cubietruck 3 years allways on, great, now Problem with upgrade (Debian_jessie_next)

[eshuz]

Hello world,

 

this is my first visit in this forum and my first question, please don`t bite me, if somethings wrong (and sorry for my bad englisch too, I`m from germany, blackwood forrest....).

 

I am using my cubietruck now since may 2014, everythings ok. Now i got a week holiday and i thougt about an update for my cubietruck, it`s not about the ubuntu 14.04, it`s more about my old 4 GB SD-Card. OK, 10 EUR and i got an new 16GB Card "up to 80 MB/Sec." which i dont believe, but the problem is at another place:

 

+ first writing the image to the new 16 GB card: https://dl.armbian.com/cubietruck/Debian_jessie_next.7z

+ next backup the old 4 GB Card to an image with a card reader on Windows-7 and ".....\Roadkil.Net\DiskImage_1_6_WinAll.exe"

+ now backup the disk (1000GB WD Red WD10JFCX 16MB 2.5" (6.4cm) SATA 6Gb/s) and after this, i put all the cables off from the disk.

 

The Idea at this moment was: Booting from SD Card and installing debian on nand, to get a new small and headless System. After 3 years of use, i will install only apache2-Server for local bookmarks and minidlna(d) for Video and musik on the disk, no more "buildessentials" and 1000 things of other stuff. But what happens:

 

The system is booting into an old 13.04 Ubuntu System on the nand, i got this message:

"your ubuntu release is not supported anymore. New release 13.10 available.."

 

And now the one and only question at the moment:

 

Is this a way to fix this behaviour and get a firmware update (maybee) aside: Installing Android like described in this artikel:

 

http://docs.cubieboard.org/tutorials/ct1/installation/cb3_a20-install_nand_boot_android_for_cubietruck

 

and afterwords using the Debian_jessie_next-Image will end sucessfully? Any other ideas or suggestions? What is the right way? I never had the feeling in the last 3 years, that i need a firmware update, but when it`s recommend, i got no fear against phoenix and lifesuit. But when there is no need to do this, that`s allright too. 

 

Thanx for all answers, have a good time.

 

Regards

 

Eckhard

 

 

[Igor]

Stay away from using NAND, because:

- it's slower than most SD cards you will find on the market.

- will fail faster than SD card since it's low quality, 

- it's not supported in modern kernel. In theory it is, but in immature state.

 

Start from clean system - forget about upgrades for many reasons ... Get Ubuntu Xenial (16.04) NEXT with kernel 4.9.7 (soon will be upgraded to 4.11.x) and install whatever you need, run system from SD card and mount hard drive as a storage ... update system from time to time, have a backup of important data and that's about it

 

Quote

Is this a way to fix this behaviour and get a firmware update (maybee) aside: Installing Android like described in this artikel:

That is 3 years old method to install 3 year old  buggy beta stock images with proprietary tools - you don't want that

[eshuz]

Good morning Igor,

 

thanks for your answer, that`s what i need, a direction to the right way. Maybee you got the answer to 2 questions again and afterwords i`m going to start the next installation and keep you informed next week:

 

+ I`m familiar with ssh, terminal and bash and i wanna have a "black and white" (headless?) System, so: Is there possibility to install ubuntu Server? That`s the backgroud of choosing the jessie-img before.

+ The effekt, that booting from SD Card with Jessie-Img ends in "autologin root on the nand system", what can i do here? You write: "Start from a clean system", really gladly, but: do i have to format the nanda,b,c Partitions prior?

 

I have to say, that i started the first Installation from SD Card with jessie without a Monitor: just booting, waiting for 5 Minutes, ping (discover the cubie) and ssh on IP, loggin root. Then the password 1234 doesnt match, but my old standard password does.

Second installation i got a monitor aside, but linux is talking so much at boot-time;-), and after a while, all messages disappear and the autologin root prompt from from the old 13.04 nand system is greeting me from top of the screen. Any ideas to this?

 

OK, have a nice weekend and best regards

 

Eckhard

 

PS.: If you like some "special humor for programmers": here is my "private Hello World page" about the "Evolution of a programmer": http://www.faszinierende-momente.de/HelloWorld/

PPS.: If this is not in your interesst, just delete this last two lines, Thanx again.

 

 

[Igor]

10 minutes ago, eshuz said:

The effekt, that booting from SD Card with Jessie-Img ends in "autologin root on the nand system", what can i do here? You write: "Start from a clean system", really gladly, but: do i have to format the nanda,b,c Partitions prior?

When SD card is inserted it boots from it no matter what's on your NAND, but it's possible that your card is not detected and it keeps booting from NAND or your SD card was not written properly, is broken, invalid. In any case some hardware trouble is involved if you can't boot from SD card. Try ejecting / inserting SD card many times, choose different SD card, stick to our general guide.

 

10 minutes ago, eshuz said:

Is there possibility to install ubuntu Server?

Yes, it's up to you - we provide server in Debian Jessie and Ubuntu Xenial version. Check "other download options and archive"

[sailorbg]

My ARMBian Wheezy is running for a LONG (more than a year) time from NAND as well. Never updated/upgraded. Thank you for your advises and your wanderfull work Igor. For a device that is not connected to INET, shold I upgrade?

[eshuz]

Hello All,

 

it`s like Igor says: it`s all in the SD-Card. It seems, that my SANDISK Ultra 16gb SDCard for 10 EUR was or is the Problem. But it`s really special:

 

I bought this Card in EBAY with the description 80MB/sec. and when it comes to me, first i used H2TESTW from heise.de. The capacity was ok, but writing was constant at 10 MB/sec. and later reading was constant at 17MB/sec. OK, i wrote this to the Seller and 5 Min. later i got my money back (paypal). EBAY told me, that the seller has stopped the deal and i got a friendly mail in the ebay system from the seller, that they will look after it in their supply chain and so on.... i can keep the card. Now I think, that time of fake SD Cards about the capacity is over, next level are fake cards about speed. OK, when youre interested in SD Card testing Tools, look here:

 

https://www.geckoandfly.com/22803/detect-fake-usb-flash-drives-sd-cards-ssd-disk/

 

Next step: I took an old SANDISK 8 GB Card and performed the SD Card Writing Procedure now on Linux, not windows. Note, that i have written the 16 GB Fake Card on Linux before again under Linux too and it doesnt boot. OK, here we go with the 8 GB old Card:

 

dd bs=4M if=Armbian_5.25_Cubietruck_Debian_jessie_next_4.9.7.img of=/dev/sde status=progress

 

I put the card in the cubietruck and everything was allright, 1234 with root over ssh, great. At the moment the "cubie on SD-Card" is getting all updates and i can write this at the end:

 

Two hours ago, i purchased an 32GB SANDISK UHS SD Card, up to 95MB/sec for 26 EUR including shipping. Look here, if you like:

 

http://www.ebay.de/itm/132121757759

 

In prior Installation I was using SATA Disk as root file System, just booting up from 4 GB SD Card. Now i will follow Igors suggestion like this:

 

1) System complete on good, new and fast SD Card

2) SATA just for (private) Data

3) Backup System (on Card) once per month with dd

4) Backup Data by feeling with rsync

5) The best: possibility to boot from nand (and checking and mounting SATA) when SD Card fails

 

OK, i will keep you informed in a few days...

 

Best regards

 

Eckhard