Armbian is a Linux distribution based on Debian and Ubuntu for ARM development boards.
The launch of the new version of the Linux distribution, "Armbian 23.02 Quoll", which provides a compact system environment for various ARM-based single-board computers, including various models of the Raspberry Pi, Odroid, Orange Pi, Banana Pi, Helios64, pine64, Nanopi and Cubieboard based on Allwinner, Amlogic, processors Actionsemi, Freescale/NXP, Marvell, Rockchip, Radxa and Samsung Exynos.
The Debian and Ubuntu package bases they are used to form the builds, but the environment is completely rebuilt using its own build system with the inclusion of optimizations to reduce size, increase performance, and apply additional protection mechanisms.
For example, the /var/log partition is mounted with zram and stored in RAM in a compressed form with data downloaded to the drive once a day or at shutdown. The /tmp partition is mounted using tmpfs.
Main news of Armbian 23.02 Quoll
In this new release of Armbian 23.02 Quoll, in addition to adding Linux 6.1 Kernel support, the packages are in sync with the Debian and Ubuntu repositories and experimental builds based on Debian 12 and Ubuntu 23.04 have been added.Linux kernel packages have been updated to version 6.1. Kernel 6.1 has AUFS enabled by default.
we can also find that added support for Rockchip RK3588 platform and official support was provided for the Radxa Rock 5 and Orange Pi 5 boards based on this platform.
Another change that stands out is that the build toolkit has been completely redesigned and it is planned to be used to compile the next version. Among the features of the new toolkit are a simplified logging system, the cessation of the use of external compilers, a redesigned caching system, and build support on all architectures and operating systems, including official support for WSL2 environments. .
In addition to this, the improved support for Orange Pi R1 Plus, Raspberry Pi 3, JetHub D1/D1+, Rockchip64, Nanopi R2S, Bananapi M5, Bananapi M2PRO boards stands out.
Of the other changes that stand out from the new version:
- Automated assembly of community developed images is provided
- Added support for various game controllers.
- Added support for Waydroid, a package for running Android on Linux distributions.
- Improved sound setup script.
- Changed to the 882xbu driver for wireless USB adapters based on RTL8812BU and RTL8822BU chips.
- The gnome-disk-utility package has been added to builds with GUIs.
- Added the nfs-common package to all builds except the minimal build.
- The wpasupplicant package was added to builds based on Debian 12.
Finally if you are interested in knowing a little more about it about this new release, you can check the details In the following link.
Download Armbian
For those who are interested in being able to download the new version of this distribution for their device, they can do it directly from the page from where we can find a list of all the ARM-based computers on which the distribution runs.
Regarding the tool you can use to record the image of the system, you can make use of Etcher which is a multiplatform tool or directly in Linux from the terminal with the help of the DD command or one that you consider pertinent.
The project supports more than 30 Linux kernel builds for various ARM and ARM64 platforms.. An SDK is provided to make it easy to create your own images, packages, and system distribution editions. ZSWAP is used for the exchange.
SSH login provides an option to use two-factor authentication. The box64 emulator is included, which allows you to run programs built for processors based on the x86 architecture. ZFS can be used as a file system. Ready-made packages are offered to run custom environments based on KDE, GNOME, Budgie, Cinnamon, i3-wm, Mate, Xfce and Xmonad.