How do I build an old debian stretch image ?

[AaronNGray]

I am trying to build an old debian stretch image for checking my BananaPi M3 boards. I had it and Jessie running fine for years, but buster is causing issues with soft boot and reboots failing. So wanted to check the boards integrity with stretch.

 

I have tried 

git checkout -b v20.02 remotes/origin/v20.02

which I thought was around the right time but I am just getting Buster being offered.

 

I am using Ububtu Jammy for building.

 

Edited November 16, 2022 by AaronNGray

[Werner]

Then you have to go farther in the past. However there is no guarantee that checking out an old tag will actually compile since this cannot revert upstream changes as well.

[AaronNGray]

Also its complaining about the build os

[AaronNGray]

I have gone back futher and it still only offers buster.

[Werner]

1 hour ago, AaronNGray said:

Also its complaining about the build os

Reasonable. Back then Xenial, Bionic and Focal were the only supported build environment while today it is Jammy.

[going]

If you want to check the operation of the device,

boot it from the memory card and check the file system on the soldered chip with the standard fsck utility.

That's enough.

But I think the reboot problem for bananapiM3 is related to the firmware of the controller and

its interaction with the kernel. It's not related to the operating system at all.

 

I have this device and I confirm the problem.

[AaronNGray]

I have had Jessie, and Stretch running fine since 2016 without a single glitch, with years of uptime, and multiple remote ssh reboots. I updated to Buster, thats seemed to be okay. Only on upating to Bullseye did I get issues.

 

I have found my old origiinal Jessie image so am going to check the device with that. Yes it could be a kernel issue.

[AaronNGray]

I am wondering if I can build buster or bullseye with an older kernel ?

[Werner]

As said there is no easy way to do that. If the given configs (legacy, current, edge) do not work for you the procedure to get a chance for an older kernel are mentioned above.

You could use git blame in the file where the sources versions are specified to know when it changed to the version you prefer so less poking in the dark.

[AaronNGray]

I have actually found a copy of an old original Jessie image updated to Buster that works fine. So I need a Buster image possibly with an older kernel.

 

I am installing Ubuntu Jammy on my older i5 machine, as Hyper-V Ubuntu Jammy is just too slow to do multiple kernel builds.