Armbian not booting on RPi 5B

[Rob Latour]

Hi,

 

New user here - I Just download the current version of Armbian today with the hopes of using it on my Raspberry Pi 5B.

 

After unzipping it, I created an image on a usb stick using Raspberry Pi Imager - use custom.

 

However, it is not booting.

 

It only shows a few lines on the screen, the last being:

Begin: Running /scripts/local-block ... done.

(screen shot below)

 

What am I doing wrong?

[Werner]

49 minutes ago, Rob Latour said:

After unzipping it,

Why? Both USBimager and BalenaEtcher handle compressed images on their own.

 

49 minutes ago, Rob Latour said:

usb stick

Tried booting from sdcard? Not sure if USB boot is supported.

[Rob Latour]

Quote

Both USBimager and BalenaEtcher handle compressed images on their own.

Good to know.

Quote

Tried booting from sdcard? Not sure if USB boot is supported.

Boot still failed / stalled out, but differently (see screen shot)

 

 

 

Tried it twice, each time it stalled at the same place.  Gave up waiting after  ~ five minutes.

Edited July 14 by Rob Latour

[c0rnelius]

Which img did you try?

 

For usb boot, try adding usb_max_current_enable=1 to the config.txt file.

[Rob Latour]

 

Quote

Which img did you try?

 

Armbian_community_24.8.0-trunk.369_Rpi5b_bookworm_current_6.6.39_minimal.img.xy

 

from  https://www.armbian.com/rpi5b/

 

Server and IOT releases with Armbian Linux v6.6

Build Date: Jul 12, 2024

Distro Type Extensions Torren tIntegrity Size

 

 Debian 12 (Bookworm)Minimal / IOTSHA   ASC 181.2MB

 

* Minimal images have very small footprint. They come only with essential packages and build-in systemd-networkd.

* Server / CLI images comes with Network Manager and include packages like armbian-config, armbian-zsh etc.

 

 

 

 

Quote

For usb boot, try adding usb_max_current_enable=1 to the config.txt file.

I applied that change, but it is still hanging.

 

 

Edited July 14 by Rob Latour

[c0rnelius]

It came right up.

patrick@10.0.0.XXX's password: 
 ____                 _                            ____  _   ____  
|  _ \ __ _ ___ _ __ | |__   ___ _ __ _ __ _   _  |  _ \(_) | ___| 
| |_) / _` / __| '_ \| '_ \ / _ \ '__| '__| | | | | |_) | | |___ \ 
|  _ < (_| \__ \ |_) | |_) |  __/ |  | |  | |_| | |  __/| |  ___) |
|_| \_\__,_|___/ .__/|_.__/ \___|_|  |_|   \__, | |_|   |_| |____/ 
               |_|                         |___/                   
Welcome to Armbian_community 24.8.0-trunk.369 Bookworm with Linux 6.6.39-current-bcm2712

No end-user support: untested automated build

System load:   8%           	Up time:       1 min	
Memory usage:  5% of 3.89G  	IP:	       10.0.0.XXX
CPU temp:      47°C           	Usage of /:    4% of 29G    	

patrick@rpi5b:~$ lsblk
NAME        MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
mmcblk0     179:0    0  29.7G  0 disk 
├─mmcblk0p1 179:1    0   256M  0 part /boot/firmware
└─mmcblk0p2 179:2    0  29.2G  0 part /var/log.hdd
                                      /
zram0       253:0    0   1.9G  0 disk [SWAP]
zram1       253:1    0    50M  0 disk /var/log
zram2       253:2    0     0B  0 disk 
nvme0n1     259:0    0 238.5G  0 disk 
├─nvme0n1p1 259:1    0   508M  0 part 
└─nvme0n1p2 259:2    0   238G  0 part 

 

I suggest you try another PSU. These units don't fair well under powered. If you are using a PSU to SPEC and still having issues try using a quality SDCARD.

[Rob Latour]

I am using the official Power Supply for the RPi 5; although I have a USB 2.5 GB Ethernet NIC and USB SDD plugged into it.

 

Its hasn't been a problem with either the Raspberry OS or Ubuntu 24.04 Lite.

 

I'm trying out Armbian because I want to use bcache with the SSD and the USB 2.5GB Ethernet NIC. 

 

Raspberry OS does support the NIC but does not have bcache tied within its kernal, and Ubuntu doesn't seem to support the NIC but does have bcache as part of its kernal.

 

I know Armbian has bcache tied within its kernal and I'm hoping the NIC will work with it.

 

Regardless, I'll give it another try tomorrow (don't have physical access to the unit tonight) - will also try it without those USB devices attachced.

 

Out of curiosity, did you flash it with the Raspberry Pi Imager?  If yes, did you use the feature of that where you can apply settings in the Imager prior to the flashing?

Edited July 14 by Rob Latour

[c0rnelius]

I used gnome-disk-utility `gnome-disks`.

[Rob Latour]

ok thanks - will post back with my findings.

[Rob Latour]

@c0rnelius Thank you for your help.

 

The problem seems to be related to power. 

 

While I was using the Official RPi power supply, it looks like it was not enough when also used with my USB 2.5Gb NIC and USB SSD drive.

 

When I removed both, the system booted fine.

 

Will have to do some more fiddling, as well as try working with a powered USB bar.

 

Thanks again for your help.

[c0rnelius]

Your welcome.

[Rob Latour]

Just to come back to this and close it off.

 

The problem was not power related, rather it was with the partitioning of the 2TB USB SSD.

 

The drive was partitioned with MBR.  I changed that to GPT using Mini Partition Wizard.  It took  about 2 seconds to do that.  Once done the Raspberry Pi 5 booted just fine with both the USB 2.5 GB Ethernet NIC and USB SDD plugged into it.