Testing the CubieTruck/CubieBoard3 in everyday use
Armbian
Armbian is a Linux distribution for ARM processors. It has been specially prepared for the CubieBoard with the Sunxi processor and runs as a complete system with a custom Xfce desktop. It is slim, stable, mature, and fully ready to use.
Alternatives include Cubian [7] and Debian ARM [8]. I did not choose Cubian as a test candidate because none of the images described were available via Bittorrent, and Debian ARM is typically the choice for those who want to put a system together by themselves. Armbian was the right choice in this case, because I wanted to compare a Rasp Pi running Raspbian with the CubieTruck.
The first step is to download the image from the project website [9]. I used the "Vanilla" image, which comes in the form of a 7z archive that has been compressed with the 7-Zip utility. You need a suitable program to decompress the archive (Listing 1). Under Debian GNU/Linux, you need to install two packages: p7zip [10] and p7zip-full [11]. Under Windows, the best software to use is the official 7-Zip file archiver [12].
Listing 1
Extracting Armbian
$ 7z e Armbian_5.10_Cubietruck_Debian_jessie_4.5.2_desktop.7z [...] Extracting armbian.txt Extracting Armbian_5.10_Cubietruck_Debian_jessie_4.5.2_desktop.raw.asc Extracting Armbian_5.10_Cubietruck_Debian_jessie_4.5.2_desktop.raw Everything is Ok [...]
Installation
After decompressing the archive, you should burn the image file to the microSD card. The dd tool in Linux sends the file quickly (with the appropriate byte size option) to the data storage device (Listing 2). You should make sure when loading the memory card that the target data storage device (e.g., /dev/sdd here) has not yet been mounted. Additionally, you should adapt the device ID to your system. Next, send a sync command so the system completely transfers all caches to the data storage device.
Listing 2
Burn Armbian to SD Card
# dd if=Armbian*.raw of=/dev/<sdd> bs=1M 2337+0 records in 2337+0 records out 2450522112 bytes (2.5 GB) copied, 123.436 s, 19.9 MB/s # sync
To boot the board with the prepared SD card, insert the card into the appropriate slot on the CubieTruck and then power it up. The first run through generates the necessary system information and therefore functions as an initialization process, so you should count on this process lasting from three to five minutes. The exact amount of time it takes will depend on the performance class of the memory card you are using.
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