This cycle centers on Linux 7.2/7.3 kernel enablement across out-of-tree drivers, new board support and platform fixes across Rockchip, SpacemiT, and Amlogic, and a broad documentation and CI cleanup.

Kernel progression dominated the driver ecosystem, with 7.3 patch sets prepared for rockchip64, meson64, and the UEFI targets, and edge bumps to 7.2.3 landing for qcs6490, qrb2210, and sc8280xp. A wave of Wi‑Fi drivers was re-enabled and bumped for 7.3 compatibility, including rtl8189es/fs, rtl8192eu, rtl8723ds, rtl8852bs, uwe5622, and bcmdhd-dkms, most addressing the strncpy removal and the cfg80211 remain_on_channel cookie signature change. The rk35xx vendor kernel also advanced to the 6.1.172 rkr7.2 SDK.

Board and platform work introduced GL.iNet GL-MT2500, Xiangcheng XC3399FR, and NanoPi R28S, alongside U-Boot bumps to v2026.07 for Helios64, Odroid N2, Khadas VIM3L, and Mixtile Core3588e. Notable hardware corrections include a cold-boot switch fix on BananaPi R2, RK808 LDO mapping repair on Firefly RK3399 to restore analog audio, RTC correction on Orange Pi Zero 3W, an MSDOS partition table workaround for GPT/eGON on Orange Pi 4A, and SPI controller selection on NanoPi NEO3 Plus. SpacemiT K3 saw defconfig refinements and a transition from extlinux to boot.scr on the Pico ITX.

Infrastructure work focused on documentation consolidation and workflow hardening: a new "Armbian vs Debian & Ubuntu" comparison page, pinned third-party actions with scoped GITHUB_TOKEN, removal of dead PDF plumbing and unused announce workflows, and CI adjustments including GHCR visibility reporting and a lower stall-retry threshold in the SDK. The configng TUI received usability improvements to help text and top-level navigation.

#Armbian #EmbeddedLinux #Rockchip #LinuxKernel #SBC

Changes

• add compat for 7.3. by @EvilOlaf in armbian/rtl8723ds#19
• add compatibilty for kernel 7.3. by @EvilOlaf in armbian/uwe5622#20
• arm64: dts: rockchip: describe PCIe RTL8125 Ethernet on reComputer RK3588. by @rpardini in armbian/linux-rockchip#541
• arm64: dts: rockchip: fixes for Mixtile boards (Edge2 and Blade3). by @rpardini in armbian/linux-rockchip#540
• assets: add GL.iNet GL-MT2500 images. by @JiaY-shi in armbian/armbian.github.io#438
• assets: add NanoPi R28S board image. by @wukibaka in armbian/armbian.github.io#439
• auxdisplay: vk2c21: add sysfs brightness control. by @rpardini in armbian/linux-rockchip#539
• board assets: add Xiangcheng XC3399FR image and ProEmbed logo. by @liamhnam in armbian/armbian.github.io#440
• board-vendor-logos: add yuzukihd logo. by @igorpecovnik in armbian/armbian.github.io#436
• board: add 7.2 kernel target support to NanoPi NEO3 Plus. by @cjkoenig in armbian/build#10614
• board: add 7.3 kernel target support to NanoPi NEO3 Plus. by @cjkoenig in armbian/build#10623
• board: add GL.iNet GL-MT2500 support. by @JiaY-shi in armbian/build#10598
• board: add Xiangcheng XC3399FR (RK3399). by @liamhnam in armbian/build#10619
• bootscripts: seeed-rk35xx: pass boot disk tokens on kernel cmdline. by @Mkiring in armbian/build#10573
• ci: also prune www docs previews for merged/closed PRs. by @igorpecovnik in armbian/documentation#1187
• ci: lower stall-retry threshold to 30% (inclusive). by @igorpecovnik in armbian/sdk#48
• docs: hide the stale version chip in the repository header. by @igorpecovnik in armbian/documentation#1139
• docs: remove redundant DOCUMENTATION.md (superseded by README.md). by @igorpecovnik in armbian/documentation#1183
• docs: update networking & FAQ links to the new lowercase docs paths. by @igorpecovnik in armbian/configng#1012
• DOCUMENTATION.md: drop the dead PDF link. by @igorpecovnik in armbian/documentation#1182
• Drop the announce workflows, neither of which has ever run. by @igorpecovnik in armbian/documentation#1179
• Drop the leftover PDF plumbing. by @igorpecovnik in armbian/documentation#1178
• firstlogin: let the console with a user take the setup. by @enthropy7 in armbian/build#10578
• Fix build on Linux 7.2 (strncpy removal + remain_on_channel rx_addr). by @igorpecovnik in armbian/bcmdhd-dkms#8
• fix NanoPi NEO3 Plus (current): select correct SPI controller to let spidev registration not fail. by @cjkoenig in armbian/build#10580
• fix(bsp): do not block basic.target while resizing the rootfs. by @adeepn in armbian/build#10527
• getting-started: add "Armbian vs Debian & Ubuntu" comparison page. by @igorpecovnik in armbian/documentation#1165
• getting-started: wireless drivers & advanced networking in the comparison. by @igorpecovnik in armbian/documentation#1167
• Harden workflows: pin third-party actions, scope GITHUB_TOKEN. by @igorpecovnik in armbian/documentation#1180
• helios64: bump u-boot to v2026.07. by @iav in armbian/build#10645
• Ignore power down event with disable_powersave=1 module option. by @ValdikSS in armbian/uwe5622#18
• info: strip bash trailing comments before parsing board vars. by @igorpecovnik in armbian/build#10585
• Keep strncpy() byte-count semantics on Linux 7.2+. by @iav in armbian/rtl8723ds#10
• kernel: enable the IP tunnel drivers for every kernel. by @igorpecovnik in armbian/build#10569
• khadas-vim3l: u-boot: bump to v2026.07 + fancy. by @rpardini in armbian/build#10612
• maintenance: report private GHCR packages that should be public. by @igorpecovnik in armbian/ci#64
• meson64-6.12: drop upstreamed pinctrl-meson can_sleep patch. by @adeepn in armbian/build#10650
• mixtile-core3588e: u-boot: bump to v2026.07 + fancy. by @rpardini in armbian/build#10611
• mt7623: bananapi-r2: fix cold-boot switch data path (use RGMII CPU port). by @igorpecovnik in armbian/build#10577
• mvebu: helios4: remove bad patch. by @neheb in armbian/build#10581
• mvebu: update to 7.2. by @neheb in armbian/build#10594
• nightly: build Ubuntu minimal for Khadas VIM1S and VIM4 on current. by @igorpecovnik in armbian/armbian.github.io#437
• odroidn2: bump u-boot to v2026.07. by @iav in armbian/build#10630
• orangepi-4a.csc: use msdos partition table to fix GPT + eGON incompatibility. by @ValdikSS in armbian/build#10648
• qcs6490: bump edge kernel to Linux 7.2.3. by @SuperKali in armbian/build#10626
• qrb2210: bump edge kernel to Linux 7.2.3. by @SuperKali in armbian/build#10604
• recomputer-rk3588-devkit: drop duplicate common.inc sourcing. by @Mkiring in armbian/build#10649
• remove orphaned files. by @EvilOlaf in armbian/build#10608
• remove stray . in patch name. by @EvilOlaf in armbian/build#10599
• Restore the cookie output parameter on kernels before 7.3. by @iav in armbian/rtl8723ds#20
• Revert "input: remotectl: rockchip-pwm: prefer dedicated channel-3 IRQ". by @rpardini in armbian/linux-rockchip#537
• Revert "input: remotectl: rockchip-pwm: prefer dedicated channel-3 IRQ". by @rpardini in armbian/linux-rockchip#538
• RK3506: Update DDR, TEE, ROCKUSB blobs. by @vidplace7 in armbian/build#10620
• rk35xx-vendor: bump to 6.1.172 rkr7.2 sdk kernel. by @nyanmisaka in armbian/build#10363
• rockchip64-7.3: fix whitespace in orangepi-5 es8388 mclk patch. by @iav in armbian/build#10628
• rockchip64/meson64/uefi-x86/uefi-arm64: prepare 7.3 patches. by @EvilOlaf in armbian/build#10579
• rockchip64: firefly-rk3399: fix RK808 LDO mapping (analog audio is dead). by @i6941 in armbian/build#10610
• rpi4b: bump edge to 7.2.y. by @EvilOlaf in armbian/build#10590
• rtl8189es/rtl8189fs: re-enable add Linux 7.3 compatibility. by @EvilOlaf in armbian/build#10591
• rtl8192eu: re-enable and bump commit hash to add Linux 7.3 compat. by @EvilOlaf in armbian/build#10592
• rtl8723ds: re-enable, bump commit hash for add 7.3 compat. by @EvilOlaf in armbian/build#10593
• rtl8852bs: bump commit hash to include 7.3 compat and drop the lt 7.3 gate. by @iav in armbian/build#10629
• rtl88x2cs: bump driver to f4263fc6 (2026-09-01). by @adeepn in armbian/build#10586
• Run the config sync on a daily cron instead of a dead push trigger. by @igorpecovnik in armbian/documentation#1181
• sc8280xp: bump edge kernel to Linux 7.2.3. by @SuperKali in armbian/build#10615
• show-extensions: fix hook-doc rendering (heading marker + btrfs docs). by @igorpecovnik in armbian/build#10532
• SpacemiT K3: RE-Add CONFIG_CRYPTO_CRC32C=y. by @pyavitz in armbian/build#10644
• SpacemiT K3: Transition Pico ITX from extlinux to boot scr and update current defconfig. by @pyavitz in armbian/build#10627
• SpacemiT K3: Update legacy defconfig and add CRYPTO_*_RISCV64 to current. by @pyavitz in armbian/build#10639
• sun60iw2: fix RTC on Orange Pi Zero 3W (use SoC RTC, drop phantom hym8563). by @periqles in armbian/build#10576
• Take the cfg80211 cookie by value on Linux 7.3. by @iav in armbian/wifi-rtl8852bs#26
• TUI: Help describes the tool, top-level leaf entries work, shorter Storage entry. by @igorpecovnik in armbian/configng#1010
• uefi-x86 (6.12 + 6.18): fix T2 magicmouse raw_event split ('nested' undeclared). by @igorpecovnik in armbian/build#10609
• unisocwifi: reconcile connect and roam state. by @YipKo in armbian/uwe5622#17
• uwe5622: re-enable and bump to new commit hash including 7.3 compat. by @EvilOlaf in armbian/build#10589
• xradio: bump driver to 3ce657ae (2026-09-01). by @Maeur1 in armbian/build#10583
• [v2]: sunxi: bump edge to 7.2. by @EvilOlaf in armbian/build#10603
• Automatic refresh repository README. by @igorpecovnik in armbian/documentation#942