Repurposing TVPad 4/BlueTV/StarTV as a Linux computer with Armbian
daniyo
Junior Member
Hi guys, I managed to resurrect my TVPad 4 by adding a reset button on the back of the device.
Hold reset button while booting with a SD card loaded with Armbian and it will boot. Must use the .dtb file attached here (rename to .dtb) and update it in uENV.txt file in the BOOT drive. (.dtb file is based on ec100 but the usb was disabled so I recompiled it enabling that & works with the latest Linux kernel 5.9)
TVPad4 uses S805 cpu with 1GB ram and it performs between a RPi2 and RPi3.
grab your image file and flash with etcher.io --armbian under folder s8xx
Thanked by 1padman
Comments
This is useful for running a PiHole server, freePBX, Octoprint, homeassistant, etc!
Thanks, daniyo
For the less technically minded (like me), can you please do a detailed step by step guide?
1) https://forum.armbian.com/topic/2419-armbian-for-amlogic-s905-and-s905x-ver-544/
2) Download the attached file in the first post then rename it to .dtb
Should be pretty straight forward
Anything else you need to do? I tried this and the tvpad4 logo just keeps recycling.
yea. Tvppad logo flashes a couple times and screen just goes blank.
Using Armbian_21.02.0-trunk_Aml-s812_bullseye_current_5.10.0_.img
I actually got a few other OSes to run on the tvpad. One of them was Ubuntu and another was openelec if I remember correctly. Just search for s805 images and you'll find some that work. Lakka that booted into RetroArch did not work. There's something to do with the video driver, I think. I'm not exactly sure. Good luck!
Uslacker99@, did you use the same dtb file provided here?
If you do recall exactly which image (version/kernel) you were able to get working, would appreciate you sharing. Thanks!