such as a Raspberry Pi, you probably don't need it. If you have something more niche, though, Armbian could significantly prolong your device's lifetime. ®
Get our [27]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.armbian.com/newsflash/armbian-22-02-pig-release-announcement/
[2] https://www.armbian.com/download/?device_support=Supported
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2014/11/28/banana_pi_review/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/06/nvidia_gtc_roundup/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/08/pinephone_ships_developers/
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YiD0OzjmeRoCanWS6CP2lQAAAIo&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[7] https://postmarketos.org/
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YiD0OzjmeRoCanWS6CP2lQAAAIo&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YiD0OzjmeRoCanWS6CP2lQAAAIo&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[10] https://armbian-documentation.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
[11] https://github.com/armbian/build
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2015/05/09/book_review_iot_diy_at_home_projects_for_arduino_pi_beaglebone/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2014/01/29/arm_standardization_sbsa/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2010/06/03/linaro_arm_distro/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2018/02/21/planet_gemini_pda_production_hands_on/
[16] https://support.planetcom.co.uk/index.php/Gemini_Android_8_Upgrade
[17] https://support.planetcom.co.uk/index.php/Gemini_Firmware
[18] https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/mediatek/helio/mt6797x
[19] https://www.theregister.com/2018/11/05/planet_computers_cosmo_communicator/
[20] https://www.theregister.com/2020/03/30/planet_computers_astro_slide/
[21] https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/release-notes-koli-4-0-1/4542
[22] https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/09/linux_pi_compute/
[23] https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/08/pinephone_ships_developers/
[24] https://www.theregister.com/2014/11/28/banana_pi_review/
[25] https://www.theregister.com/2021/01/14/beaglev_riscv/
[26] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YiD0OzjmeRoCanWS6CP2lQAAAIo&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[27] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Disgusted Of Tunbridge Wells
>Armbian isn't exactly a Linux distro, but you could confuse it for one if you squint a bit. Armbian is a framework that lets you build enough of a Linux system – a kernel, plus tools to get that kernel into memory...
Stop typing there and you've just described Gentoo ( and I believe Arch ).
UCAP
... and the Yocto project.
karlkarl
OpenWrt too I suppose.
I used to use it with a pcduino2 (A10) and the Jetson Nano (Tegra). It was good and offered a fairly vanilla experience compared to their extremely heavy (and broken) vendor supplied images.
Ultimately I realized it was a bit cleaner to do it myself, Armbian also tended to deprecate hardware too quickly (due to limited manpower I suppose). The steps I take now are:
1) boot the terrible vendor image
2) create a Debian chroot via debootstrap and tarball it
3) delete everything from the vendor image apart from /boot, /lib/modules, /lib/firmware
4) expand the Debian chroot you prepared earlier onto the root /
5) Optional for Jetson Nano, expand the NVidia drivers from the L4T SDK (don't bother with the debs, they drag in crazy things like custom wpa_supplicant files and dbus schemas)
This tends to work with everything and gets you a clean, bootable Debian install.