espressobin
Documentation Hardware details SD writing tool Buy board FAQs

Globalscale
Supported
supported

Armbian Buster
mainline based kernel 4.19.y

High level of software maturity
Torrent download Direct download
supported

Armbian Stretch
mainline based kernel 4.19.y

High level of software maturity
Torrent download Direct download
Check other download options
  • manual flashing to latest u-boot is mandatory! Download the right boot flash for your board: 512,1G,2G, number of RAM chips (if your board is older than a few months it has two RAM chips – one on each side of the PCB opposite to each other. Recent 1GB models have only one chip at the bottom) and appropriate memory speeds. You can obtain numbers from the current boot prompt. Also choose right memory: ddr3 are for V3-V5 EspressoBin’s (i.e. V5, 1g-2cs) and ddr4 images are for v7 EspressoBin’s. Insert ‘ddr3’ or ‘ddr4’ into the bubt command string. Copy this flash-image-ddr3/ddr4-MEM-RAM_CHIPS-CPU_DDR.bin to your FAT formatted USB key, plug it into USB3.0 port and execute from u-boot prompt: 
    bubt flash-image-ddr3/ddr4-MEM-RAM_CHIPS-CPU_DDR.bin spi usb

    In case you experience instability reflash boot loader with lower CPU speed values!

  • Updated u-boot needs new default boot environment and new boot script (overwrite the one on your /boot media – needed only if you upgrade from < v5.59). This is what you need to copy/paste into u-boot prompt: 
    env default -a
setenv fdt_addr 0x6000000
setenv kernel_addr 0x7000000
setenv loadaddr 0x8000000
setenv initrd_size 0x2000000
setenv initrd_addr 0x1100000
setenv scriptaddr 0x6d00000
setenv initrd_image uInitrd
setenv image_name Image
setenv boot_targets 'usb sata mmc1 mmc0'
setenv boot_prefixes '/ /boot/'
setenv bootcmd_mmc0 'setenv devnum 0; setenv boot_interface mmc; run scan_dev_for_boot;'
setenv bootcmd_mmc1 'setenv devnum 1; setenv boot_interface mmc; run scan_dev_for_boot;'
setenv bootcmd_sata 'setenv devnum 0; scsi scan; scsi dev 0; setenv boot_interface scsi; run scan_dev_for_boot;'
setenv bootcmd_usb 'setenv devnum 0; usb start;setenv boot_interface usb; run scan_dev_for_boot;'
setenv bootcmd 'for target in ${boot_targets}; do run bootcmd_${target}; done'
setenv scan_dev_for_boot 'for prefix in ${boot_prefixes}; do echo ${prefix};run boot_a_script; done'
setenv boot_a_script 'ext4load ${boot_interface} ${devnum}:1 ${scriptaddr} ${prefix}boot.scr;source ${scriptaddr};'
saveenv
# Including this line to make sure saveenv is executed.
  • Boot priority with this script is: 1. USB, 2. SATA, 3. SD card, 4. eMMC
  • If you manage to crash your SPI flash, get appropriate files and proceed with one of the rescue options: SATA, UART,
  • UART console is broken on legacy kernel 4.14.y
  • if you need USB2 port on your mPCI slot (for Bluetooth or 4G/LTE modems) you need to move both jumpers near to the USB2 port. Position for this function is: away from the port.

Specifications

1000tx 2 core 2GB 64bit docker eMMC i2c mpci sata spi spi flash switch usb3 wireguard Marvell A3700

* Specifications differ from hardware revision, model and software support level

FAQs

We provide CLI (command line interface) images first. If the software is stable enough we add the option to upgrade to XFCE desktop. The Build-System relies on  Debian and Ubuntu. The availability of different images may vary, most of the time because of driver restriction. Sometimes we provide only testing images. All images can be built from sources at any time and in rare cases, where you can't find an image which you need, you can build one.
Preparation Make sure you have a good & reliable SD card and a proper power supply. Archives can be uncompressed with 7-Zip on Windows, Keka on OS X and 7z on Linux (apt-get install p7zip-full). RAW images can be written with Etcher (all OS). Boot Insert the SD card into the slot, connect a cable to your network if possible or a display and power your board. (First) boot (with DHCP) takes up to 35 seconds with a class 10 SD Card. Login Log in as: root  Password: 1234. Then you are prompted to change this password (US-Keyboard setting). When done, you are asked to create a normal user-account for your everyday tasks.
SUPPORTED devices are tested and they work apart from known issues and missing features. Support is provided as far as possible (in general there is no support for 3rd party hardware like DVB tuners and software like Kodi). Please check the documentation and existing forum posts before posting a question. Questions on private channels are ignored. SUITABLE FOR TESTING (WIP) are devices which we’re currently working on but they are not ready! These images are suitable for developers and experienced users. They are not very well tested but they might work without any problems. Your help to improve this situation is greatly appreciated. SUPPORT ENDED (EOS) status are devices which used to be supported in the past. Reasons for moving to this section:
  • no active software development (mainline u-boot and kernel)
  • no support from the vendor (hardware samples, documentation, software packages)
  • never was sold, only samples in small quantities were available
  • hardware design flaws don’t allow using these devices without stability issues
Support status:
  • images are stable but we don’t test updating,
  • images are provided with no support,
  • most images have frozen kernel and u-boot packages to prevent their upgrades.
NO OFFICIAL SUPPORT (CSC) are devices which are supported by the 3rd party. We usually don't have hardware samples nor conduct any tests but they might work. There is no support whatsoever.
Each supported Armbian image can be made from scratch – from latest kernel and u-boot sources, updated upstream packages and our most recent bug fixes and improvements. Supported build environment for SDK is Ubuntu Bionic 18.04 x64 but you can run it containerised virtually on any X64 based Linux distribution under Docker. You can re-make live bootable image or just a kernel+dtb(hardware configuration) package which you transfer to your image and install with: dpkg -i linux-image-[branch]-family.deb linux-dtb-[branch]-family.deb. In that process you can enforce many customization. To the kernel or user space. Read more.

Tested 3rd party hardware

All download options

VariantSupportedKernelMirrorsSizeLast modified
 
Buster server4.19    .torrent 308 Mb2019-07-15
Stretch server4.19    .torrent 285 Mb2019-02-09
Bionic server4.19    .torrent 196 Mb2019-07-06