Armbian
Debian/Ubuntu-based Linux distribution for Arm single-board computers, with per-board support levels.
os
Knowledge about Armbian
- Armbian on Banana Pi: BPI-M5, M7, M4 Zero, M2S and F3 have 'Standard support', BPI-R4 only 'Community support'recommendation · unverified · Before choosing Banana Pi's own images, check the board on armbian.com. At the time of writing, the BPI-M5, BPI-M7, BPI-M4 Zero, BPI-M2S and BPI-F3 pages show Standard support, the BPI-R4 page Community support. Vendor images can be old: the BPI-M5's newest Ubuntu image on its docs page is Ubuntu 20.04 from 2023.
- Armbian on Orange Pi: the Orange Pi 5 and 5 Plus have 'Standard support', most other models 'Community support'recommendation · unverified · Before choosing Armbian over Orange Pi's own images, check the board's support level on armbian.com. At the time of writing, the Orange Pi 5 and 5 Plus pages show Standard support, while the 5B, 5 Max, 3B and Zero 3 show Community support.
- Banana Pi BPI-F3: a RISC-V SBC with the SpacemiT K1, and which operating systems it runsguide · unverified · The BPI-F3 uses the SpacemiT K1, an octa-core 64-bit RISC-V chip with 2.0 TOPS of AI compute. Banana Pi's docs list Bianbu Linux (SpacemiT), an OpenWrt 23.05.2 source tree, Armbian and an ArchLinux port; Armbian shows it with Standard support. It has a 26-pin header and a -40 to 85 °C operating range.
- Banana Pi BPI-M4 Zero: a Pi Zero W-sized board with eMMC, and the K016 Wi-Fi module that has no 5 GHzguide · unverified · The BPI-M4 Zero has the form factor and 40-pin connector of the Raspberry Pi Zero W, an Allwinner H618, 2 or 4 GB LPDDR4 and 8 or 32 GB eMMC. Banana Pi notes that boards with the K016 Wi-Fi module don't support 5 GHz Wi-Fi. Armbian shows Standard support.
- Choosing an OS for Raspberry Pi alternatives: vendor images, Armbian support levels, mainlineguide · unverified · OS support decides how usable an alternative board is. Compare vendor images, Armbian (with Standard, Community maintained and Staging support levels) and mainline distributions, and check the kernel's age before deploying long-lived IoT devices.