Hi, I have an oldish media center that I wanted to install linux on

 

    Mini M8S II 
    4K Smart TV Box Android Amlogic S905X (p212)

 

I went to https://github.com/armbian/community#optimized and used Etcher to create this image Armbian_23.05.0-trunk-e33842ef2_Aml-s9xx-box_lunar_edge_6.2.9_xfce_desktop.img

 

I followed this tutorial to get the boot process running

 

 

 

commenting out the p212.dtb entry which seems to be the correct one for my board. 

 

It seemed to be going well, that is, the Armbian image booted the splash screen and I went through the various prompts to set the language, locale, timezone, wifi, and root/user credentials. After this the screen went blank. I waited about 15 minutes and nothing. There was no prompt to install the system. 

So I rebooted, got the Armbian image loading screen and afterwards, the screen is blank again. 

 

Any advice?

 

Thanks.

moved to correct forum

Welcome to Armbian.

I would suggest you read:

https://forum.armbian.com/topic/16976-status-of-armbian-on-tv-boxes-please-read-first

and

https://forum.armbian.com/topic/17106-installation-instructions-for-tv-boxes-with-amlogic-cpus

 

 

As for your question, I would recommend using a stable build not a development build.  Also if that doesn't work, try a server (CLI) build.  I've been seeing reports in the forums about hdmi not working across different builds when running desktop builds.

Thanks. I'm currently trying to put the jammy image on the sd card with etcher but keep getting errors. I checked the sha hash and it matches up, so I'm a bit stumped. 

Ok, so it turned out to be my SD card. I reformatted it and then tried again with etcher. It worked first time. 

So I had the same issue, but now you mention about the HDMI issue, I noticed it ended with, "now going to load the desktop mode", then my TV reported the HDMI ext number and is stuck on that. I guess the desktop is there, but something stops the signal from getting through. 

 

I have a vague memory of the Raspberry Pi having a similar issue, but can't remember the solution, but it was probably some setting on the boot parameter. If I find a solution, I will announce it on the forum. 

Edited April 8, 20233 yr by iamnotanumber10

In looking at past threads on this box, I would suggest trying other dtb files (if your box is s905x, try all the meson-gxl-s905x-* )

Thanks for the tips. I got it working with the original settings. The HDMI monitor I was testing it on was my TV, because my PC monitor is VGA only. On the TV, I was plugged into HDMI ext 3, but I noticed when I plugged it into HDMI ext 1 it showed the desktop, so at least it's booting to desktop. However this method is a bit hit and miss. If I was running it on a standard HDMI monitor for PCs, it would probably work much better. 

 

Overall the performance was better than I expected, especially since it was running from an SD card and not installed on the device's internal storage, which I suppose would be faster. Video playback was a bit choppy, but then again, I would use this for more code like tasks, perhaps. Also getting a monitor with a lower resolution might also help. 

 

 

Edited April 9, 20233 yr by iamnotanumber10