Install Onto TV Box
 

Would it be easy and practical to install GNU-Linux or *BSD onto an Android TV Box? I'm talking about one of the $40 non-brand name ones with a 64 bit ARM processor (A53 Cortex, Amlogic S905).

If for some reason that particular hardware is problematic, then is there another TV box with decent processor and 2GB RAM that would be easier. I would prefer 64 bit but 32 bit would be okay too.

I want to use it to surf the web, stream 1080p from youtube, playback 1080i mpeg2 with good quality deinterlacing and rendering and do spreadsheets and word processing.

It would be easier to answer your question if you provide the specs of this box, particularly the processor and RAM.

Given the trouble that other distros, particularly Ubuntu, have had in developing usable spins to run on smart phones and tablets, I very much suspect that that it would neither be easy nor practical.

You'd have to find some web page that already claims it can be done. For example this. http://shop.tbsdtv.com/blog/how-to-r...pc-tv-box.html and hopefully you can find more than one web page on the hardware in question.

https://wetek.com/shop/wetek-play2 has a box already set up.

Amlogic S905 chipset (uses Cortex A53 processor 2 GHz and Mali 450 GPU)
2 GB DDR3 RAM
16GB eMMC internal drive
microSD card slot
USB ports

http://www.cnx-software.com/2016/07/...roid-c2-board/

"If you are unsure whether your Android TV box is supported, you should first try the SD card method by copying aml_autoscript, kernel.img, SYSTEM and 2 md5 files to the root of the SD card, and enter recovery. This is all explained in details in the forum post linked above, and this will not affect your Android installation nor data."

Clues.

Wow! The libreELEC community is really into this. I want to install a general-purpose gnu-linux distro rather than a limited-purpose one.

I was trying to get you work on the answer and solve it by yourself. :)

First you need to find a web page that directly explains both your desired hardware and exact linux distro to use as a guide. If you don't have that then you have to think outside the box as it were (pun) and try ideas from other successful installs.

I posted it to try.
"If you are unsure whether your Android TV box is supported, you should first try the SD card method by copying aml_autoscript, kernel.img, SYSTEM and 2 md5 files to the root of the SD card, and enter recovery. This is all explained in details in the forum post linked above, and this will not affect your Android installation nor data."

libreELEC shouldn't be too far removed from some other distros and it may have support, drivers and ways around doing what you want.

Have you ever found a web page on your exact install and distro?

These devices are being sold by the millions and while many are using common hardware you will also notice that there are 100 or so different models of basic hardware. It is unlike x86 where you could usually get some part of linux to install.

Hope you get it working and report back on what you did.

I was hoping someone on the forum had already done it. I doubt I have the skills if it involves much more than making a live USB and using an installer. Odroid C2 is a development board with the same Amlogic S905 SoC. It has partial mainline kernel support and is anticipated to have full mainline kernel support with linux 4.10. A TV box would be cheaper because it already has a case, a wifi chip and a power adapter. I was assuming that if the Odroid C2 will work with a linux armv8 distro, then any TV box with the Amlogic S905 would also work.

There are many single board ARM devices out there now that make this very easy (if you decide to purchase something)
For $40, you're going to have a hard time beating the Raspberry Pi 3 - but you'll only get 1GB ram.

I think two problems exist. One is hardware for that price and two is that the hardware you may get is unknown. No single blueprint exists for the millions of these. A board like the Pi is well documented as well and many of the hobby boards. We can find web pages on how to install and maintain on them. My only issue with the tv boxes are that they are being produced by the millions by seemingly every company on earth. As such, they have no standard. How could one expect to hope to be able to install linux on them. I'll agree that basically Android has a linux kernel so if you can access it by any means you could maybe take root and go from there.

Risky for $40 if you ask me unless someone gave you the box. I can only risk $20 or so on unknown stuff usually. Over the years I have collected a huge pile of electronic misfits.