The release of the Linux distribution Armbian 25.2 has been published, providing a compact system environment for single-board computers with processors based on ARM, RISC-V, and x86 architectures, supporting various models of Raspberry Pi, Odroid, Orange Pi, Banana Pi, Helios64, pine64, Nanopi, and Cubieboard based on Allwinner, Amlogic, Actionsemi, Freescale/NXP, Marvell Armada, Rockchip, Radxa, and Samsung Exynos processors.
The assemblies are formed using the Debian and Ubuntu package bases, but all components are completely rebuilt with a custom build system that includes optimizations for reducing size, increasing performance, and applying additional security mechanisms. For example, the /var/log partition is mounted using zram and stored in RAM in compressed form with data being flushed to storage once a day or upon shutdown. The /tmp partition is mounted using tmpfs.
The project supports over 30 different Linux kernel build variants for various ARM and ARM64 platforms. An SDK is provided to simplify the creation of your own system images, packages, and distribution editions. ZSWAP is used for swapping. When logging in via SSH, there is an option for two-factor authentication. It includes the box64 emulator, which allows running programs compiled for x86 architecture processors. Ready-made packages are offered for launching user environments based on KDE, GNOME, Budgie, Cinnamon, i3wm, Mate, Xfce, and Xmonad.
Key changes in Armbian 25.2:
- Support has been added for the Rock 2A, Rock 2F, NanoPi R3S, Retroid Pocket RP5, RPMini, Rock 5T, GenBook, MKS-PI, SKIPR, Armsom CM5, NextThing C.H.I.P, and Magicsee C400 Plus boards.
- Support for boards with Rockchip 3588 chips has been improved. The base Linux kernel for such boards has been updated to version 6.1.99, while the latest one is 6.12. Drivers for HDMI, USB3, and Bluetooth have been updated.
- The capabilities of the RTW88 driver for Realtek RTL87* and RTL88* wireless chips have been expanded.
- An infrastructure for automatic component testing for operation in wireless networks has been implemented.
- Most of the Linux kernel packages have been transitioned from branch 6.6 to 6.12.
- In most builds, the U-Boot bootloader has been updated to version 2024.10 or 2025.01.
- New features have been added servers to the build infrastructure and mirror network. The content delivery network (CDN) implementation has been updated to bypass restrictions when downloading the distribution from Russia and Ukraine (the use of the Moscow mirror for Ukrainian networks has been excluded, and the Kyiv mirror for Russian networks). Download speeds via torrents have been accelerated due to CDN mirroring of downloads from GitHub.
- The armbian-config tools now allow for quick installation of AdGuardHome, Pi-Hole, Home Assistant, Utime Kuma, NetData, Grafana, Cockpit packages with KVM and NextCloud.
Source: opennet.ru
