11-01-2021, 06:41 PM
(This post was last modified: 11-09-2021, 01:38 PM by TRS-80.
Edit Reason: changed title from "dropping support" to "looking for maintainer"
)
Armbian has recently announced that they are going to drop support for the bulk of the boards to secure better quality on those that will remain.
Armbian team took over what was possible, while the remaining boards, which won't get a maintainer by December 1st, will lose supported status and will be removed from the download pages.
If you would like to keep ROCKPro64 supported, apply for its maintaining.
11-02-2021, 05:48 PM
(This post was last modified: 11-02-2021, 05:52 PM by tllim.)
(11-01-2021, 06:41 PM)TRS-80 Wrote: Armbian has recently announced that they are going to drop support for the bulk of the boards to secure better quality on those that will remain.
Armbian team took over what was possible, while the remaining boards, which won't get a maintainer by December 1st, will lose supported status and will be removed from the download pages.
If you would like to keep ROCKPro64 supported, apply for its maintaining.
Thanks on the heads up, hopefully there are developers continue keep support for Armbian's RockPro64 build.
oh no ! this is terrible news , what other equally good options would there be if armbian drops support?
(11-08-2021, 06:47 AM)GreyLinux Wrote: oh no ! this is terrible news , what other equally good options would there be if armbian drops support?
My thoughts, exactly. As an alternative, there is a Manjaro image which has many fans, but it's a rolling distribution that essentially forces you into perpetual upgrades. If that part doesn't bother you, it might be worth checking out.
https://manjaro.org/downloads/arm/rock-p...de-plasma/
11-08-2021, 10:20 AM
(This post was last modified: 11-08-2021, 10:51 AM by Dendrocalamus64.)
Life on a rolling distro: *Always* have a rescue system ready in case your primary becomes unbootable. And make sure the rescue system is currently booting before rebooting the primary.
If your habits have been formed by living on more stable distros, you too may get to (re)learn this the fun way.
Common causes of an unbootable system:
- Changing bootloaders
- Upgrading the bootloader
- Upgrading the system...
Special note about SD cards as rescue systems: If you don't have a second computer to try it in, you cannot verify that it is currently booting.
(11-08-2021, 10:20 AM)Dendrocalamus64 Wrote: Life on a rolling distro: *Always* have a rescue system ready in case your primary becomes unbootable. And make sure the rescue system is currently booting before rebooting the primary.
If your habits have been formed by living on more stable distros, you too may get to (re)learn this the fun way.
Common causes of an unbootable system:
- Changing bootloaders
- Upgrading the bootloader
- Upgrading the system...
Special note about SD cards as rescue systems: If you don't have a second computer to try it in, you cannot verify that it is currently booting.
I have no issue with using a rolling release distro , I currently use Arch on my laptop ,and although far from an expert, I feel comfortable using and upgrading it ( mostly from a terminal )
that being said I've never used a rolling release distro on a server , so your response about common causes is very interesting to me. when you refer to rescue systems , I assume you mean before upgrading 'rsync' existing setup to say an SD or USB drive and then upgrade ?
11-08-2021, 01:07 PM
(This post was last modified: 11-08-2021, 01:17 PM by Dendrocalamus64.)
I meant don't get stuck like I did where I had the one Pinebook Pro and I installed the new mainline u-boot that came with a Manjaro update and then it wouldn't boot.
Or when I switched to the Manjaro U-Boot BSP package and found it wouldn't boot, and my SD card wouldn't boot either. (Because I'd installed the same and forgot.)
In the latter case, it looked like sed damage. extlinux.conf went from identifying the root partition as root=LABEL=ROOT_MNJRO to root=LABEL=ROOT_MNJRO_MNJRO , and then it couldn't find the root filesystem. (Previously, it had been auto-updated from LABEL=ROOT to LABEL=ROOT_MNJRO.) Hopefully on a distro with extensive procedures for vetting stable releases bugs like that would be less likely to remain. I also had a Pinephone running Manjaro ARM become unusable after updating the system without touching the bootloader, as I mentioned recently. Every app started would crash while loading, including the terminal.
It's much more of a problem on anything mobile like a laptop or a telephone because you're less likely to be near another linux system you can use to diagnose and fix the problem.
With regard to backups, I'm back to doing those daily anyway. A diff from yesterday with the right filters can take 10 seconds to run.
I would not give up all hope yet. I took the news as a call for help. Hopefully people realize what is going on (please read linked articles) and some more people start to help out a little more. I myself am considering trying my hand at maintaining one or more boards that I own, apparently you do not need to be a kernel hacker necessarily to do this (I certainly am not!).
Anyway, I would appreciate if we could keep future posts on topic rather than on alternatives. It's honestly more than a little disappointing to me how quickly some people are willing to abandon Armbian after all the effort they have put forth for so many years. Which to me just proves they were/are right in their assessment of what they need to do, in order to maintain their own sanity.
I have seen too many good F/LOSS projects disappear over the years due to burnout. I hope this does not happen with Armbian, which is why I am trying to help get the word out about these (upcoming) changes.
(11-08-2021, 02:07 PM)TRS-80 Wrote: I would not give up all hope yet. I took the news as a call for help. Hopefully people realize what is going on (please read linked articles) and some more people start to help out a little more. I myself am considering trying my hand at maintaining one or more boards that I own, apparently you do not need to be a kernel hacker necessarily to do this (I certainly am not!).
Anyway, I would appreciate if we could keep future posts on topic rather than on alternatives. It's honestly more than a little disappointing to me how quickly some people are willing to abandon Armbian after all the effort they have put forth for so many years. Which to me just proves they were/are right in their assessment of what they need to do, in order to maintain their own sanity.
I have seen too many good F/LOSS projects disappear over the years due to burnout. I hope this does not happen with Armbian, which is why I am trying to help get the word out about these (upcoming) changes.
I couldn't agree more , I apologise for the discussion on alternatives . I have been a donator to Armbian for years and I like yourself really hope they manage to receive enough interest , investment and support, maintenance wise that they continue to thrive for years to come.
Sounds like Armbian and its users need to advertise more. It never stuck out to me in the long list of supported distributions on Rockpro64. If people don't hear about it, they don't get users, and then they don't get devs and donations.
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