installing OP5 NMVE boot

[vandyman]

I am not sure why it is so difficult. 

Here is what I do to boot from the nvme. 

 

Install the official orange pi 5 Debian server on a sd card. 

On the command line, sudo orange pi-config. 

Change the boot to nvme. 

Install Armbian on nvme. (use Raspberry Imager) 

Remove sd card and boot from the nvme. 

Waa laa! 

Edited September 3, 2023 by vandyman

[royk]

@Paulo da Silva With the Raspberry Pi you're not really installing it but just write an image to a sd, that does also works right away with the OPI. When you bought an Orange pi you should've known that it's fairly new and it's not the same as a raspberry. Then while Armbian makes these devices much more usable and give great support you're complaining here. If you want to complain go to the manufacturers forum, on this forum you could ask for help You're probably doing something wrong and that's what you could expect when you begin with something new. 

"without information on the company's website"??? 

https://orangepinet-5898.kxcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/OrangePi_5_Plus_RK3588_user-manual_v1.5.1.pdf

 

Especially look at:

http://www.orangepi.org/orangepiwiki/index.php/Orange_Pi_5_Plus#How_to_use_the_debugging_serial_port

 

http://www.orangepi.org/orangepiwiki/index.php/Orange_Pi_5_Plus

 

What's the brand/type of the NVME? and which steps did you take?

 

 

@vandyman

Although I did this at the beginning I've learned that dd (Raspberry Imager) to a nvme/ssd is not recommended and you don't need the official Orange Pi image.

With the Orange Pi 5 plus I didn't even had to update the bootloader to make it boot from nvme.

Edited September 3, 2023 by royk

[vandyman]

@royk

Yeah! There is a few different ways to swap the boot loader. 

Sometimes after testing Android on the nvme. The boot system will not let me run Linux again on a nvme. So I keep the Debian cli handy for basic command line. 

 

Note: 99% of my installs are done with Raspberry pi imager . Erase, burn, done. 

LOL... 

 

 

[royk]

@vandyman That's probably because you write the sd-card image (with bootloader) to the NVME. Android uses a lot of different partitions. I've seen a few times that Ubuntu's disk utility didn't recognize the drive correctly while gparted did.

Yeah it is an easy way to just write the image, for Android images I get it. For backups cp -ra did work well, the Armbian image with armbian-install. One time the bootloader installed to MTD didn't work, that was because the drive was SATA and had to copy it from the Orange Pi GitHub, not sure if that's still necessary.

[compent]

I can quite understand the frustrations of @Paulo da Silva, even though, it is not the board that is the issue, but the company, Orange Pi, who are next to useless and absent when it comes to support. They show that they are essentially, only box shifters.

Whilst the (very useful) process specified by @vandyman, seems easy, when it comes to changing the boot to NVME, the menu options are written in such a manner that it can be confusing to know exactly which specific option to use. And even then, to then decide to want to boot from USB, the options have to be changed again, which then renders NVME null unless the process is run yet again.

 

In terms of a solution, based on the line from @royk, 'With the Orange Pi 5 plus I didn't even had to update the bootloader to make it boot from NVME', this would indicate that Orange Pi corrected the boot process for the Plus model, so why not do the same for the prior 2 models?

 

The original bootloader boot process should have been simple.

 

1. MicroSD card
2. USB (any port)
3. MVME

 

That, IMO, would have satisfied most users needs and removed the frustrations.

 

You could still have options in the config for people to modify that for their specific purposes but having an easy to understand base of priority boot ports was always the way to go.

 

So why didn't they do it?

 

Was it because, not unlike their vaunted and much touted Orange Pi OS, which is half baked and (still) half finished, they only put half the effort in to shove the board off the shelves?

 

All evidence would suggest so.

 

But with a complete absence of them making any comment, we may never know.

 

Bottom line right now is that all real efforts are coming from and will have to continue to come from communities and users.

 

Forget Orange Pi the company as they are nowhere to be seen in any useful and practical terms.

 

It is somewhat ironic that they have (and were the first), to obtain Platinum support and yet there is no evidence that I can see that they have provided Armbian any service that could be seen to be even close to what might be considered such.
 

All the promise of Orange Pi the company has become rather tarnished, following them taking an instant and decisive lead in the RK3588 SBC arena.

 

I am sure that with time we will see more maturity for the SOC and I/O over time, which was always to be expected with a new product but as far as this vendor is concerned, they won't ever get any of my money again because they have shown what they are at a base level.

 

If a company said hey, we are a box shifter, then you know from the start what you are going to get but when they tell you that their new product and OS combination will change everything and then doesn't even come close , how can they ever be trusted?

[Andrija Huzjak]

Hi!
 

Why: `create 256MB FAT16 partition (nvme0n1p1)`?
I have tried few similar cookbooks as armbian-install does not work for me.
First thing different in this cookbook is file system on boot partition on nvme. Mabye this is my problem?

[Fain]

First of all, thanks for this post! It helped me. 

Sorry to revive an old post but I followed the steps and read in the replies that a boot partition was not needed but I did not see a solution to NOT using the boot partition.

The armbian installer does not copy the boot partition from the SD card so I manually copied the folder data and it am now booting off my NVME.

 

instead of step 4:

sudo mount /dev/nvme0n1p1 /mnt

// Now copy the sd card boot contents to the nvme. (The boot partition on the SD needs to be mounted)

sudo cp -R /boot /mnt

 

Then continue to step 5

Edited May 5 by Fain
Important typo

[naz]

Here's my updated version of the original recipie:

 

1) boot system from fresh downloaded SD (Armbian Jammy Desktop)

 

2) NVME setup (sudo gparted)
   - if empty create a partition table (GPT)
     if not delete all partitions
   - create EXT4 partition (nvme0n1p1)
   - optionally create more partitions (system recovery, backups, home ...)
   - format partitions nvme0n1p1 -> EXT4
   - check partitions (if old NVME)

 

3) run sudo armbian-install
   - option 7 to flash mtdblock0 (bootloader install)
   - option 4 (to install system and boot from mtdblock0)
     choose nvme0n1p1 partition to install system
     don't POWEROFF, just EXIT

 

4) this step is now performed by option 4 above

 

5) - sudo mount /dev/nvme0n1p1 /mnt
   - check files/directories are already copied (ls -l /mnt)

   - if you have any other partitions (e.g., /home), you need to extend /mnt/etc/fstab:
       - use blkid to discover UUID of partitions of interest

 

6) - sudo poweroff
   - remove SD
   - press power button to restart

 

 

By The Way, if you're coming in with ssh -Y (or PuTTY), you'll have difficulty running gparted.  Here's an excellent explanation of how to fix that problem:

          https://www.simplified.guide/ssh/x11-forwarding-as-root

[BOFFBOY]

Hi all,

 

Im having this same issue with OPi5 Pro, kinder stuck on step below:

 

-------------

 5) armbianExt.txt setup on NMVE
   - sudo mount /dev/nvme0n1p1 /mnt
   - check boot files/directories are already copied (ls -l /mnt)
   - blkid
   - copy (CTL_INS -> new UUID) of nvme0n1p2 UUID (without "")

  with your favourite editor:
   - sudo vi armbianExt.txt
   - replace rootdev=UUID=with new UUID (SHIFT-INS)

---------

 

 

could someone please dumb it down for this part please.

Im using Armbian_24.5.2_Orangepi5pro_noble_vendor_6.1.43_gnome-oibaf_desktop.img, its on microSD, got NVMe formatted and I can see it with  sudo fdisk -l as "/dev/nvme0n1"

but just cant get it to boot from it..

 

please any simple steps for a newbie ?

 

thanks

 

[royk]

@BOFFBOY Just boot from SD, enter in terminal: sudo armbian-install

Choose 1. Boot from MTD flash - System on ....

After that it asks you to also install the bootloader to MTD flash and choose yes

[BOFFBOY]

unfortunately i dont see the "Boot from MTD flash" option when using that command on Orange Pi 5 Pro

is this because the Pro dont have SPI flash ?

[Werner]

9 hours ago, BOFFBOY said:

Orange Pi 5 Pro

Did you solder your SPI properly? The 5 pro does not come with  by default

[BOFFBOY]

no...? .. .  .. :S  is that what the issue is it dont have SPI flash onboard ?

Edited November 26 by BOFFBOY

[Werner]

Sounds like, yes. Model 5 and 5 pro have the SoC in common but nothing else. Therefore discussion about pro in this topic is off-topic anyway.