Libre Computer AML-S905X-CC-V2 Sweet Potato board is an all digital complimentary design to the long term supported AML-S905X-CC(-V1) Le Potato platform. Like Le Potato, it is designed for 4K media with a 40-pin header compatible with a variety of HATs. It does not replace Le Potato since it is designed to address different markets. It is available on Amazon and AliExpress for $35 shipped.
Differences from AML-S905X-CC(-V1) Le Potato:
DDR4 vs DDR3 (Negligible Performance Difference)
2GB SKU only, OEM only 1GB Model
No CVBS/Stereo Analog Audio Jack
16MB SPI boot ROM with Boot Select Switch
MicroSD card Power GPIO
PoE Header
USB Header
eMMC 5.X Slim Module with Mounting Standoff
USB Type C Power In (5V 3A vs 5V 2.5A MicroUSB)
Same as AML-S905X-CC(-V1) Le Potato:
Form Factor
4 USB Type A Ports
RJ45 Fast Ethernet
40-pin GPIO Header
8-pin Audio Header
3-pin UART Debug Header
3-pin CEC/GPIO Jumper Header
Amlogic S905X SoC
IR Sensor
HDMI 2.0
Sweet Potato features design elements targeted at new commercial and consumer applications.
The internal 5-pin USB header enables the use of USB Video Class (UVC) cameras in embedded designs. UVC cameras are widely available from numerous vendors with customized ISP, sensors, and lenses enabling quick time-to-market solutions. As a high speed bus, it enables a whole new classes of applications not available previously. The pinout sequence is the same as the standard PC 9-pin header. Another application for this header is for attaching custom RF solutions such as WiFi, Bluetooth, Zigbee, Matter, and even software-defined-radio (SDR).
PoE header provides effective single cable data power solutions in remote applications. Sweet Potato’s efficient 1W idle power consumption is industry leading, making it ideal for always-on PoE edge applications with and without battery backup.
With the EU mandated transition to USB Type-C, Sweet Potato complies with modern product design regulations. The wide availability and standardization of USB Type-C power supplies are welcomed changes to reduce electronic waste. Here at Libre Computer, our composible designs with long term software support creates recycle value that mitigates the diversion of our products into land-fills.
Standardized boot with UEFI support is finally here. We were the first non-x86 SBC vendor to offer UEFI support in 2018. All of our product designs since 2018 feature support for onboard firmware. Sweet Potato supports booting standard ARM64 EBBR/SystemReady images. We continue this proud tradition of standardization by creating the first complete product-line standardization of our bootloaders.
Sweet Potato is a new and exciting platform we want to share with you. It is the culmination of almost a decade of engineering at every level to make the perfect hardware/software stack for your applications.
The bootloader has been abstracted on Sweet Potato. It can boot any official image. Third party images that do not use UEFI have to target Sweet Potato specifically.
I just received my new Sweet Potato and by digging this discussion board I managed to upgrade the firmware on the SPI flash to the october version. Now I have 3 questions:
Where is the libre computer OS tool (LOST)? I thought it was built into the SPI firmware of this board but I have no idea where to find it. When I boot the board, it scans for bootable partitions and when nothing boots, I just get an uboot prompt.
What is the purpose of the boot switch on the board? Which position should I set it to?
If I want to install Debian Bookworm on a SD card, can I just use the netinst ISO from a USB stick and everything will install and boot properly, contrary to the “old” Potato? Also, do you recommend a custom kernel for this board or the Debian mainline kernel will work fine?
I hope you can add more documentation for this new board soon. I really appreciate the efforts you make into providing long support for your products.
Thank you for your quick reply!
So I need to use the Debian offline installer? Does that mean the ethernet port is not supported in Bookworm with mainline kernel 6.1, or just not supported by the installer? I suppose LOST will make this easier so maybe I should just wait for it to be released.
Greetings! This thread reads to me like I can simply dd an arm64 installer image to an SD card or USB drive and run it on the sweet potato like I do on my x86 multi board computers. The Bookworm image from Index of /ci/debian/ runs without problem and the Fedora CoreOS aarch64 installer boots, even though it doesn’t (yet) succeed (haven’t looked into it further). As suggested, I flashed the latest firmware and tried both the official debian-12.2.0-arm64-DVD-1.iso and the debian-testing-arm64-netinst.iso images and on both an SD card and a USB drive but they fail to boot and just output the attached message before resetting and starting over. What am I overlooking?
It is likely something with Debian’s secure boot implementation or Debian’s GRUB trying to access non-existant network services. We will have an update in January for the bootloader. Please try again when that is released.
Hi… friend, I also have a sweet potato and I’m a little confused… I also wanted to boot via USB stick, but do I need to use libretech-flash-tool to unlock the boot via USB? Or do I have to wait until January??? Do I need to buy an EMMC module for this too? I’m confused on how to proceed…
How can I power the board with an external source? Could you tell me which pin connects the positive wire and the negative wire? Can I use 5v from an ATX source to power the board?my sweet potato is v2 thanks
We recommend powering through MicroUSB. If you have to ask the question about which pins, it is not recommended you try so as an error will fry the board. You can plug 5V into the 5V and the ground to ground.
I connected an SSD to the USB but due to the amperage of the charger it is giving me an error on the disk. Even the SSD with an external source gives the error. Then I thought about connecting to the 5v of an ATX source that provides more amps than the charger… would it be possible to connect the micro USB to an ATX source? This wouldn’t damage the board, right?
