Heh, it came with FriendlyElec, I just used it long enough to make sure the hardware was working and stable. I always reinstall Linux from something trusthworthy upon receipt.

However all the NanoPi images are pinned to the same 5.10.x kernel, that I don't think it upstreamed, which is pretty ugly.

Armbian just had a new release, supporting a TON of SBCs, even a Risc-V board, which is weird based on the name. In any case, they support another RK3588 board, so I was going to try that. I want something using a mainline linux kernel if at all possible.