Armbian has published the latest issue of its Linux Distribution, providing a compact systemic environment for various single-board computers with processors based on Arm, RISC-V, and X86 architectures. This includes models from Raspberry Pi, Odroid, Orange Pi, Banana Pi, Helios64, Pine64, Nanopi, and Cubieboard, among others, using processors from Allwinner, AMLOGIC, Action, Freescale/NXP, Marvell Armada, Rockchip, Radxa, and Samsung Exynos.
The assemblies are based on DEBIAN and UBUNTU package bases but are completely re-engineered using its own assembly system with optimizations to reduce size, increase productivity, and use additional protection mechanisms. For example, ZRAM is used to mount the /Var/log section, which is stored in compressed form with data being dumped to the drive daily or at the end of work. The /TMP section is mounted using TMPFS.
The project supports over 30 options for Linux kernels for various ARM and ARM64 platforms. An SDK is provided to facilitate the creation of systemic images, packages, and distributions. ZSWAP is used for swapping, and two-factor authentication is an option for SSH access. The BOX64 emulator is included to run programs designed for X86-based processors. Ready-made packages are available for launching user environments based on KDE, GNOME, BUDGIE, CINNAMON, i3WM, MATE, XFCE, and XMONAD.
The main changes in Armbian 24.8 include added support for new devices such as Libre Alta, Solitude, Radxa E25, Rock 5C, and RISCV64 Bananapi F3. Notable updates include support for 3D-slipping in Debian-based assemblies, updated bootloaders for devices with the Rockchip RK3588 chip, hardware acceleration of 4K60p video decoding in Gnome and KDE assemblies, and Linux kernel updates to version 6.10. LTS support is also provided for various devices including Odroid C1, Nanopi Neo, BPI M1, Clearfog, Helios64, and Tinkerboard.
- Additionally, Armbian has improved compatibility and performance on ThinkPad X13S, added support for the test version of Ubuntu 24.10, and updated the ZFS file system implementation to version 2.2.5.
Another noteworthy release is the specialized distribution DietPi 9.7, designed for single-board computers based on ARM and RISC-V architectures