Hi everyone, I’ve compiled Armbian for the Cubie A5E thanks to the work of others. I submitted the compilation patches to the Armbian build framework, and additional patches were accepted to enable the network ports (the network port next to the USB-C port is the most stable at the moment). Wi-Fi is also working, and I’ve submitted a patch taken from Manjaro that adds temperature sensors.
The image can be downloaded from the “community” compiler at the following link (two images are available: armbian-desktop-ubuntu and armbian-minimal-bookworm).
Armbian for Cubie A5E
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Are HDMI and GPU not working? I noticed that there are no related nodes in the dtsi file, and there is also a lack of an HDMI driver?
This is working on the patches that “apritzel” is sending to the main kernel. This is initial support, and more peripherals will be activated over time.
At the moment, serial, Wi-Fi, eth0/1, and thermal work.
I’m not sure if the “DE3.3” graphics engine is compatible with A523 to port the DRM and GPU nodes.
When I try to boot either of these from a SD card all I see is a green light on the board and a blank display. Is this normal?
I also decided to try this build and:
- hdmi is not working - no output
- m.2 pcie slot also failed, lspci is blank
- two ethernet ports show up, but only one gets ip address
- shutdown will not turn off the board, it’s still draining about 4W
For sure it’s much cleaner than official debian, it throws tons of errors.
@Juan_esf91 any plans for update?
Mainstream support has been merged into Linux 6.16. Once Linux 6.16 is released, the source will be switched to the mainline kernel, and new features will be tested.
Patches to mainline u-boot are also being submitted.
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great, thanks for the info, I’ll get back to board when they are ready,
its promising news 
Can somebody confirm USB3 on the armbian minimal/desktop build. I am limited to USB2
Correct, USB2 is active in the mainline kernel. USB3 and PCIe are still missing.
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@Juan_esf91
Hi Juan, may I check with you what is your cubie board version number?
I am asking because my just-received A5E V1.20 board couldn’t boot the Armbian you provide
(I have tried the one you shared via google drive Armbian_community_25.5.0-trunk.256_Radxa-cubie-a5e_bookworm_dev_6.14.0-rc1_minimal.img.xz and also the
Armbian_community_25.8.0-trunk.245_Radxa-cubie-a5e_bookworm_dev_6.14.0-rc1_minimal.img.xz currently on Armbian website)
Both of the image the board led just keep long green (no flash, no other colour)
I couldn’t get the pre-built images to boot either, but an image i built myself booted ok.
Here’s the options for the armbian build tools - Might work with others, but this is what worked for me.
./compile.sh build BOARD=radxa-cubie-a5e BRANCH=dev BUILD_DESKTOP=no BUILD_MINIMAL=no KERNEL_CONFIGURE=no RELEASE=bookworm
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Thank you David, I will have a try.
Would you mind having a look what is the version number of your A5E printed on the board?
Mine says v1.20
@David_Coulson blindly guess yours is also 1GB?
I read some source said A5E 1GB has booting problem with Armbian. some source
Nope mine is 4G.
Building with this flashed the image successfully, but Wi-Fi didn’t work(no wlan interface). Did it work for you?
I just built new Armbian image for my Cubie A5E and PCIe still does not work - I have a NVMe drive installed in the m.2 slot and it’s not identified. Is there something else I have to do to make it work?
v25.11 rolling for radxa cubie a5e running Armbian Linux 6.16.0-edge-sunxi64
root@radxa-cubie-a5e:~# uname -a
Linux radxa-cubie-a5e 6.16.0-edge-sunxi64 #1 SMP PREEMPT Sun Jul 27 21:26:38 UTC 2025 aarch64 GNU/Linux
root@radxa-cubie-a5e:~# lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
mmcblk0 179:0 0 59.5G 0 disk
├─mmcblk0p1 179:1 0 512M 0 part /boot
└─mmcblk0p2 179:2 0 58.4G 0 part /var/log.hdd
/
zram0 254:0 0 1.9G 0 disk [SWAP]
zram1 254:1 0 50M 0 disk
zram2 254:2 0 0B 0 disk
root@radxa-cubie-a5e:~# lsusb
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
root@radxa-cubie-a5e:~# lspci
root@radxa-cubie-a5e:~#