Many Orange Pi owners switch from the vendor images to Armbian for more regular updates and a cleaner Debian/Ubuntu base. How well that works depends on the support level Armbian gives each board, and it differs a lot within the Orange Pi family.
Support level per board (Armbian board pages, at the time of writing)
| Board | Armbian support level |
|---|---|
| Orange Pi 5 | Standard support |
| Orange Pi 5 Plus | Standard support |
| Orange Pi 5B | Community support |
| Orange Pi 5 Max | Community support |
| Orange Pi 3B | Community support |
| Orange Pi Zero3 | Community support |
What the levels mean in detail (maintainer responsibilities, testing, what happens when nobody maintains a board) is defined in Armbian's board support rules; the overview item on OS choice for Raspberry Pi alternatives summarizes them.
Recommendation
- Choosing a board for a long-running device? If you want Armbian, prefer a model with Standard support. Among the RK3588 boards that currently means the Orange Pi 5 or 5 Plus, not the 5B or 5 Max, even though those are very similar hardware.
- Community-supported board already on your desk? Armbian usually still works, but expect fewer guarantees; keep the vendor image as a fallback and test updates before rolling them out.
- Models without an Armbian page (check armbian.com for your exact model): plan on Orange Pi's own images or your own build with orangepi-build.
- Support levels change. Check the board's page on armbian.com again before you buy, and again before major upgrades.
- Hardware features that depend on vendor drivers (e.g. the NPU) may need the vendor kernel; check that the image you pick supports what you need.