How I got DietPi running on my S905X and S912 Android TV Boxes

[skyfly555]

Hello,
As you may know I love DietPi and I install it everywhere (RPi1, RPi2, Odroid C2, BIOS old netbooks, an EFI64 Intel Atom miniPC...).
Now I have installed it on my Android TV Box M16, based on Amlogic S905X, a 2GB-16 GB model (very similar to Odroid C2, but cheaper, 100 Mbps ethernet, and with wifi/bluetooth and an eMMC module built-in).

I have followed these steps (from https://forum.armbian.com/topic/2419-ar ... x-ver-544/):
1. Download the image for your device
2. Unpack
3. Burn the image on the medium (micro SD card)
4. boot into Android (and connect the microSD card.)
5. open the app "Update&Backup"
6. click on "Select" local update and chose the file on the removable media (aml_update.zip) aml_autoscript.zip
7. start "Update"
8. System will reboot twice and start running the system from external media.

The image I have used is here: https://yadi.sk/d/pHxaRAs-tZiei/5.76/S905/5.0, and it's: Armbian_5.76_Aml-s905_Debian_stretch_default_5.0.0-rc7-gb5aa11ceb-dirty_20190227.img
More details about this version and how to copy it into the eMMC and so on: https://forum.armbian.com/topic/7930-ar ... x-ver-555/
When you first start the system, the root user password is 1234; the minimum media size is 4 GB.

Once you have this done, and you have your armbian/debian installed, it's time to Dietpize it

Here what you have to do (PREP_SYSTEM_FOR_DIETPI.sh): https://github.com/MichaIng/DietPi/issues/1285
In brief, copy and paste all into terminal:

Code: Select all

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Fourdee/DietPi/master/PREP_SYSTEM_FOR_DIETPI.sh -O PREP_SYSTEM_FOR_DIETPI.sh
#wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Fourdee/DietPi/beta/PREP_SYSTEM_FOR_DIETPI.sh -O PREP_SYSTEM_FOR_DIETPI.sh
#wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Fourdee/DietPi/dev/PREP_SYSTEM_FOR_DIETPI.sh -O PREP_SYSTEM_FOR_DIETPI.sh
chmod +x PREP_SYSTEM_FOR_DIETPI.sh
./PREP_SYSTEM_FOR_DIETPI.sh

DietPi runs as good as this android TV box was an Odroid C2! Now, I'm running it from microSD. If you disconnect it, you have Android, too. But you can (theorically) install it to the eMMC, so you can have much better disk benchmarks (and cheaper than buying a C2 with a eMMC module).
Note: I haven't checked wifi or bluetooth, neither installed any desktop, because I simply use it as a wordpress/deluge server.

The only issue I have is that now, with DietPi, I cannot read the CPU temperature, although I could read it with Balbes150's Armbian/Debian.

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─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 DietPi CPU Info
 Use dietpi-config to change CPU / performance options
 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 Architecture |     aarch64
 Temperature  |     N/A
 Governor     |     ondemand
 Throttle up  |     50% CPU usage

                 Current Freq    Min Freq   Max Freq
 CPU0         |      1200 MHz      100 MHz    1200 MHz
 CPU1         |      1200 MHz      100 MHz    1200 MHz
 CPU2         |      1200 MHz      100 MHz    1200 MHz
 CPU3         |      1200 MHz      100 MHz    1200 MHz

EDIT (6th March 2019): What about S912 Android TV Box? I've bought one of them (3G-32GB, 40€, amazon.es), it's nice because it has 1000 Mbps Ethernet; some models even have an USB 3.0 port, although they are more expensive than the base model; and it's more powerful than the S905X (DietPi benchmarks: S905X, 17 seconds, like the Odroid C2; S912, 12 seconds, as the Odroid XU4).
I have just used another image: https://yadi.sk/d/pHxaRAs-tZiei/5.76/S912/5.0, Armbian_5.76_Aml-s912_Debian_stretch_default_5.0.0-rc8-g8201cd167-dirty_20190304.img.xz

And DietPi reads the 8 CPU temperatures correctly.

Code: Select all

root@DietPi:~# cpu
[  OK  ] DietPi-CPU_info | Root access verified.

 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 DietPi CPU Info
 Use dietpi-config to change CPU / performance options
 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 Architecture |     aarch64
 Temperature  |     42'c : 107'f | Optimal temperature.
 Governor     |     ondemand
 Throttle up  |     50% CPU usage

                 Current Freq    Min Freq   Max Freq
 CPU0         |      1512 MHz      100 MHz    1512 MHz
 CPU1         |      1512 MHz      100 MHz    1512 MHz
 CPU2         |      1512 MHz      100 MHz    1512 MHz
 CPU3         |      1512 MHz      100 MHz    1512 MHz
 CPU4         |      1000 MHz      100 MHz    1000 MHz
 CPU5         |      1000 MHz      100 MHz    1000 MHz
 CPU6         |      1000 MHz      100 MHz    1000 MHz
 CPU7         |      1000 MHz      100 MHz    1000 MHz

[ INFO ] DietPi-CPU_info | CPU current frequency, may be affected by this script, due to the processing required to run it.

[johnvick]

Nice guide thanks - if I didn't already have too many SBCs I'd buy one and give it a try.

John

[WarHawk]

This unit here

[skyfly555]

Hello, @WarHawk this unit seems to be expensive to me, looking at the specs. I don't know in Russia, but in Spain you can get an S905X 2GB-16GB for less than 40 euros.

[morpheus302]

This is very interesting. Can you explain how to move sstem files to emmc?