Ok update.. I used a USB Ethernet to update and now the local phy is showing as end0 and it works. I'm kind of doubting my story now. I know the initial login could not connect to the Ethernet. After I installed on the local emmc and upgraded via apt upgrade things work now. I think this is a non-issue.

The thing is that I need it on different boards .... Tried Armbian Trixie and Ubuntu based, same issue thus it might be uoot and/or kernel related. Thanks for your help though.

Some of the Board manufacturers SDK's broke due to a deleted repository; looks like someone's having a rough end to the year.

There is at least no primary GPT, all zeros from 0x200-0x20000 Fixed with: # gdisk Armbian_community_26.2.0-trunk.130_Radxa-cubie-a5e_trixie_edge_6.18.2_minimal.img GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.10 Caution: invalid main GPT header, but valid backup; regenerating main header from backup! Warning: Invalid CRC on main header data; loaded backup partition table. Warning! Main and backup partition tables differ! Use the 'c' and 'e' options on the recovery & transformation menu to examine the two tables. Warning! Main partition table CRC mismatch! Loaded backup partition table instead of main partition table! Warning! One or more CRCs don't match. You should repair the disk! Main header: ERROR Backup header: OK Main partition table: ERROR Backup partition table: OK Partition table scan: MBR: protective BSD: not present APM: not present GPT: damaged **************************************************************************** Caution: Found protective or hybrid MBR and corrupt GPT. Using GPT, but disk verification and recovery are STRONGLY recommended. **************************************************************************** Command (? for help): w Final checks complete. About to write GPT data. THIS WILL OVERWRITE EXISTING PARTITIONS!! Do you want to proceed? (Y/N): y OK; writing new GUID partition table (GPT) to Armbian_community_26.2.0-trunk.130_Radxa-cubie-a5e_trixie_edge_6.18.2_minimal.img. Warning: The kernel is still using the old partition table. The new table will be used at the next reboot or after you run partprobe(8) or kpartx(8) The operation has completed successfully.

OK, I have the following in my test NanoPi-NEO (using 6.18 kernel): U-Boot SPL 2024.01-armbian-2024.01-S866c-P7738-Ha5c2-V2b78-Bb703-R448a (Mar 09 2025 - 03:54:42 +0000) Same base, but it is older and anyway different hardware, although H3 SoC. I have no more ideas why you need that extra kernel cmdline statement. I think I have seen it as well for another board/SoC, but does not ring a bell.