Armbian 26.11 – Testing begins

Key points

Armbian has entered the stabilisation phase for its 26.11 release and is asking users to test pre-release images, especially on boards and features its automated test lab does not cover. Development is now limited to critical fixes; unfinished work moves to the 27.02 cycle.

What is new in 26.11

• Debian Trixie becomes the official build host and the default Docker image.
• Ubuntu Noble is dropped from release targets.
• All image formats are now signed.
• U-Boot 2026.10 is used on most platforms; remaining integration and boot validation are still underway.
• Linux 6.18 LTS stays the main kernel; mainline work has reached Linux 7.2-rc7, Rockchip edge is moving to 7.2, and out-of-tree drivers have been updated accordingly.
• New bootable UEFI live ISOs in minimal and desktop variants target cloud and IPMI setups.
• armbian-install has been rewritten as a tested armbian-config module, with improved eMMC/NVMe installation, SPI/MTD boot with root on NVMe, SATA or USB, dual-boot diagnostics and flashing of the bootloader alone.
• armbian-config now supports Proxmox VE on Trixie, virt-manager, docker-buildx and overlayfs without extra setup.
• Release automation adds weekly stable builds with automatic version bumps, pinned source SHAs and a changelog page per release.

Hardware

• New boards: LubanCat 4, Xiaomi Pad 6S Pro, NanoPi NEO3 Plus, Milk-V DuoS, Walnut Pi Box, Tanix TX6S; the Banana Pi R2 returns.
• Moved to Standard Support: RG DS, RG Vita Pro, LubanCat 5IO, Luckfox Nova, Qidi X-6.
• The reComputer RK3588 switches to the open Panthor GPU stack.
• UEFI adds Qualcomm X1E and CIX mainline support.
• The rtl8852bs and uwe5622 wireless drivers receive fixes for thousands of compiler warnings plus memory-safety fixes.

Automated testing

• The project's test facility regularly checks dozens of physical boards across several SoC families for reliable boot, kernel, networking and other hardware features.
• AI-assisted development agents are used to investigate failures, analyse regressions, do routine maintenance and prepare fixes that developers then review.
• Covered boards and their latest results are listed on the Armbian Automated Board Testing Status page.
• Boards covered there generally need no extra manual testing, except for desktop functionality and features outside the automated tests.

Release priorities

• Fix critical boot, kernel, networking and storage regressions.
• Validate U-Boot 2026.10 and the updated kernel stacks.
• Test new boards and those recently promoted to Standard Support.
• Check desktop images and graphics.
• Complete release image generation and identify missing images.
• Contributors are asked to hold back non-essential changes to avoid destabilising the release.

How to test

• First check the Automated Board Testing Status page: if your board passes there, skip basic boot and network checks but still test desktop and uncovered features; uncovered boards are the most useful to test.
• Get the latest 26.11 pre-release image from Download Test Images, or the latest nightly build if no pre-release exists; reports on either are welcome.
• Flash to a spare SD card or other storage and finish initial setup; do not use production systems or storage holding important data.
• Check boot (reboot and, if possible, cold boot), Ethernet and Wi-Fi, available storage (SD, eMMC, NVMe, SATA, USB), USB devices and board-specific interfaces.
• On desktop images, check graphical login, display output, resolution, GPU acceleration and general usability.
• If possible, try the new armbian-install, particularly installing to eMMC/NVMe and bootloader setup.
• Partial testing is useful; confirming a previously untested board boots and works already helps.
• Quick system checks suggested by the project:

uname -a
cat /etc/armbian-release
sudo dmesg -l err,crit,alert,emerg

Reporting problems

• Report failures on the Armbian Community Forum, critical and release-blocking regressions first.
• Include board model and hardware revision if known, exact image filename and kernel version, what works and what fails with steps to reproduce, and whether it worked on an earlier Armbian release.
• Attach logs, preferably collected with armbianmonitor -u.
• Fixes can be submitted as pull requests to Armbian Build.

For developers

• Maintainers can start building 26.11 release images by following Prepare Release Images; output lands in the incoming release directory.
• Images not yet generated can be found via Reporting: Download Images.
• Only critical fixes and release-blocking regressions should go in now; refactoring and new features wait for 27.02.

Summary by DistroNews, based on the original post.