Reviews, Tutorials, Hardware hacks

Anyone ever dealt with OpenMediaVault (OMV) on SBC? Great piece of software but pretty slow, right? One of the many reasons why that happened are outdated crappy kernels and bad settings. I looked at an OMV image for A20 based boards like Banana Pi Pro recently, ended up here http://simplenas.com/download/bananas-simple-system and simply thought: Are you kidding me? Your stable release is based on horribly outdated Debian Wheezy, a kernel 3.4.something and a 2.x OMV release?! What a mess... Igor had an OMV install routine since a long time in his Debian-micro-home-server post-processing script but since an Armbian user evaluated using Armbian's build system to…

Requirements Fresh enough nighly or manually built image Latest kernel and dtb packages (26.03.2017 or newer) Limitations As stated in other PWM related threads, hardware PWM output is supported only on pin PA5 which is also UART0 ("debug" serial console) RX pin, so enabling PWM will disable this console. Activation Add "pwm" to "overlays" line in /boot/armbianEnv.txt Example: overlays=pwm Reboot is required to apply the changes Armbian overlays documentation: https://docs.armbian.com/User-Guide_Allwinner_overlays/ PWM sysfs interface Official documentation: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux…

As already done with other topics this will be the start of a new thread collecting more information over time. Since we had a lot of annoying discussions recently regarding Wi-Fi on Orange Pi Zero and in general I thought let's give it a try a few days ago. I did some preparations in the meantime (monitoring 24/7 Wi-Fi throughput in 2.4 GHz band for example) and then started to test in a not too crowded environment here. As a start some quick Wi-Fi tests with a random 'quality' USB Wi-Fi dongle and 3 different Wi-Fi chipsets that can be found an a few boards Armbian supports: RTL8192CU (used on a lot of cheap USB dongles and even on …

With USB camera and Bluetooth headset, mouse and keyboard.

UPDATE 11-FEB-2017: Version 2.2.0 is released: now including video recording in stead of only images and also a privacy option to black out areas that may not be filmed. UPDATE 09-FEB-2017: Version 2.2.1 is released: memory leak(s) fixed and in some cases video stopped recording. This should be fixed now. Download via this page. Kerberos.io (link) is a relative new video surveillance program focusing mainly on the Raspberry Pi. In collaboration with the owner of the github project I managed to get it working on my Orange Pi Plus and PCDuino3 nano using Armbian (Debian Jessie) and a Logitech UVC compatible USB webcam. It consists of 2 modules: the Machiner…

If you follow https://github.com/ejurgensen/forked-daapd you will get a lot of error-messages. Here is guide to install it on your Orange Pi Pc (Debian Jessie), sudo apt-get install build-essential git autotools-dev autoconf libtool gettext gawk gperf \ antlr3 libantlr3c-dev libconfuse-dev libunistring-dev libsqlite3-dev \ libavcodec-dev libavformat-dev libavfilter-dev libswscale-dev libavutil-dev \ libasound2-dev libmxml-dev libgcrypt11-dev libavahi-client-dev zlib1g-dev \ libevent-dev for Armbian you need some little extras installed sudo apt-get install libcurl4-gnutls-dev sudo apt-get install libjson0 libjson0-dev sudo apt-get install…

Questions and answers about powering the Orange Pi Zero using the "Power over Ethernet" option. The aim is to answer community questions about Power Over Ethernet options (both official 802.3af/at and unofficial "PoE" solutions) and to improve the wiki page with these answers: http://linux-sunxi.org/Xunlong_Orange_Pi_Zero Helpful links: http://linux-sunxi.org/Xunlong_Orange_Pi_Zero#Powering_the_board https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_over_Ethernet https://forum.armbian.com/index.php/topic/1762-new-oranges-with-h5-and-h2/page-2#entry19054 Examples of standards-compliant PoE hardware: 802.3af switch: …

There have been several disjointed tutorials on making a raspberrypi or orangepi into a surveillance camera. So I threw this together to maybe help someone out there with any issues. I used the orangepipc+ but any orangepi board should work as long as it has the basics, internet connectivity, storage, and a camera. (I highly suggest heatsinks as well) any feedback or enhancements to this tutorial are greatly appreciated. ------------------------------------------------------------------ ORANGEPI IPCAMERA ------------------------------------------------------------------ su root apt-get update apt-get upgrade apt-get install …

Hi All, After I accomplished my IR Red Key Rick Rolling experiment the other day with much success, and from general end-luser use with Armbian, there were two things which irritated me, which are namely due to the default ALSA configuration that comes with stock Debian and that Armbian inherits. These were: Update: 11 September 2017. This guide will not work for newer Armbiam (Debian) installations which comes with Pulseaudio by default. If you really want what this tutorial provides, you will need to uninstall pulseaudio first: sudo apt-get remove pulseaudio 1) You can't have simultaneous applications using an Audio device. So, how ab…

Note: Guide Updated May 2017, as I realise that /dev/input/event3 may not always be the IR receiver device on your armbian installation. Hi All, I recently bought an Orange PI PC and the best thing I ever did was install Armbian straight away (and donate). Now that I have a bit of spare time, I wanted to configure my Orange PI PC to do something ridiculous like play Rick Ashley 'Never going to give you up' upon pressing the 'red button' on some generic Chinese IR remote for an LED light strip I have in my living room. Thanks to Armbian, most of the pieces are in place (such as the SunXI IR package) with the distribution, you just need t…

Since I've seen some really weird disk/IO benchmarks made on SBCs the last days and both a new SBC and a new SSD arrived in the meantime I thought let's give it a try with a slightly better test setup. I tested with 4 different SoC/SBC: NanoPi M3 with an octa-core S5P6818 Samsung/Nexell SoC, ODROID-C2 featuring a quad-core Amlogic S905, Orange Pi PC with a quad-core Allwinner H3 and an old Banana Pi Pro with a dual-core A20. The device considered the slowest (dual-core A20 with just 960 MHz clockspeed) is the fastest in reality when it's about disk IO. Since most if not all storage 'benchmarks' for SBC moronically focus on sequential transfer speeds o…

Here is a short instruction how to enable S/PDIF digital audio output on NanoPI M1 board running Debian Jessie with legacy kernel. This instruction can be applied to other H3 based boards but connect S/PDIF output hardware to GPIOA17 can be tricky (soldering miniature camera connector pins). Operations can be done over serial console or ssh. Login as root Get a .fex file and open it in editor: bin2fex /boot/script.bin /tmp/script.fex nano /tmp/script.fex Search a csi0 (camera) section an disable it: [csi0] vip_used = 0 Search a S/PDIF section and enable it: [spdif0] spdif_used = 1 Get the name of t…

The following is the start of a series of tests regarding minimized consumption mode for SBCs. Idea behind is to provide Armbian settings that allow some of the SBC we support to be used as cheap and low-power IoT nodes (or call it 'home automation' or anything else, at least it's about low-power and headless useage) I start with some consumption comparisons with various RPi models below just to get a baseline of numbers and to verify that my consumption monitoring setup is ok. Also you find a lot of numbers on the net that are questionable (measured with inappropriate equipment, comparing OS images with different settings, taking cable resistance not into acco…

Let's start with a weird image first: In the plastic box is an Olimex A20-Lime2, a 2.5" HDD with 2TB and Olimex' largest battery with 6600mAh. Mounted on the top cover (box standing on the side) is a Banana Pi M2+ (to be replaced with NanoPi M1 or OPi One/PC in the future) Why Lime2? Since this board from our friends at Olimex is designed intelligently and provides DC-DC step-up converters on the board providing the ability to power also the connected SATA disk when running from battery (unlike most other A10/A20 boards that do only provide 5V on USB ports in battery mode but not to the disk!). And since A20 is perfectly supported by ma…

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The following is a short overview what you can expect from small and big H3 devices when used as a NAS. I chose the least capable device (OPi Lite for $12: not even Ethernet and just 512MB DRAM) and the best possible (OPi Plus 2E for $35: GBit Ethernet, 3 USB host ports exposed that do not have to share bandwidth, 2GB DRAM). I wanted to test also a H3 device in between with 1GB DRAM but since results are somewhat predictable I dropped the whole idea (the performance bottleneck on all Fast Ethernet equipped devices will be network unless you add the $7.50 for an USB-Ethernet dongle -- see below -- and all other Gbit Ethernet capable H3 devices are not…

TL;DR: All available H3 boards do not differ that much. But the few differences sometimes really matter! The following is an attempt to compare the different available H3 SBC that are supported by Armbian. The majority of boards is made by Xunlong but in the meantime two more vendors started cloning the Xunlong boards (and also Olimex is preparing H3 boards as OSHW). Both Foxconn/SinoVoip with their Banana Pi M2+ and FriendlyARM with their NanoPi M1 tried really hard to copy everything as exact as possible (the so called pin mappings -- how the many contacts the used H3 SoC is providing are routed to the outside). All the boards share the same 40 pi…

Relax - Wireless is solved for OPI ONE There seems to be a lot of confusion and missing information on how to access the dirt cheap OPI ONE wirelessly and the steps necessary to successfully use cheap Realtek USB dongles ( 8188cus, 8188eu ) with Armbian_5.10. This is a short summary of the needed materials and steps to turn your OPI ONE into a wireless client or wireless AP. There are NO custom kernels, custom modules or anything else needed, we are using stock Armbian_5.10 with stock kernel, stock modules and stock software to configure wireless access for select tested and working Realtek wifi dongles. Follow the steps without variati…

http://forum.odroid.com/viewtopic.php?f=138&t=20972

Here is a list of Tech watch links, feel free to add useful links please. News Single Board Computers and Virtual Private Servers CNXSoft Embedded Systems News Orange Pi facebook group YouTubers MickMake GreatScott EEVblog kicker22004 Brian Greul David Watts Kaspars Dambis

Is OPI ONE a toy or a toy ? Yes and yes and a fun one too ! The following experiment shows the OPI ONE in use as a Virtual Desktop Server AND Virtual Desktop Client. Setup as Virtual Desktop Server ( remotely access headless OPI ONE desktop ) OPI ONE : install xrdp and tightvncserver <clients> : install and configure remote desktop ( rdesktop on linux, aRDP on android - not yet tested on OS-X or WIN ) Setup as Virtual Desktop Client ( OPI ONE securely accesses a remote linux desktop ) OPI ONE : install x2goclient <server> : install x2goserver on linux server ( physical or virtual ) of choice…

Is not important, and is a topic related to desktop environment and I know that armbian is more a server OS than a dektop replacement ... but I'm stuck trying to have all the environment in my mother language, Spanish. I change locale in root user and in the additionally created desktop user, I use dpkg-reconfigure locales locales and also export LANGUAGE=es_ES.UTF-8 but after reboot is again in English. And also when I update and upgrade the system I can see Translation-en logs but never a Translation-es. Is there any chance to do a better localization of the Desktop Environment? Thanks.

Overview: SinoVoip sent me a few days ago a review sample of their new Banana Pi M2+. It's based on Allwinner's H3 SoC and tries very hard to be a 99% clone of Orange Pi Plus/PC. SinoVoip chose to stay compatible to nearly all pin mappings therefore any OS image that works on Orange Pi Plus will also work on BPi M2+ but some things need adjustments. BPi M2+ features GBit Ethernet, eMMC, 2 USB host ports and one USB OTG that do not have to share bandwidth (no internal USB hub used and H3's 3rd USB host port unused unfortunately), Ampak AP6212 to provide WiFI/BT, fortunately no crappy USB-to-SATA bridge, a CSI interface to be used together with an OV…

Warning: This whole thread is only about historical information now since it's 2018 and we can buy inexpensive and great performing A1 rated SD cards in the meantime. Buying anything else is a mistake so directly jump to the end of the thread for performance numbers and recommendations. Edit: See an early 2017 update at the end of the thread regarding new SD specs also covering random IO performance. Edit 2: Some thoughts/observations on lifespan/reliability of SBC storage: http://tech.scargill.net/a-question-of-lifespan/ (see also/especially the comments there) Edit 3: CNX Software picked up recent performance reports (eg…

Hallo, this Mini-Howto describes how to change the behavior of the onboard LEDs during booting. There are many ways to do that. Two ways are shown here, a SysV style using /etc/rc.local and a systemd style using a configuration file in /etc/tmpfiles.d/. The systemd file is earlier interpreted than rc.local. It is tested on Banana Pi M1*/M2/R1 with Debian jessie next (5.0x, 4.4.x). * partly Which LEDs could be accessed? root@bananapim2:~# ls -1 /sys/class/leds/ bpi-m2:blue:usr bpi-m2:green:usr bpi-m2:red:usr * The Banana Pi M1 lists the blue LED but it couldn't be set via /etc/tmpfiles.d/ or /etc/rc.local. Which beh…

tkaiser has built a new Kernel with i2s Modules. With this Kernel and some cheap DAC e.g. (http://www.ebay.de/itm/Audiophonics-I2S-DAC-ES9023-Sabre-to-Analog-24bit-192KHZ-fur-Raspberry-PI-/291573327639?hash=item43e31fe717:g:TTwAAOSw~OdVZXtm) it is possible to get good quality sound out of the Orange Pis. After installing the Kernel Two Things have to be changed in the fex File: Change Directory to boot: cd /boot Turn the script.bin to a fex-File and open it in an Editor sudo bin2fex script.bin script.fex sudo nano script.fex Now change the following Entries: [twi1] twi_used = 1 to [twi1] twi_used = 0 and [pcm0] daudi…

Orange Pi One PCB is designed to easy add almost all removed features from Orange Pi PC. Currently only RAM expansion is unprofitable. To add 2 removed USB ports just solder wires to solder points as shown below on the photo: Data lines for USB #3: points 1,2 Data lines for USB #2: points 3,4 Power can be taken directly from GPIO header or DC socket. OPiOne has no separate voltage regulators for USB ports like previous boards used to have. This way I want to solder mini WiFi dongle (after removing the case and USB port) directly to the PCB.

We included in Armbian a small utility called h3disp. If called without arguments it displays just a usage information: tk@orangepipc:~$ sudo h3disp [sudo] password for tk: Usage: h3disp [-h/-H] -m [video mode] [-d] [-c [0-2]] ############################################################################ This is a tool to set the display resolution of your Orange Pi by patching script.bin. In case you use an HDMI-to-DVI converter please use the -d switch. The resolution can be set using the -m switch. The following resolutions are currently supported: 480i use "-m 480i" or "-m 0" 576i use "-m 576i" or "-m 1" 480p use "-m 480p" or "-m 2" 576p …

The Orange Pi One is the most recent SBC from Xunlong. It's clearly the Orange Pi PC's little sibling. In case you haven't read the PC's review already maybe it's time to do it now since here only important differences will be shown. Since it's based on an Allwinner SoC (system on chip) please keep in mind that you will always find the most comprehensive and up-to-date information in the linux-sunxi wiki: http://linux-sunxi.org/Orange_Pi_One The most important differences between One and PC as follows: Smaller size: the PC used the RPi form factor (85mm x 55mm) while the One is just 69mm x 48mm in size 512MiB instead of 1GiB DRAM (still two DDR3L modules making u…

Clearfog PRO with R1 in the back After a day of playing, I am running full featured Armbian, Debian Wheezy, built with Armbian script from sources. We had to fix few things in U-boot and upgraded kernel to .82 but generally it was easy to boot the board. Of course SolidRun also provide some basic images. Three(3) phys, USB and PCI is detected in kernel 3.10.82 - I don't have much hardware to plug in so I can't do much tests at this point. There is no CPU governor (yet?), so I assume it's running full speed (1.6Ghz) all the time. There are dip switches on the board to set cpu / dram speed ... ____ _ __ / ___| | ___ __ _ _ __ / _|…

Another look at another SBC: The Orange Pi PC from Shenzen based Xunlong. The company claims to have done the original ODM work for Banana Pi as Foxconn contractor and started with 2 'Orange Pi' models based on the same A20 SoC shortly thereafter: 'Orange Pi' and 'Orange Pi Mini' -- both supported by Armbian from the beginning. Then they released the 'Orange Pi Plus' based on a newer Allwinner SoC: the H3 (quad-core Cortex-A7 running at 1.2GHz). This SoC is intended for dirt-cheap OTT boxes, is equipped with 4 independent USB 2.0 PHYs and also an integrated 100 Mbits/sec Ethernet PHY (but can still provide GBit Ethernet using an external PHY like RTL8211 as Xunlong i…

Hello everyone! Is there anyone who tried to run Docker on armbian? Ok, let's start from the beginning: I am from the Hypriot Team (we made Docker available on ARM) and recently saw some guys successfully playing with Docker on armbian. Meanwhile, we know, that our Docker runs at least on the Cubietrack and Lamobo R1/BananaPi R1 on top of armbian! This is awesome because, you know, IoT is coming, and Docker on ARM helps get a grip on many challenges induced by IoT. However, we were only able to support Docker on Raspberry Pis so far... Imagine if Docker would run on more than just a few ARM boards! Armbian seems an awesome platform to …

Overview (Disclaimer: The following is for techies only that like to dig a bit deeper. And if you're not interested in energy-efficient servers then probably this is just a waste of time ) EDIT: Half a year after this poorly designed SBC has been released just one of the many design flaws has been fixed: Micro USB for DC-IN has been replaced by the barrel jack that was present on the pre-production batches. If you were unfortunate to get a Micro USB equipped M3 please have a look here how to fix this. Apart from that check the Banana forums what to expect regarding software/support first since this is your only source) Sin…