Choosing an image¶
If your hardware is supported, the recommended way to get started is to use Armbian Imager to select your board, download the appropriate image, and flash it in one step; alternatively, images can also be downloaded manually from https://www.armbian.com/download/ and flashed using Armbian Imager.
Debian or Ubuntu¶
If you have no special preferences or requirements, we recommend using an Ubuntu based Armbian image.
Minimal, Server, or Desktop¶
For each board, we usually provide these types of images:
- Minimal - lightweight CLI with only a bare minimum of packages and no graphical user environment
- Server - server variant with preinstalled standard utilities and no graphical user environment
- Desktop - full featured desktop image
For some boards we provide only minimal images due to their hardware limitations.
Vendor, Current, Edge, or Legacy¶
In some cases we provide images with different firmware. They differ in the level of hardware support and can be classified as follows:
- vendor contains a vendor-provided kernel which usually has the best hardware support while package version can be outdated, containing less general fixes
- current is following the latest Linux mainline LTS kernel and is in most cases the best choice.
Use the following images only if these are the only ones provided, or if you want to participate in testing:
- edge is, as the name implies, cutting-edge fresh / development / latest stable. It is only automatically tested, it can break at any time, and it is recommended only for experienced users.
- legacy is the old stable current kernel. Use it if current is not available or if something does not work well with it.
The level of kernel support, however, always depends on the board family. If in your specific case something does not work well, you are always free to try an image with another kernel included, or change the kernel with armbian-config.
Rolling releases¶
Rolling releases are suitable for Linux enthusiasts who want cutting edge packages and have the skills to fix the damage that a bad update might cause. If you want stability in a production environment or low headaches as a novice user, skip rolling releases. They are not at a suitable support quality level!
graph LR
A[Hardware] --> B{Armbian kernel};
B -->|legacy| C["rolling release"];
B -->|vendor| C["rolling release"];
B -->|current| C["rolling release"];
B -->|edge| C["rolling release"];
B -->|legacy| X["point release"];
B -->|vendor| X["point release"];
B -->|current| X["point release"];
B -->|edge| X["point release"];
C ---->|minimal| E[Debian or Ubuntu];
C ---->|server| F[Debian or Ubuntu];
C ---->|desktop| G[Debian or Ubuntu];
X ---->|minimal| E[Debian or Ubuntu];
X ---->|server| F[Debian or Ubuntu];
X ---->|desktop| G[Debian or Ubuntu];Danger
Do not use rolling release or edge images in a productive environment. Their purpose is testing and providing constructive feedback to developers.
Download and verification¶
After you have determined the image you want, the download for each image consists of three separate files:
- the .xz compressed image file
- the .sha file for download verification (optional)
- the .asc file for image authentication (optional)
After you have downloaded these files, we recommend checking the integrity and the authenticity of the compressed image file.
How to check the download integrity?
Since it might happen that your download got somehow corrupted, we publish a checksum/hash for each of our images. You can compare the image’s SHA-256 hash with the one contained in the .sha file.
On Windows, you can download and use the QuickHash GUI and follow the instructions in the gui. Linux and macOS users can simply do this in the directory with the compressed image and the checksum file:
| Bash | |
|---|---|
The integrity is verified if the output looks something like this:
| Bash | |
|---|---|
How to check the download authenticity?
All our images are digitally signed. It is therefore possible to check their authenticity. Linux and macOS user might need to install the required tools first: for Debian/Ubuntu, this can be done via sudo apt-get install gnupg, and for macOS use brew install gnupg. Windows users can install GnuPG from here. To check the authenticity, you will need the public key that was used to sign the images. This key can be retrieved from a keyserver or from the Debian/Ubuntu package repository (this step only needs to be done once):
To perform the verfification, run the command shown below.
| Bash | |
|---|---|
While the output can very depending on the GnuPG version, it should result in a response similar to the one below. It is safe to ignore the message WARNING: This key is not certified with a trusted signature!.
If something is wrong, the output will look something like this:
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