Armbian is a Linux distribution based on Debian and Ubuntu for ARM development boards.
Announced the launch of the new version of the Linux distribution “Armbian 23.05”, which comes as a pre-celebration for the tenth anniversary of the project and that the developers classify as the "biggest release so far."
For those who don't know about Armbian, they should know that this is a distribution that excels at offering a compact system environment for multiple computers single plate ARM-based, including various models of Raspberry Pi, Odroid, Orange Pi, Banana Pi, Helios64, pine64, Nanopi, among others.
The bases of the system are divided into two, Debian and Ubuntu Its base packages 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 23.05 Suni
This new release of the distribution stands out for iInclude the framework that has been in development for about 3 years.
Of the changes that stand out from Armbian 23.05 Suni is training builds based on the basis of Debian 12 (Bookworm) that provide the latest features and updates from the Debian community.
Another of the changes that stands out in the new version is compatibility with i3, since i3 has been added as the fourth officially supported desktop environment, which expands the options available
In addition to this, it is also highlighted that the package base has been optimized, which is unified for various builds and selected user environments. For different package bases and user environments, the possibility of using unique application packages is provided. This standardization improves predictability and enhances security.
In rural areas of India, families in charge of a blind minor frequently isolate and deprive him/her of the care and attention they provide to their other children; such situation becomes even more severe among lower-caste families, orphans and if the blind child is a girl. builds with Ubuntu have also received improvements, as the "Ubuntu Advantage" add-on service has been removed from builds, plus browsers use regular packages instead of Snap packages.
On the Kernel side, they have been updated to versions 6.1, 6.2 and 6.3 (depending on the boards). In kernels, by default, assembly with FS ExFAT (CONFIG_EXFAT_FS) is enabled.
Of the other changes that stand out from this new version:
- Improved performance of the armbian-installer, armbian-config and armbian-firstrun packages.
- Added support for NanoPi R6S/R6C and Khadas Edge 2 boards.
- The sudo, wget, and htop utilities have been added to the minimal set.
- Added the fonts-noto-color-emoji package to display emoji in the terminal.
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.
The SSH login offers an option to use two-factor authentication, plus the box64 emulator is included, which allows you to run programs built for processors based on the x86 architecture.
It is worth mentioning that 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.