My NanoPi NEO Air arrived a few days ago, I waited until I also received a wireless antenna to go with it (Not included with the board) I was immediately excited to try out the 8 GB eMMC built onto the board, however that proved to be a challenge to research. Using the images provided by FriendlyElec, and their instructions, a flash could be done, but I wanted to use my preferred distro at this point, Armbian. After some forum surfing, I determined the work had been done for me.
Step 1: Download a copy of the Armbian image and burn it to an SD card. Stick it in the NEO Air.
Self explanatory I think.
Step 2: Using a USB3 port (preferably), power your NEO Air.
There is a reason for this. The good folks at FriendlyElec made the microUSB you associate with powering the device an active USB port. The better folks over at Armbian made that default to a USB/Serial endpoint at 115.2 kbps.
***Caution*** If you’re getting a blue heartbeat, the device needs restarted, the serial port won’t be there.
Once you have a solid green, you should see a new serial port in your device list. Talk to it, and you’ll be able to log into your NEO Air’s command line.
Step 3: Create Users/Housekeeping
Step 4: as su: “/usr/lib/nand-sata-install/nand-sata-install.sh”
That will stuff the image onto the eMMC. After a few questions, like what sort of filesystem to use, it will let you know when it can be shut down. Pull out the SD, reboot.
The eMMC is *A Lot* faster than the SD card, so that is a plus.
One last note: The analog audio is still available, although I’m not a skilled enough soldering master to attempt it.
See the 4 small round pads up next to the camera connector? Yep, Line Out and Microphone In live there. This was pointed out to me by the folks over at the Armbian forums, unfortunately their webpage is having some issues at the moment, so I can’t provide the link to the info.
Great article! About Audio Interface on NanoPi Neo Air — there are some updates already — http://wiki.friendlyarm.com/wiki/index.php/NanoPi_NEO_Air#List_of_Version_Differences
Now in Air V1.1’s audio interface is populated to four 2.54mm pitch through holes as follows, so you do not need to solder anymore, just use mother jump-wires.
Thanks Troyane!
Yes, I saw some board revisions come down the pipeline, sadly life itself has gotten in the way, and I’ve actually become a member of the Armbian development community. After a crazy year I think I’m getting things back into some control, I’ll be sure to go back through and post some updates.