Upgrade Cubietruck kernel from legacy to mainline (Jessie)

[farmerdave]

Hi,

I've been running armbian (Debian Jessie) on my Cubietruck successfully for a while now, its mainly just an mpd server. It runs as a headless server and I use the optical spdif connection, ethernet (although I used to use the wireless). I have my root partition on a 2.5" hdd. I currently have:

• linux-image-3.4.106-cubieboard
• linux-headers-3.4.106-cubieboard
• linux-firmware-image-3.4.106-cubieboard

 

I've seen the page http://www.armbian.com/kernel/ and added the repository as instructed. I really just want to confirm if you think I'll run into any trouble with spdif and ethernet if I upgrade to mainline kernel. My understanding is that I should install:

• linux-image-next-sunxi
• linux-headers-next-sunxi
• linux-u-boot-cubietruck-next
• linux-dtb-next-sunxi
• linux-jessie-root-cubietruck
• armbian-firmware

 

Should I also remove the legacy cubieboard packages listed?

[Igor]

You are trying to upgrade from an very old build, which in theory, should work but the problem might be boot script compatibility ...

 

27 minutes ago, farmerdave said:

• linux-image-next-sunxi
• linux-headers-next-sunxi
• linux-u-boot-cubietruck-next
• linux-dtb-next-sunxi
• linux-jessie-root-cubietruck
• armbian-firmware

One small mistake:

linux-jessie-root-next-cubietruck

 

If you have nothing to loose, do it ... but be prepared for problems and to start from scratch with fresh Jessie Next install.

[farmerdave]

Thanks! I think its a bit easy to make this mistake, the kernel page says to use "linux-jessie-root-DEVICE_NAME", perhaps it should read "linux-jessie-root-next-DEVICE_NAME"?

 

Unfortunately I do have a bit to lose, so I might have to think carefully if its actually necessary and worth it. Assuming I do go ahead, I see the boot script you linked to will also install /boot/armbianEnv.txt, which may be edited. I then just need to run 

mkimage -C none -A arm -T script -d /boot/boot.cmd /boot/boot.scr

before rebooting?