Installing Ambian Bookworm to NVME / M2 SSD

[AaronNGray]

I am trying to install Ambian on to the BananaPi-M7 to eMMC using option 6. there is no option for NVME / M2 SSD.

 

I had a failed install as the uSDCard image was 256GB larger than the eMMC, so it balked. I tried a 128GB uSDCard, followed by a 64GB uSDCard, but got the same error each time even on the 64GB one. I seem to have two partitions on the eMMC, mmcblk0boot0, and mmcblk0boot2 now,.

I am not sure if they were on the boards eMMC originally or what the boot sequence for the board is If the Masked ROM tries to boot the uSDCard if present and if that fails it boots the eMMC ?

 

Do I  clear mmcblk0 and try again with the 64GB uSDcard ? Or is mmcblk0 required to boot mmcblk1 ?

 

I have done an

Quote

armbianmonitor -u

  :-

 

https://paste.armbian.com/ehanixecoh

 

Also

```
aaronngray@bananapim7:~$ lsblk -a
NAME         MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
ram0           1:0    0     4M  0 disk
loop0          7:0    0     0B  0 loop
loop1          7:1    0     0B  0 loop
loop2          7:2    0     0B  0 loop
loop3          7:3    0     0B  0 loop
loop4          7:4    0     0B  0 loop
loop5          7:5    0     0B  0 loop
loop6          7:6    0     0B  0 loop
loop7          7:7    0     0B  0 loop
mmcblk1      179:0    0  59.7G  0 disk
└─mmcblk1p1  179:1    0  59.1G  0 part /var/log.hdd
                                       /
mmcblk0      179:32   0 115.3G  0 disk
mmcblk0boot0 179:64   0     4M  1 disk
mmcblk0boot1 179:96   0     4M  1 disk
zram0        252:0    0  15.5G  0 disk [SWAP]
zram1        252:1    0    50M  0 disk /var/log
zram2        252:2    0     0B  0 disk
nvme0n1      259:0    0   1.8T  0 disk
```

Edited November 5 by AaronNGray

[AMR]

Apologies if i misunderstood, are you attempting to install armbian on eMMC or on your m.2 SSD?

 

16 hours ago, AaronNGray said:

I am not sure if they were on the boards eMMC originally or what the boot sequence for the board is If the Masked ROM tries to boot the uSDCard if present and if that fails it boots the eMMC ?

Well the first preference is SD card / USB device, and the second preference is eMMC.

 

 

Regarding installing on eMMC you can follow these steps:

 

 - Remove all the devices which might power the device

- Not officially mentioned but just to be safe remove any storage devices

- Connect the USB to TYPEC port on your Banana Pi M7 and the other end to your PC

- Make sure drivers are installed for your device (I am using windows for this so i only know how to do so via windows)

- Use RKDevTool v2.96 (In the official docs they provided an older version, just use 2.96 since i've personally tested it and it works)

 

- Hold the reset button (if flashing for first time) Or Markrom button, and only THEN insert the DCIN (make sure it has atleast 35W of power)

 

- If your drivers were installed, it should successfully show your device in Maskrom mode in your RKDevtool 2.96

- Do this:

 

- Make sure to check Write by Address, it's important

- Another thing, the image you select here should be .img, and not .img.xz (extract it first if its .xz)

 

- It should install armbian on your device. 

 

Here's my sources:

Getting Started BPI-M7 | BananaPi Docs  (Install Image to eMMC 2 section)

 

 

 

Edited November 6 by AMR

[AaronNGray]

Hi, I thought the eMMC is separate from the MaskedROM and the eMMC is write programmable while running the device booted from the uSDCard. Where as the MaskedROM boots either the SDCard or the eMMC in that order.

 

I am actually looking to be able to either :-

 

i ) boot directly from the NVME M2 SSD
ii) boot a bootloader on eMMC that then boots from the NVME M2 SSD

 

 

[AMR]

15 hours ago, AaronNGray said:

I am actually looking to be able to either :-

 

i ) boot directly from the NVME M2 SSD
ii) boot a bootloader on eMMC that then boots from the NVME M2 SSD

 

First of all, Have you tried installing the OS directly on your NVMe via balenaetcher? If not i think you should give it a shot. I am not entirely sure if thats possible though.

 

 

For what you are looking for, bootloader on eMMC which boots from Nvme sounds very reasonable. 

 

It does provide an option in RKDevTool to select a device. It should be PCIE from my guess, but if it doesn't work try SATA. Other than that, I honestly suggest you install the OS directly on your EMMC and keep the /var data or  /home (depending on your requirement) on the NVMe. 

 

Oh by the way, Loader is flashed directly on the device in perhaps some unreadable memory, However I am not very sure of that (Wasn't able to see it anywhere personally in lsblk)

 

 

EDIT: I've found this: https://docs.armbian.com/User-Guide_Getting-Started/#how-to-install-to-emmc-nand-sata-usb

 

 

 

Edited November 7 by AMR
removed: had some incorrect info, my bad

[amazingfate]

Hi, there is a simple way to install armbian to NVME SSD.

1, Boot armbian from sd card

 

2, Burn u-boot to emmc:

You can find u-boot firmware at 

$ ls /usr/lib/linux-u-boot-*/
idbloader.img  rkspi_loader.img  u-boot.itb

Use dd command to flash u-boot:

dd if=./idbloader.img of=/dev/mmcblk0 seek=64 conv=notrunc status=none
dd if=./u-boot.itb of=/dev/mmcblk0 seek=16384 conv=notrunc status=none

 

3, Burn armbian image to NVME SSD, you can use dd in the armbian system on sd card with command:

sudo dd if=./Armbian.img of=/dev/nvme0n1 bs=1M status=progress

or use application like balenaEtcher on windows to flash image to SSD.

 

4, Unplug sd card and plug NVME SSD, now you should be able to boot armbian system on NVME SSD.

[AaronNGray]

@amazingfateHi, can I fdisk the NVME SSD as I want to have a separate SWAP partition. How do I get the eMMC to boot the NVME SSD ir will it booted from the on on board "Masked ROM" ? Sorry not replied for nearly a week  : |

[amazingfate]

Armbian is using zram to configure swap by default, so it has no swap partitrion in its image. I you want separate swap partition you have to install the system on your own, by rsync the whole system to parted NVME root patition, and write correct root partition UUID to /boot/armbianEnv.txt, and config swap in /etc/fstab.

[AaronNGray]

@amazingfateIs it possible to eleborate on the details of installing to a fdisked NVME please ?  on what device and partition does the /boot/armbianEnv.txt live and how do I specify the UUID. Do I create a boot partition on the NVME as well as a swap and main/root partition ? Its would be nice to create a HOWTO document on how to do all this with possible variations, Many thanks for your help.

Edited Monday at 03:57 PM by AaronNGray

[Igor]

22 minutes ago, AaronNGray said:

Its would be nice to create a HOWTO document

I think it is better to expand script to support those scenarios. 

https://github.com/armbian/build/blob/main/packages/bsp/common/usr/sbin/armbian-install

 

Worse case, write things here:
https://docs.armbian.com/User-Guide_Getting-Started/#how-to-install

[AaronNGray]

@Igor I need to understand what I am doing first as I dont have a lot of time I and also to verify the method. @amazingfate seems to know what he is doing and it would be good to document it first. Then we can look at the install-script., which might actually work anyway ? @Igor Please read the whole of this thread if you have not already done so. 

Edited Monday at 09:04 PM by AaronNGray