community VS DietPi

It did take a little work to get it running on mine since it doesn't have the most common chipset configuration, but what I had to do was grab the image from https://github.com/armbian/community/ then burn it to a micro SD card using etcher. Then it required copying the proper u-boot.img and editing a file to select the correct device tree for my configuration. I don't that the lunar XFCE version of the image was the most stable version. Once it was running, I used an octoprint install script that made installing that pretty easy. I don't remember the source exactly, but it should be easy enough to find.

I checked to see if they had added the board in the past few days because it wasn't there last I looked. It's still not there. Can you be more specific? I checked their github https://github.com/armbian/community as well and there's no sign of it.

DietPi is a lightweight Debian based Linux distribution for SBCs and server systems, with the option to install desktop environments, too. It ships as minimal image but allows to install complete and ready-to-use software stacks with a set of console based shell dialogs and scripts.

The source code is hosted on GitHub: https://github.com/MichaIng/DietPi

That's a good point, but the array of devices supported by the DietPi team is extensive: https://dietpi.com/

Before someone starts the usual yadda yadda about the RPi biger community, the OS not having long time support etc. I would repeat one more time: do not rely on board vendor supplied images; this is valid for pretty much all boards. Just go to Armbian or DietPi pages and you'll almost certainly find one or more images that work on your board and forums to discuss about them with very knowledgeable people.

https://www.armbian.com/download/

https://dietpi.com/#download

Those projects are well worth a contribution, as they don't have a giant like Broadcom behind them.

> bananapi do a lot of boards but their software story has been a bit poor

This is quite common with other board manufacturers too. I'd rather suggest to ignore completely their cobbled together distros, often also tainted by proprietary modifications, that become unmaintained in a few years, and see if they're among the many supported by Armbian or DietPi.

https://www.armbian.com/download/

https://dietpi.com/#download

The full release notes can be found at: https://dietpi.com/docs/releases/v8_25/

RPi OS = diet pi https://dietpi.com/ - initial config via text file - SDcard burning out partially mitigated as writes log files to ram then flushes to SDcard reducing write cycles

You could also try very minimalistic distros like TwisterUI or DietPi which are most known for their use in the RasprebbyPi / SBC computers but which also have editions for desktop / laptop.