I moved the computer to other room where I rely on the speakers in the monitor, else I would not have discovered it as I also use networked pulseaudio.

What works is 2025.01-armbian-2025.01-S6d41-Pdb4b-H2194-V062a-Bb703-R448a, so sort of last-known-good, got that via:

sudo apt install linux-u-boot-nanopi-r6c-current=25.8.1 and wrote the binary with dd to eMMC

Another issue is that the monitor does get out of sleep too late, so the loglevel=7 effect can only be seen on extra serial console, whereas with the UEFI bootloader, the HDMI gets always initalized properly, so before kernel is loaded.

Note that this is with booting via grub. So with EDK2-UEFI v1.1 bootloader, I get a normal Debian graphical kernel selection menu, like on x86-64. With Opensuse Tumbleweed it is slightly different, as that also automatically duplicates on serial console (if 't' is pressed , from 'text'). So this is actually quite ideal. The only disadvantage is that it does not want to store boot entries (but works on ROCK5B in SPI-flash).

I probably need an own build on SD-card first to see how 2026.01 (or later) can do the same as EDK2-UEFI v1.1 more or less.

I should note that with EDK2-UEFI v1.1 bootloader, I do not load the DTB that comes with the kernel version. I used the setting 'vendor' or 'mainline' in the UEFI settings, that gets stored well actually. Now with the 25.8.1 U-Boot, I manually added a devitree loader line in grub.cfg, but that will be overwritten, so need to see what makes sense.

Board: NanoPi R6S

I've flashed armbian OS via armbian imager tool + microSD card and installed the os into emmc using armbian-install.

Os was working fine then i realize that the minimum required kernel drivers are not available (npu/tpu/gpu).

I have tried to install more than a dozen operating systems including that I used before, but the booting process doesn't work.

After lots of try I realized that only armbian os is getting booted from the SD card.

Mask button which should bypass emmc and force to boot from microSD card is not working after flashing armbian os.

I couldn't connect the NanoPi R6S via USB A to A link for direct flashing.

When i flash os other than armbian, it does not boot and no output at HDMI.

When MASK button is pressed before boot, the device seems using somewhat 3W current and stays on with red led, connected keybords will get power but no HDMI output.

How to restore the bootloader and other required partitions with its original version so that i can start booting os other than armbian.

Please help.

Could someone point me to a guide that allows me to get similar performance with Armbian as I am getting with FriendlyElec?

Thanks bunch in advance!

When I run 

speaker-test -c6 -D plughw:0,0

on

(kernel) 6.1.115-vendor-rk35xx
+
(dtb) dtb-6.1.115-vendor-rk35xx

Everything is mapped correctly and I hear audio from all the correct channels.

When I run the same command on 

(kernel) 6.18.12-current-rockchip64
+
(dtb) dtb-6.18.12-current-rockchip64

I get no audio on center and rear right channels (others are working).

Is this a mistake or error in the DTB file of dtb-6.18.12-current-rockchip64 (rk3588s-nanopi-r6s.dtb) ?

How can we correct this?

commands:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade -y
sudo cp -p /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list.bak
sudo sed -i 's,bookworm,trixie,g' /etc/apt/sources.list
sudo cp -p /etc/apt/sources.list.d/armbian.list /etc/apt/sources.list.d/armbian.list.bak 
sudo sed -i 's,bookworm,trixie,g' /etc/apt/sources.list.d/armbian.list
sudo apt dist-upgrade

/etc/apt/sources.list :

deb http://deb.debian.org/debian trixie main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
# deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian trixie main contrib non-free non-free-firmware

deb http://deb.debian.org/debian trixie-updates main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
# deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian trixie-updates main contrib non-free non-free-firmware

deb http://deb.debian.org/debian trixie-backports main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
# deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian trixie-backports main contrib non-free non-free-firmware

deb http://security.debian.org/ trixie-security main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
# deb-src http://security.debian.org/ trixie-security main contrib non-free non-free-firmware

/etc/apt/sources.list.d/armbian.list:

deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/armbian.gpg] http://beta.armbian.com trixie main trixie-utils trixie-desktop

But I'm stuck on edge kernel 6.12.x, I saw that rolling had 6.16.x. So how do I install/convert to the rolling 6.16.x edge kernel ?

#  echo freeze > /sys/power/state 
[   54.373374] PM: suspend entry (s2idle)
[   54.671033] Filesystems sync: 0.297 seconds
[   54.775176] Freezing user space processes
[   54.780065] Freezing user space processes completed (elapsed 0.004 seconds)
[   54.780769] OOM killer disabled.
[   54.781078] Freezing remaining freezable tasks
[   54.782928] Freezing remaining freezable tasks completed (elapsed 0.001 seconds)
[   54.791332] r8169 0002:01:00.0 wan1: Link is Down

I am at a loss how to diagnose this further. To me it appears that there is some vital power-source to CPU or RAM switched off.

Here is the default Armbian /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules

SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", DRIVERS=="?*", KERNELS=="fe1c0000.ethernet", NAME:="wan"
SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", DRIVERS=="r8169", KERNELS=="0003:31:00.0", NAME:="lan1"
SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", DRIVERS=="r8169", KERNELS=="0004:41:00.0", NAME:="lan2"

This does not match up with the labels on the case!

Here is the correct config we have updated and tested on a NanoPi R6S at Afritic Group:

SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", DRIVERS=="?*", KERNELS=="fe1c0000.ethernet", NAME:="lan2"
SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", DRIVERS=="r8169", KERNELS=="0003:31:00.0", NAME:="wan"
SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", DRIVERS=="r8169", KERNELS=="0004:41:00.0", NAME:="lan1"

So now with this updated config, the internal and external names match up!