Recently, my T-cloud server is about to expire, and I was pushed a discount page. When I opened it – oh my god, 1135/year. It’s highway robbery!
They are trying to force us out, so I immediately went to check out A-cloud’s activities. Their price is really ‘conscientious’, 220+/3 years. Then I thought, if I use this money to buy a TV box and flash Armbian, wouldn’t that be great? I saw my friends on Bilibili and colleagues all getting the N1, and I was itching to buy one too. But on Pinduoduo, the price has already risen to 150+, and the slightly used miners are a bit cheaper. But if I just let it sit there, what can I do? Just as I was about to buy, I saw a foreign trade box with better performance (x96 max), with 4GB of RAM. 
I chose 64GB of ROM (only to find out later that I should have chosen the smallest one. Because I’m using a USB drive to boot, the system can see that ROM, but it doesn’t have a drive letter to mount it, if anyone knows how to do that, please let me know)
If you don’t need a remote control, you can negotiate with the seller to get a lower price. I estimate that 4GB-32GB can be obtained for around 210 yuan (plus shipping).
Next, we just have to wait.
Preparation Items
-
A USB drive of 8-16GB will do, I used a 16GB one. Initially, I was preparing an SD card, but unfortunately, it couldn’t boot.
-
One network cable
-
A Windows system, I initially used Parallels virtual machine, but a software couldn’t recognize the USB drive, so I gave up.
-
Windows software: Win32DiskImager
-
Image address: https://yadi.sk/d/pHxaRAs-tZiei/20.02/20200205 Choose one that you like, some come with a desktop and some don’t.
-
A toothpick, with the sharp end cut off. Be careful not to break anything.
After downloading the image, select the image file and the corresponding device. (The USB drive will prompt that data will be overwritten, please save in advance 
Good. The USB drive booting is complete.
Installing the System
First, let’s look at some pictures.
-
1. First, plug the USB drive into the USB 2.0 port.
-
2. Plug the keyboard into the USB 3.0 port.
-
3. Insert the toothpick into the AV port, there is a reset button inside. Hold it with one hand!
-
4. Plug in the power, after 2-3 seconds, release the toothpick.
-
5. At this point, you should see the boot screen.
System Settings
Once you enter the system, various checks will occur, and it will eventually stop at the login screen. The first time, enter the account: root followed by the password: 1234 and repeat the password: 1234.
Change the password: xxxxxx Confirm password: xxxxxx (If I remember correctly, this part is quite tricky)
Alright, connect the network cable, and you can go online. Try pinging www.baidu.com, and you can see the data packets indicating that you are online.
root@aml:/mnt/sd# ping www.baidu.com
PING www.baidu.com (61.135.169.125) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 61.135.169.125 (61.135.169.125): icmp_seq=1 ttl=56 time=4.43 ms
64 bytes from 61.135.169.125 (61.135.169.125): icmp_seq=2 ttl=56 time=4.64 ms
I got confused here, the network structure at home is: Optical modem (Unicom) -> Router (provided by the landlord) -> Huawei router (used for bridging, the smart devices at home recognize the SSID, so I connected this device).
I directly connected to the Huawei router with a network cable, but this way I couldn’t access the internet. (If anyone knows how to configure this, please let me know, I’ll study it.)
Wishing everyone a great time, if you have any questions, feel free to follow my public account.
Next, I also plan to release a few episodes to teach everyone how to set up internal network penetration and mount Synology NFS.
Previous reviews:
Thoughts triggered by Linux warning: Permission denied
Do you really understand error redirection in Linux?
Understanding and practice of VPC networks
Common knowledge compilation of shell
10 efficiency tools recommended for MAC platform
12 selected browser plugins recommended
