Running Armbian on Amlogic S905x3 Android TV Box (Tanix TX3)

#Armbian #S905x3 #RaspberryPiAlternative

Full steps can be found at https://i12bretro.github.io/tutorials/0978.html

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 TX3 I picked up on AliExpress for about $35 shipped. It sports a Quad Core Amlogic S905x3 @ 1.9GHz and 4 GB of DDR3 RAM.

Things You Will Need

   - A microSD card at least 8 GB  https://amzn.to/36CpShC |  https://amzn.to/3CXJngt |  https://amzn.to/3JqyxSP

Downloads and Flashing to MicroSD

   01. Download Armbian  https://www.armbian.com/amlogic-s9xx-tv-box/    02. Download Balena Etcher  https://github.com/balena-io/etcher/releases/latest    03. Run Balena Etcher    04. Burn Armbian image to microSD card    05. Safely remove microSD and re-insert    06. Ignore/close the Windows dialogs to format the inserted microSD card

Configure MicroSD Card for Armbian

   01. Open the readable partition of the microSD card in Explorer    02. Rename the appropriate file from below to u-boot.ext on the root of the SD card, u-boot-s905x3 in this example    03. Edit /extlinux/extlinux.conf in a text editor       a. Update the FDT line to point to a working .dtb file for your device          fdt /dtb/amlogic/meson-sm1-x96-air.dtb       b. Save       c. Close    07. Safely remove microSD    08. Insert microSD card to Android TV box

Booting to Armbian for the First Time

   01. With an unfolded paperclip, press the reset button    02. While holding the reset button, plug the power adapter into the Android TV box    03. You should see the Armbian terminal running startup scripts    04. When prompted, enter and confirm a root password    05. Select a default system shell    06. Input a username    07. Enter and confirm a password for the new user    08. Follow any additional the prompts    09. Armbian will boot into the desktop environment   Special thanks to the developers and forum members over at  https://armbian.com for making this possible  

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