Linux for ARM development boards

Welcome to the Armbian Documentation!¶

If you are new to Armbian, the Getting Started section provides a tutorial for everything you need to get Armbian running and answers many **F**requently **A**sked **Q**uestions. It then continues on to more advanced topics.

If you need help and have read through Getting Started check out Troubleshooting.

If you still cannot find what you need here visit the Armbian forum where your input can help to improve this documentation.

What is Armbian?¶

Armbian is a base operating system platform for single board computers (SBCs) that other projects can trust to build upon.

Lightweight Debian or Ubuntu based Linux distribution specialized for ARM development boards
Each system is compiled, assembled and optimized by Armbian Build Tools
It has powerful build and software development tools to make custom builds
A vibrant community

What is the difference between Armbian and Debian/Ubuntu?¶

Debian or Ubuntu officially do not support most of those boards/boxes. Armbian does.
Armbian userspace has many small but vital performance or security adjustments
Armbian fancy some kernel development and a lot of its maintaining. Debian relies on upstream sources for ARM hardware which can be years behind and/or lack of many functions
Armbian userspace is lean, clean but 100% Debian/Ubuntu compatible
Many stock Debian bugs are fixed on the way, “better than original :)”
The Armbian build system is a central part of this whole ecosystem. You can DIY. Debian is much harder.
Dedicated support forums per boards/boxes
Plug’n’Play vs. complicated install scenarios on stock Debian
unified development scenarios and user experience vs. mess of different setup instructions scattered all around

Common features¶

Armbian Linux is available as Debian and Ubuntu based images, compiled from scratch
Images are reduced to actual data size and automatically expand across the SDcard at first boot
Root password is 1234. You are forced to change this password and (optional) create a normal user at first login
Ethernet adapter with DHCP and SSH server ready on default port (22)
Wireless adapter with DHCP ready (if present) but disabled. You can use armbian-config to connect to your router or create an access point
NAND, SATA, eMMC and USB install script is included (armbian-install)
Upgrades are done via standard apt upgrade method
Login script shows: board name with large text, distribution base, kernel version, system load, uptime, memory usage, IP address, CPU and drive temperature, ambient temperature from Temper if exits, SD card usage, battery conditions and number of updates to install

Performance tweaks¶

/var/log is mounted as compressed device (zram, lzo), log2ram service saves logs to disk daily and on shutdown
Half of memory is allocated/extended for/with compressed swap
/tmp is mounted as tmpfs (optionally compressed)
Browser profile memory caching
Optimized IO scheduler (check /etc/init.d/armhwinfo)
Journal data writeback enabled. (/etc/fstab)
commit=600 to flush data to the disk every 10 minutes (/etc/fstab)
Optimized CPU frequency scaling with interactive governor (/etc/init.d/cpufrequtils) - 480-1010Mhz @Allwinner A10/A20 - 480-1368Mhz @Allwinner H2+/H3 - 392-996Mhz @Freescale imx - 600-2000Mhz @Exynos & S905
eth0 interrupts are using dedicated core (Allwinner based boards)

What is supported/maintained?¶

Armbian will publish and distribute “stable” CLI images for maintained boards through its mirror network. Supported/maintained is not a guarantee. Supported/maintained has a named maintainer and implies a particular SBC is at a high level of software maturity. Due to the complexity and lack-of-openness in the ecosystem it is unlikely that all accelerated and specialized functionalities (like 3D, VE, I²C…) will be available.

For more information is see the Board Support Guide

Maintained boards¶

Check download page for recently maintained list.

How to report bugs¶

Due to lack of manpower we unfortunately have to be very picky about bug reports. Make sure to follow the bug reporting form available here to learn how to collect necessary information and where to put your report depending on type of issue. Reports lacking fundamental diagnostics may be ignored.

Get Involved!¶

Our IRC channel is #armbian on Libera.Chat. More details here
For those who prefer some more proprietary way to communicate join our Discord.