Installing Armbian on Allwinner H6 Android TV Box (Tanix TX6)

#Linux #RaspberryPiAlternative #SingleBoardComputer #AllwinnerH6

Full steps can be found at https://i12bretro.github.io/tutorials...

I love the idea of the Raspberry Pi, but there are some cheaper alternative single board computers that offer a similar experience for a fraction of the cost. While the community support isn't quite what it is for the Pi, there are a ton of projects you can accomplish on the cheap with these little hidden gems. Keep an eye on AliExpress and Amazon and you can find SBC's sporting quad core ARM process with 2-4 GB of RAM for under $30, including a power supply and IR remote control.
 
The box used in this video is a Tanix TX6 I picked up on Amazon for $22.71 shipped. It sports a quad Core Allwinner H6 @ 1.5GHz and 4 GB of DDR3 RAM.
 
UPDATED 6/9/20 with direct links to the downloads used in the video
 
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Things You Will Need
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   - A microSD card at least 8 GB  https://amzn.to/36CpShC |  https://amzn.to/3CXJngt |  https://amzn.to/3JqyxSP
 
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Downloads and Flashing to MicroSD
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   01. Download Armbian  https://drive.google.com/drive/folder...
   02. Download u-boot  https://drive.google.com/drive/folder...
   03. Download Balena Etcher  https://www.balena.io/etcher/
   04. Run Balena Etcher
   05. Burn Armbian image to microSD card
   06. Safely remove microSD and re-insert
   07. Ignore/close the Windows dialogs to format the inserted microSD card
   08. Burn u-boot image to microSD card
   09. Safely remove microSD and re-insert
   10. Ignore/close the Windows dialogs to format the inserted microSD card
 
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Configure MicroSD Card for Armbian
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   01. Open the readable partition of the microSD card in Explorer
   02. Edit uEnv.txt in a text editor
      a. Comment out rk-3399 lines by adding #
      b. Uncomment aw h6 lines by removing #
         aw h6
         FDT=/dtb/allwinner/sun50i-h6-tanix-tx6.dtb
         #APPEND=root=LABEL=ROOTFS rootflags=data=writeback rw console=ttyS0,115200 console=tty0 no_console_suspend consoleblank=0 fsck.fix=yes fsck.repair=yes net.ifnames=0 mem=2048M video=HDMI-A-1:e
         APPEND=root=LABEL=ROOTFS rootflags=data=writeback rw console=ttyS0,115200 console=tty0 no_console_suspend consoleblank=0 fsck.fix=yes fsck.repair=yes net.ifnames=0Save
      c. Save
      d. Close
   07. Rename the following files, adding .orig to the filename
         Rename boot.cmd to boot.cmd.orig
         Rename boot.scr to boot.scr.orig
         Rename boot-emmc.cmd to boot-emmc.cmd.orig
         Rename boot-emmc.scr to boot-emmc.scr.orig
   08. Rename the following .aw files, removing the .aw extension
         Rename boot.cmd.aw to boot.cmd
         Rename boot.scr.aw to boot.scr
         Rename boot-emmc.cmd.aw to boot-emmc.cmd
         Rename boot-emmc.scr.aw to boot-emmc.scr
   09. Safely remove microSD
   10. Insert microSD card to Android TV box
 
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Booting to Armbian for the First Time
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   01. Plug the power adapter into the Android TV box
   02. You should see the Armbian terminal running startup scripts
   03. When prompted, login with username: root password: 1234
   04. Input a new root password
   05. Confirm the new root password
   06. When prompted, input a username
   07. Input a password for the new user
   08. Confirm the password for the new user
   09. Follow any additional the prompts
   10. Armbian will boot into the desktop environment
 
Special thanks to the developers and forum members over at  https://forum.armbian.com/topic/12162... for making this possible
 


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