Some NVMe's just don't play nice with some units. I have one such NVMe, which is why I rarely try to use it. Also u-boot is not set up to look for an infinite amount of $devnum. Currently it is hard coded to look for nvme 0:1. So I suggest moving the NVMe to the first available. According to the boot log you have more than one PCIE link up [ 1.438] PCIE-0: Link up (Gen2-x2, Bus0) <-- Thats where you want to attach the NVMe [ 1.600] PCIE-2: Link up (Gen2-x2, Bus2) Honestly though. It looks like the NVMe you are trying to use isn't compat.

@sven-ola For my next debugging: To make a separate boot MicroSD, how should I go about? I guess I boot from the MicroSD but in single-user mode (how?) and then mount /dev/nvme0n1p1 / . Then, I re-flash the MicroSD with the image from you: dd if=Armbian.. of=/dev/sd0c bs=1M And then create a new Ext4 filesystem on the now-system partition, for use as boot: mkfs.ext4 /dev/sd0a And then move all the boot files there: mv /boot /boot.orig; mkdir /boot; mount /dev/sd0a /boot; cp -rf /boot.orig/* /boot/ And in addition to this, what files should I change and what commands should I run, for the MicroSD to boot to the SSD i.e. /dev/nvme0n1p1 ? (I'd think some file in /boot , perhaps /etc/fstab ) Aside from trying other power supplies, any thoughts about how to get it going would be much appreciated. One thing I should test is disconnect the SSD from the computer and then try to boot the 7.1 kernel Armbian from MicroSD and see if that works.

@Werner here is the URL: https://paste.armbian.com/yoyimafolu

Let us know @johlnx

I did more of a dance with AI and eventually got it working. This was the real repo: https://github.com/radxa-pkg/aic8800 Got the AI to write a summary of the dance. Phase 1: Resolving the Tooling and Environment Dependencies We started with a clean, lightweight system image missing common Linux development tools. We methodically installed the software compilation and packaging toolchain required to handle vendor drivers: Kernel Headers: Replaced the generic linux-headers-$(uname -r) command with the specific architecture branch package (linux-headers-current-arm64) to give the driver access to the Linux kernel API blueprints. Line Ending Conversions: Installed dos2unix to fix internal cross-platform formatting issues within the raw source files. Packaging Toolchain: Installed devscripts, debhelper, and fakeroot to fulfill the minimum environment demands of the dpkg-buildpackage engine. DKMS Engine Helpers: Installed dh-dkms to handle the missing modern virtual package mapping (dh-sequence-dkms). Phase 2: Resolving Kernel Version API Incompatibilities Because the hardware driver code was originally written for older Linux builds, trying to compile it directly against a modern 6.18 kernel threw standard compilation crashes. We bypassed the rigid Debian patch architecture and fixed the source code directly: Signature Alignment: Modified the function argument signature for .get_tx_power in rwnx_main.c to support the newer 5-parameter layout required by the upstream kernel (struct wiphy *wiphy, struct wireless_dev *wdev, int bss_idx, unsigned int link_id, int *mbm). Variable Alignment: Updated the interior variable name pointer within that function definition from dbm to mbm to match modern wireless power unit metrics used in current Linux network subsystems. Phase 3: Bypassing Packaging & Direct Kernel Compilation Rather than battling failing packaging lint tests or restrictive file verification scripts, we pivoted to an elegant, direct implementation: Dropped straight into the target interface folder (src/USB/driver_fw/drivers/aic8800/). Ran a direct raw build command targeting the standalone USB interface module flag: make CONFIG_AIC8800_USB=m. Manually pushed the generated binaries directly into the system kernel storage directory tree using sudo make install and synchronized the dependency layout using depmod -a. Phase 4: Correcting Firmware Pathing & Module Sequence The driver successfully built and registered with the kernel, but the physical USB bus threw initialization timeouts (bus is not up=0). We fixed the underlying hardware communication pipeline: Firmware Relocation: Traced the location of the compiled firmware folder hidden within the repository's package blueprints, and copied the raw firmware files directly into the absolute hardware search path at /lib/firmware/aic8800D80/. Sequential Probing: Cleared out the broken module states and forced the hardware interface modules to load in their structural order—giving the hardware bus loader helper (aic_load_fw) a 2-second sleep window to awaken the USB links before initializing the operational wireless adapter engine (aic8800_fdrv).