Want to run Qbittorrent, VLC, and Firefox

#1

Can anyone recommend an image on this site or anywhere else I can flash to work right off the bat besides Debian (which does just that but has no way to bring in new programs without what seems to be a medium level of linux experience). I have command line skills from mastering DOS and various flavors of programing. I just don’t speak linux very well. I got this SBC looking for something a little more robust than the Raspberry Pi… which any image I’ve flashed for it has been robust and easy to install, modify or bring in programs.

Is this board really only for advanced Linux users meaning its just a tiny boat anchor for me? If so, anybody wanna buy a board?

#2

You forgot to mention the name of the SBC you’re using.

You can try Manjaro linux it is very user friendly but as I don’t know which board are you talking about I cannot confirm we Manjaro had an image for it already.

But we do have for RockPi4.

Image for RockPi4 can be found on this forum thread

#3

Armbian:
https://www.armbian.com/

  • extensive SBC know-how, supporting up to three kernels per hardware family,
  • large community,
  • professional build tools,
  • automated testings,
  • topspeed direct ot torrent download,
  • regular updates,
  • daily builds,
  • automated build process,
  • cleaned and fixed 100% compatible Debian/Ubuntu base,
  • 100% open source development
#4

Neither version Bionic or Buster available from this site or theirs (its the same) work on my Rock Pi 4. I have managed to boot Debian and Android 9 from their images. Nothing else seems to work and the tech support for this company is not responding.

I have tried many different well tested SDs. I’ve been troubleshooting for 30 years so forgive me if I get a little short with ungrounded offerings here.

#5

All Armbian images are tested on real hardware. At least for booting, recently also for performance. Most of freely available Linux doesn’t get this luxury.

We know why they don’t work and that is written on the download pages: https://www.armbian.com/rock-pi-4/

“How to solve boot troubles with SPI enabled boards? (variant 2)”
Did you try that?

It is not Armbian’s responsibility that SPI bootloader shipped with the board is not capable to boot anything but their creations. They made a mistake, which was fixed later. But you can’t fix boards that were already shipped out.

If you have any specific questions and problems with Armbian, make sure to follow support terms:


I don’t know what Radxa (or other hardware seller) do with their customers emails, but we (Armbian) are forced to reject personal technical questions on the spot since it is not possible to cover the costs of this constant email flow, covering extremely expensive education in person, when project is making no income. I think hw sales profit margin is also not possible to cope with it. We have forums here, there … and this problems is also in a few posts.

Add Radxa APT guide not complete
#6

Firefox and qbittorrent is not issue, but i don’t think you will be able to get VLC with hardware decoding without a lot of modifications