How to upgrade ARMBIAN kernel on PINE A64+ board ?

[SR-G]

Hello.

I'm a bit confused, i have a PINE64 board ("PINE A64+", 2GB mem.) (this one : https://www.pine64.org/?product=sopine-a64-baseboard-combo)

I installed some years ago ARMBIAN on it - everything is running fine.

But i'm still on kernel 3.X something : 

 

```

uname -a
Linux pine64 3.10.107-pine64 #2 SMP PREEMPT Fri Feb 8 10:23:10 CET 2019 aarch64 GNU/Linux
 

cat /etc/armbian.txt

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Title:                  Armbian 5.73 Pine64 Debian jessie default
Kernel:                 Linux 3.10.107
Build date:             28.01.2019
...

```

 

Of course my whole system is up-to-date and has been switched from `jessie` to `stretch` and recently to `buster` (= apt-get update, upgrade, dist-upgrade done).

 

What am i supposed to do to have a newer kernel (i would need 4.x in order to be able to use `overlay2` docker storage engine) ?

 

Thanks in advance for any help.

[Igor]

12 minutes ago, SR-G said:

Of course my whole system is up-to-date and has been switched from `jessie` to `stretch` and recently to `buster` (= apt-get update, upgrade, dist-upgrade done).

 

What am i supposed to do to have a newer kernel (i would need 4.x in order to be able to use `overlay2` docker storage engine) ?

 

Thanks in advance for any help.

You are coming from a very old image, upgraded packages three times ... there is absolutely no warranty that this will work:

I would strongly suggest you to start with a clean image.

[SR-G]

I had seen the "armbian-config" thing while searching about how to easily upgrade kernel, but as it was not available out-of-the-box on my installation, i wasn't sure if it was compatible or not.

 

After having installed it manually (per the README.md), and after having switched to the most recent "stable" kernel offered, i can confirm you that ... it's not working at all.

 

For reference, image was : 

 

```

Package: linux-u-boot-pine64-legacy
Priority: optional
Section: kernel
Installed-Size: 1
Maintainer: Igor Pecovnik <igor.pecovnik@****l.com>
Architecture: arm64
Version: 20.08.1
Replaces: armbian-u-boot
Provides: armbian-u-boot
Conflicts: armbian-u-boot, u-boot-sunxi
Filename: pool/main/l/linux-u-boot-pine64-legacy/linux-u-boot-legacy-pine64_20.08.1_arm64.deb
Size: 261044
MD5sum: cd8ec350be9712dede3de568229f7bc4
SHA1: 9ea0658d187408806231276ec9a21e32bd7d23d0
```

 

(after that, board is not seen online, and even after having retrieved the box  and having plugged in an HDMI cable, everything is blank at reboot ...)

 

So indeed - and, sadly, it's going to be a time loss - i'm going to start from scratch now - probably trying to install archlinux first, to see if the board is correctly covered now.

Thanks for your input anyway.

[Werner]

Upgrading from older releases is most of the time just barely tested if tested at all, simply due to lack of resources.

[Igor]

15 hours ago, SR-G said:

board is not seen online, and even after having retrieved the box  and having plugged in an HDMI cable, everything is blank at reboot

Attach serial console and debug. All you need is to flash u-boot, check boot script, unpack kernel ... but you will loose more time then by installing fresh image and transfer whatever you do there. And you have to understand the difference between kernel you were using and the kernel you are about to use. To not waste more time and generate more frustaration.

Its not our fault and we owe you nothing. https://github.com/armbian/build#support

 

15 hours ago, SR-G said:

probably trying to install archlinux first, to see if the board is correctly covered now.

Its probably better than it was years ago. But its not near to what you will get with Armbian. Better OS and someone that is able to help you.