up all night, finally got it working. list of stuff I did: download latest 2505 bookworm-xfce and reburn the u-us card 3 times. copied 40 entry /etc/hosts file from working machine. edit /etc/hostname to change it to unique name amanda, then make it immutable as that did not survive a reboot. rm 10-* in etc/netplan, rename armbian.yaml to 10-armbian.yam editing it as needed, and edit /etc/nsswitch.conf to make network setup start as "hostname files dns" rebooting after each stage. So hostname now stays at amanda, and nsswitch.conf works as ordered. I can ping yahoo.com in addition to my other local machines and have now updated 208 pkgs. rebooted looks ok. Now I can get back to making a 20T lvm out of 5 4T SSD's, But first some breakfast and a shot of insulin, and a nap while the local weather settles, its poured piss out of a cowbarn boot most of the night. Thank you for the links, they were educational.
I'm an id10t. call in the St Bernards and drink the whisky yourselves. It was the .config file it uses to make flash. Its not a pure text file. Blowing it away and doing a fresh make menuconfig fixed it
on the next bpi5, I found the desktop switcher. its that absolutely meaningless jumble of pixels in the upper right corner of the lightdm login window.
Am I being overly cautious at not clicking on something that does not mean a thing o a new bee?
