How hard would it be for me or someone else to compile DietPi for the EspressoBin: http://espressobin.net/tech-spec/?
It looks like they already have Armbian supported, which I understand this is based off? I much prefer DietPi…
It looks like it’s using a similar processor as the RPi3
Marvell Armada 3700LP (88F3720) dual core ARM Cortex A53 processor up to 1.2GHz
Some info on the processor
https://www.cnx-software.com/2016/09/23/marvell-espressobin-board-with-gigabit-ethernet-sata-pcie-and-usb-3-0-to-launch-for-39-and-up-crowdfunding/
More info
https://www.kernel.org/doc/readme/Documentation-arm-Marvell-README
It appears they have several SD images here
http://espressobin.net/tech-spec/
How to flash u-boot
http://espressobin.net/forums/topic/how-to-flash-u-boot/
Armbian is still working on it: https://www.armbian.com/work-in-progress/
We are not based on Armbian only, Odroids are based on another one-man (Meveric) minimal image, RPi on Raspbian Lite, x86 on Debian mini/netboot and for the others, I don’t know.
Generally: It is arm64, bootloader, kernel, firmware is offered: http://espressobin.net/tech-spec/, should somehow work.
But to be honest, I never made any other image than for VM (most simple), so no idea, how to start exactly and what surprises one may face 
. I guess at least the Debian arm64 mini.iso will not work out of the box: http://ftp.nl.debian.org/debian/dists/stretch/main/installer-arm64/current/images/netboot/ 
Although they seem to offer the EspressoBins CPU: http://ftp.nl.debian.org/debian/dists/stretch/main/installer-arm64/current/images/device-tree/marvell/ 
If some Debian based system is running on it, then go with our preparation script, that will turn it into DietPi, most likely after some necessary adjustments/fixes: https://github.com/Fourdee/DietPi/blob/testing/PREP_SYSTEM_FOR_DIETPI.sh
€: @WarHawk
Ah that’s true@CPU.
Sadly non of their images yet is Debian based, right? No idea what Yocto is 
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Well, Armbian is based off Debian, as is (remotely) their Ubuntu image
I think when I get around to it I will try to turn an Armbian image for the board into a DietPi install using the script you supplied; thanks much!
This gets a non gui ubuntu 17.10.1 “server” type base/minimal install
by using this method
http://wiki.espressobin.net/tiki-index.php?page=Creating+Ubuntu+filesystem#Ubuntu_16.04.3_LTS
Then as mentioned above…
#touch PREP_SYSTEM_FOR_DIETPI.sh
Copy and paste the entire script of text into that file using nano
make it executable
# chmod 700 PREP_SYSTEM_FOR_DIETPI.sh
then
# ./PREP_SYSTEM_FOR_DIETPI.sh
and the script should do the rest
Once it has done it’s dietpi thingy…you should be able to then
# dietpi-launcher
and install software/desktop like normal
as I said…it looks like the already did it
This tar containing the Ubuntu root file system (with kernel binary and dtb file included) can also be downloaded from our Tech Spec page, Software table under Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS.
http://wiki.espressobin.net/tiki-index.php?page=Boot+from+removable+storage+-+Ubuntu#Micro_SD_card
Alot of work I guess…but once it’s built and running
Burn an image of the card and save it in case something happens and you have to re-image without having to do all the above all over again
https://sourceforge.net/projects/win32diskimager/ does a good job of making an image on a windows system
Thanks so much for that WarHawk, that’s amazing help.
I don’t need to worry about GUI stuff; I don’t use DietPi with a GUI typically and AFAIK the EspressoBin actually doesn’t have any video out methods, seeing as it’s designed to be used for networking appliances, not as a desktop/workstation system. That’s what’s so nice about DietPi - the menus and dietpi configuration scripts that one can run allow headless users to very, very easily and quickly set up well-configured systems with minimal hassle, all without using a desktop. Phenomenal.
Also great idea to do a backup of the image once I’m done… luckily the board has plenty of USB, SATA, and eMMC I/O, so I can do that easily. I personally am a big fan of doing imaging work with https://etcher.io/
Hmm, an Ubuntu image should not work. The script checks /etc/os-release for supported Debian release names (wheezy until buster): https://github.com/Fourdee/DietPi/blob/testing/PREP_SYSTEM_FOR_DIETPI.sh#L125-L150
You would need to hardcode e.g. G_DISTRO=4 and G_DISTRO_NAME=‘stretch’ into the code and hope for the best.
I know Ubuntu is a Debian derivative, but I have no idea how deep the differences in it’s core. The script purges all down until totally headless, adds default Debian APT sources and then installs the necessary core packages needed for DietPi. Would be an interesting experiment if this works (without too much fixes) on Ubuntu images 
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Isn’t Armbian based off Debian, not Ubuntu?
Jep, ARMbian should work, but officially they so far just offer Ubuntu: http://espressobin.net/tech-spec/
They have this started, which is what I will try when I get around to it: https://www.armbian.com/espressobin/
I’ll report back here with my failures!
Just a quick update on my progress here…
Unfortunately stopped very early on because I was unable to flash the Armbian u-boot; keep getting this error when attempting to flash:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mrwOay12Ap87q_9jNyZCDJqy_xPBEeel/view?usp=sharing
ARMbian is not an option for our images any more: https://github.com/Fourdee/DietPi/issues/1537#issue-298337026
Thus we need to find another way.
Thanks for the heads up, guess I’ll stick with ARMBian. Shame on EspressoBin for providing Ubuntu images instead of Debian 
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Maybe once I’ve had some experience running this board under ARMbian for a while I’ll dig deeper on what it would take to cross-compile a Debian image based on the kernel, buildroot environment, and bootloader that Espressobin does provide…
As there are some more cases, I tried and successfully installed DietPi on an Ubuntu image on VM: https://github.com/Fourdee/DietPi/issues/1557
It currently needs some hand work, and of course a VM is usually simpler than real hardware, but it is worth trying, if just Ubuntu images are available.