[banana pi m2 zero bookworm doesn't boot without keyboard]

I am running bookworm on a banana pi m2 zero.

It comes up properly and connects to Wifi and to the attached LAN adapter, so I can access it via SSH on both interfaces.

BUT, when I disconnect the keyboard, it doesn't boot properly anymore and I cannot connect to it.

I attached a monitor to take a look at the startup messages and found that it hangs at starting the hostname service (see screenshot)

How can I get it to boot properly?

[dpkg: cannot write to log file '/var/log/dpkg.log': No space left on device]

The problem happens easily when there is written a lot to /var/log.

This can even corrupt your system when an apt dist-upgrade fails right in the middle due to lack of space in /var/log.

The problem is due to armbian ramlog on devices with little ram, like older raspberry or banana pis.

The easiest way to solve it, is to disable ramlog in /etc/default/armbian-ramlog and zram in /etc/default/armbian-zram-config.

Be aware though that this makes heavier use of your SD card, though.

I usually solve the problem by attaching a USB device (preferably an SSD) for swap, /var/log and /tmp or by using a large SD card which has plenty of spare blocks.

[How to remove /tmp from tmpfs]

You could set ENABLED=false in /etc/default/armbian-zram-config and setup zram manually if needed (refer to man zramctl or google for it)

 

I use a USB attached SSD as boot device instead of an SD card on almost all my standalone minis and I don't want /tmp or /var/log vanish upon reboot.

Even on older devices, you can always run your system from a USB disk by loading the boot stuff from the SD card and then move on with the USB drive.

To do that, just adapt the disk ids in /boot/armbianEnv.txt and /etc/fstab (=>blkid)

 

If you just want to disable /tmp to be on zram have a look at /usr/lib/armbian/armbian-zram-config and eventually adapt it for your needs.

[banana pi m2 zero bookworm doesn't enable eth0 and usb]

I did try the latest Armbian 23.5 Bookworm on my banana pi m2 zero with allwinner h3 chip and I couldn't get the USB OTG port working (i. e. no keyboard recognition) and eth0 also did not work.

After a lot of searching I found an old image (BananaPi-M2zero_Armbian_2021.08.1_bullseye_CLI_5.10.60.img) which did work.

I wonder what happened to the kernel Kernel 6.2.y edition and why those crucial hardware features are not working anymore.

Is there a vault somewhere of older armbian software revisions?

[nfs-server startup problem after boot]

I have found that the systemd nfs-server unit fails because it cannot resolve hostnames when the service starts up after reboot.

I tried to add the following to the Unit, but it still fails.
 

Requires=network-online.target

After=network-online.target

It seems that others are also struggling with it and there is no good solution but only workarounds.

 

[nfs-server startup problem after boot]

I did install an apt install nfs-kernel-server nfs-common on my bananaPi M1.

I did export some dirs and successfully mounted them from my clients.

After a reboot the mounts did not work.

Then I manually invoked  exportfs -a and the client were able to mount.

What is the correct way to get the nfs server started after a reboot?

 

 

[banana pi M1 doesn't boot anymore]

In the meantime, I have installed the latest armbian successfully on my SD card but now I can't get it to boot from SSD anymore.

I created an ext4 partition on my SSD and mounted /dev/sda1 it to /media/SSD.

Then I did a:  cd / ; find . -xdev | cpio -pdm /media/SSD

 and adapted the UUID in /boot/armbianEnv.txt on the SD card and in /media/SSD/etc/fstab.

Alas when I tried to boot from the system on the SSD it fails (see pic)

Did I overlook somthing here or has something changed in the armbian boot process with the latest rev?

 

BPiSSDbootProblem

[banana pi M1 doesn't boot anymore]

I had successfully installed Armbian_2022.08.8_Bananapi_bullseye_CLI_5.15.74 on my M1 and copied the system to an SSD which I had attached to the SATA port.

Then I had updated the UUID in armbianEnv.txt and running the system from SSD was working fine.

The system was running headless in my closet  for about 2 months, and I even had no problems to remotely restart the device until today, when it did not come back up after a reboot.

I took it from the closed and hooked it to a monitor just to see the following error messages:
** Bad device specification mmc 0 **

Couldn't find partition mmc 0

I suspected a broken SD card but a check on my Ubuntu desktop showed no errors on the cards file system.

Then I prepared 2 other SD cards, one with Armbian_2022.08.8 as above and the other with Armbian_2023.02.2_Bananapi_bullseye_5.15.93_minimal.

Both did show the same problem, though.

To me, it looks like a hardware problem with the SD card slot.

Is there a way to get the M1 back to work again?