Temar

Yes, you can unmount and remove the card. However, you will no longer have the contents of the /boot directory available. When updating your system or installing a new kernel you have to insert and mount the card again or you will get problems.

Hmm, I can't seem to get this to work, my cubietruck just won't boot. Usually the green light flashes a few seconds after powering it up, but with my new card it does not. Here is what I did, with /dev/sdg being the SD card I'm trying to prepare: ## cleanup SD card $ dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdg bs=1M count=1 ## write u-boot $ dd if=/usr/lib/linux-u-boot-next-cubietruck_5.24_armhf/u-boot-sunxi-with-spl.bin of=/dev/sdg bs=1024 seek=8 ## reread partition table $ sfdisk -R /dev/sdg ## create maximum size Linux partition 1 $ cat <<EOT | sfdisk -L --in-order -uM /dev/sdg 1,,L EOT ## format partition $ mke2fs -L ROOT -t ext4 /dev/sdg1 ## mount and copy data $ mount /dev/sdg1 /mnt $ cp -a /boot /mnt/ $ sync $ umount /mnt Any ideas what I'm doing wrong here?

That explains why it does not work :-) $ dpkg -l '*u-boot*' | grep ii ii linux-u-boot-cubietruck-next 5.24 armhf Uboot loader 2016.11 ii u-boot-tools 2014.10+dfsg1-5 armhf companion tools for Das U-Boot bootloader $ dpkg -L linux-u-boot-cubietruck-next /. /usr /usr/lib /usr/lib/linux-u-boot-next-cubietruck_5.24_armhf /usr/lib/linux-u-boot-next-cubietruck_5.24_armhf/u-boot-sunxi-with-spl.bin /usr/lib/u-boot /usr/lib/u-boot/platform_install.sh ^^ Are you talking about that u-boot loader or do I have to install it somwehere to the new SD card? Like GRUB or LILO? EDIT: Found http://linux-sunxi.org/Bootable_SD_cardwhich describes how to write the bootloader to the SD. I tried to clone the SD card by copying the first MB and then reseting the partition table, but that didn't work either: $ dd if=/dev/sdf of=/dev/sdg bs=1M count=1 $ dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdg bs=512 count=1 $ dd if=/dev/sdf of=/dev/sdg bs=446 count=1 $ parted /dev/sdg (parted) mklabel msdos (parted) mkpart primary ext4 1048576B 100% $ mke2fs -L ROOT -t ext4 /dev/sdg1 $ mount /dev/sdg1 /mnt/sdg1 $ cp -a /mnt/sdf1/boot /mnt/sdg1/ $ umount /mnt/sdg1 Will try the proper way from the homepage tomorrow.

$ dpkg -S /etc/debian_version base-files: /etc/debian_version Looks like debian_version gets updated when the package "base-files" is updated. $ dpkg-query -W -f='${Conffiles}\n' '*' | grep debian_version /etc/debian_version 901275afdd9278ae23c429033a63d04e $ md5sum /etc/debian_version 901275afdd9278ae23c429033a63d04e /etc/debian_version At least on my system no other script touched that file.

I have a cubietruck board and successfully moved my Armbian installation from my microSD card to my SSD. I would like to clean up the microSD card now and shrink it to a smaller size, so I can move the content to a smaller card. What do I actually need on that card to be able to boot to SSD? Just the '/boot' folder or does the boot loader need any other data to do its magic?