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Writing the image to your media

There are multiple ways to deploy the image to your board. The easiest and most common option is to write the Armbian Image to your SD-Card.

Flash to SD Card

Use Armbian Imager to flash the image.

Armbian Imager can:

  • download official Armbian images
  • flash already downloaded .img, .img.xz, or custom images
  • automatically verify written data
  • protect your system disks from accidental overwrite

Steps:

  1. Install and open Armbian Imager
  2. Select your board or choose a local/custom image
  3. Select your SD card or USB drive
  4. Flash and wait for verification to finish

Other tools

We are aware that many programs can be used for this step. However, tools without proper verification and safe target selection can hide problems such as bad cards, faulty readers, partial writes, or accidentally selecting the wrong drive. These issues have caused too many avoidable error reports.

For this reason, Armbian Imager is the recommended tool.

Due to reports of image corruption caused by decompression issues, balenaEtcher is not recommended.

Flash to Internal Memory

Flash to Internal Memory allows you to write Armbian image directly to the device’s built‑in storage. This process completely replaces the existing system and erases all current data on the target drive. Use with caution, as once started, the operation cannot be undone.

Rockchip

When a Rockchip device is placed into Maskrom mode, you can use rkdeveloptool to flash an image directly to its internal storage (eMMC, UFS, or SPI) over USB.

Install requirements for rkdeveloptool

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sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y build-essential git wget
sudo apt-get install -y libudev-dev libusb-1.0-0-dev dh-autoreconf pkg-config libusb-1.0

Download & Compile rkdeveloptool

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git clone https://github.com/rockchip-linux/rkdeveloptool
cd rkdeveloptool
autoreconf -i
./configure
make -j $(nproc)

Optionally install rkdeveloptool systemwide:

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sudo cp rkdeveloptool /usr/local/sbin/

First make sure you have brew installed. Then you can run the following commands to install rkdeveloptool:

Install requirements

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brew install automake autoconf libusb pkg-config git wget

Download & Compile rkdeveloptool

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git clone https://github.com/rockchip-linux/rkdeveloptool
cd rkdeveloptool
autoreconf -i
./configure
make -j $(nproc)

Optionally install rkdeveloptool systemwide:

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cp rkdeveloptool /opt/homebrew/bin/
  1. Connect & Boot your Board into Maskrom mode. Usually there is a button to hold for 5 seconds during boot else check your manufactures website.
  2. Run rkdeveloptool ld to list all connected devices
  3. Extract your image unxz Armbian-YourBoard.img.xz
  4. Flash the RK3XXX_loader.bin (check your SoC) via rkdeveloptool db RK3XXX_loader.bin which stands for download boot
  5. Erase the current storage medium (usually EMMC) via rkdeveloptool ef which stands for erase flash
  6. Now you can flash the extracted image with sudo rkdeveloptool wl 0 Armbian-YourBoard.img (make sure the file ends with .img)
  7. Reboot your board with sudo rkdeveloptool rd which stands for (power) reset device

Qualcomm

Qualcomm boards are flashed with Armbian Imager over EDL (Emergency Download Mode), so no extra tooling is needed. Imager writes straight to the board’s built-in eMMC or UFS, depending on the board.

Which boards can be flashed this way, which storage each one uses, and how each one enters EDL all come from the Armbian board registry, so the list grows without an Imager update. Boards covered so far include the Arduino UNO Q (QRB2210, eMMC) and the Radxa Dragon series — Q6A (QCS6490, UFS) and Q8B (SC8280XP, UFS).

Steps:

  1. Put the board into EDL mode. Imager tells you which method your board uses — either place the jumper on the JCTL pins, or hold the EDL button while powering on.
  2. Connect the board to your computer with a USB cable.
  3. Open Armbian Imager and select your board and image.
  4. Flash. Imager uploads the firmware loader, then writes the partitions.

UFS images are a separate download

Boards that flash to UFS need an image built for UFS — its filename carries a -ufs marker. An ordinary SD-card image will not boot from UFS.

Linux: USB access denied

An EDL device appears as USB ID 05c6:9008, and the in-tree qcserial driver claims that same ID. Give your user access to the device and stop qcserial from taking it:

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echo 'SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="05c6", ATTR{idProduct}=="9008", MODE="0660", GROUP="plugdev", TAG+="uaccess"' | sudo tee /etc/udev/rules.d/51-qdl.rules
echo 'blacklist qcserial' | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-qcserial.conf
sudo udevadm control --reload-rules

uaccess covers you when you are logged in at the machine itself; over SSH, add yourself to plugdev with sudo usermod -aG plugdev $USER and log back in.

The blacklist only stops qcserial loading in future — it does not release a board it has already taken. If the module is loaded, unplug the board, unload it, then plug the board back in:

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sudo modprobe -r qcserial

Reboot instead if it will not unload. Note that the blacklist is permanent and also stops qcserial driving other Qualcomm serial devices, such as USB modems; delete /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-qcserial.conf to undo it.

No EDL device found

The board is not in EDL mode, or the cable is data-only. Re-enter EDL mode as in step 1, try a different USB cable or port, and reconnect.

Previous: Choosing an Armbian image

Next: First boot and login

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