Documentation SD writing tool Buy board FAQs

Gearbest
No official support (CSC)

Armbian Buster
legacy kernel 4.4.y

Multimedia and desktop usage scenarios.
High level of software maturity
Torrent download Direct download

Armbian Bionic
desktop legacy kernel 4.4.y

Multimedia and desktop usage scenarios.
High level of software maturity
Torrent download Direct download
Check other download options
  • UART is possible to solder to this TV box and is accessible with unusual speed: 1500000
  • Video and 3D acceleration addon
  • Images are optimized and tested on 2GB / 16GB eMMC / 1000TX LAN version
  • Clocking to maximum safe CPU speed (1.51Ghz) is possible this way: 
    sed -i "s/MAX_SPEED=.*/MAX_SPEED=1510000/" /etc/default/cpufrequtils 
service cpufrequtils restart

    Make sure to install large heatsink!

Preparation:

  1. Download and unpack flasher for Linux
  2. Download and unpack the desired armbian image
  3. Unpack and copy armbian .img file into z28_linux_flasher/image/armbian.img

Flashing:

  1. Short a resistor with tweezers as shown in the picture and attach USB A-A cable to the edge USB2.0 port at the same time
  2. Your device should be switched to maskrom mode and become ready for flashing. This is indicated as new USB device: Bus 003 Device 007: ID 2207:320c
  3. Go to z28_linux_flasher and execute: sudo ./flash_tool.sh -c rk3328 -p system -i image/armbian.img
  4. You should see running % from 0 to 100% and the process should be done in a few minutes:
    PARTITIONS OFFSET: 0 sectors.
    Downloading bootloader succeeded.
    Write LBA from file (100%)
    Reset Device OK.
  5. Unplug cables and power the board.

Specifications

1000tx 2GB 4 core 64bit docker eMMC usb3 wireguard Rockchip RK3328

* 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.

Tested 3rd party hardware

All download options

VariantSupportedKernelMirrorsSizeLast modified
 
Buster server4.4    .torrent 308 Mb2019-07-16
Buster desktop4.4    .torrent 600 Mb2019-07-16
Stretch server4.4    .torrent 283 Mb2019-02-10
Stretch desktop4.4    .torrent 556 Mb2019-02-10
Bionic server4.4    .torrent 200 Mb2019-07-16
Bionic desktop4.4    .torrent 434 Mb2019-07-16