Major kernel upgrade, moving to HA infrastructure, many improvements and fixes

20.08.2020. It has been three months since our last major release. During this period we developed many new features, fixed numerous of bugs and several projects are stretched are prolonging into the future.

Our primary focus remains in most difficult areas:

  • low-level support
  • basic device functionality
  • stability

If you want to improve board support, welcome to join the project. There are many issues, tasks and wishes opened by community, by you. We are just a few and our time is limited. We can't possible solve them without your help:

Finished projects

  • [AR-45] - Make first login more user friendly
  • [AR-71] - Create a document: How we will use Jira
  • [AR-182] - Unify / merge kernel configs
  • [AR-201] - Introduce CI autotest facility
  • [AR-227] - Move Espressobin current to K5.6
  • [AR-313] - Ability to work in offline mode
  • [AR-320] - Initial support for Rockpi E
  • [AR-324] - Add Rockchip RK322X SoC support
  • [AR-328] - Meson64 move current to 5.7.y
  • [AR-329] - Switch sunxi dev target to kernel 5.7
  • [AR-331] - Enable kernel boot splash as an option
  • [AR-335] - Improve patch making
  • [AR-392] - Add Odroid N2+
  • [AR-402] - Add Helios64

Solved bugs

  • [AR-282] - Rockpi 4B 1Gb doesn't boot modern kernel / u-boot
  • [AR-295] - Odroid C2: no more USB devices after upgrade
  • [AR-298] - Missing default SElinux policy
  • [AR-303] - Create a download page for BPI M2 zero
  • [AR-305] - K-worker creates load on Allwinner devices
  • [AR-319] - Armbian config failed to switch kernels
  • [AR-330] - Shell check bugs
  • [AR-332] - When making all kernels - building sometimes fails
  • [AR-337] - Odroid XU4 Memcopy Slow on all Kernel 5.x 80MB/sec instead of 370+MB/sec
  • [AR-338] - Bananapi R2 does not boot at all
  • [AR-340] - Fix WiFi on Nanopi M4V2
  • [AR-348] - Confirm RK3399 TcpOffloading bug
  • [AR-352] - Fix Random MAC on H3 boards
  • [AR-354] - Support User Provided EDID Firmware
  • [AR-355] - backport Linux v5.8 fbtft/fb_st7789v invert colors, proper gamma
  • [AR-356] - Building multiple u-boot targets breaks
  • [AR-371] - CPU frequency scaling broken on H6
  • [AR-378] - Increase address room for initial ramdisk
  • [AR-381] - selinux-policy-default missing on Debian Bullseye
  • [AR-393] - Ask for setting locale at first run

Closed tasks

  • [AR-28] - Added new GCC compilers
  • [AR-225] - Introduce PACKAGE_LIST for BOARD and FAMILY
  • [AR-300] - Enable HDMI audio for OrangePi 4
  • [AR-317] - Move Odroid XU4 dev to mainline + patches
  • [AR-318] - Upgrade Odroid XU4 legacy kernel
  • [AR-321] - Upgrade Meson (C1) current to 5.7.y
  • [AR-323] - Allow install to SD NAND for Rockpi S
  • [AR-326] - Make USB3 support of ROCK Pi E on par with other rk3328 boards
  • [AR-327] - Bump imx6 current kernel to 5.7.y
  • [AR-333] - Update Odroid XU4 kernels
  • [AR-334] - Cleanup boot environment files
  • [AR-336] - Add support for cheap 2.5GB USB network dongles
  • [AR-341] - Follow-up N2 CPU Affinity
  • [AR-349] - Update mainline u-boot to v2020.07 for rockchip64 and rk3399
  • [AR-357] - IRQ affinity improvements for G12B
  • [AR-358] - Added initial support for Neo 3
  • [AR-361] - Update Odroid XU4 boot.ini
  • [AR-362] - HDMI sound support for Allwinner A10, A20, A31
  • [AR-364] - Change sunxi legacy to 5.4.y, current to 5.7.y
  • [AR-366] - Move rockchip/64 current to 5.7.y
  • [AR-383] - Upgrades for Tapatalk plugin
  • [AR-389] - Add PACKAGE_LIST_BOARD_REMOVE option

Infrastructure improvements

We moved our download infrastructure to HA servers hosted by Innoscale.NET, introduce load balancer and added a few download mirrors with help from Fosshost and we added SWAG store http://swag.armbian.com/

Future

Next planned release is November 2020 with minor bug fix releases in between. Please report all bugs to designated bug tracking forum sections. Your help is highly appreciated!

A special thanks goes to the contributors, sponsors and all sympathisers who supports Armbian with their ideas, questions and resources.

Our primary goal is to reinforce overstressed volunteer crew with professionals.