Copying an image file to emmc on RockPi-S

[Meestor_X]

The usual way to get the a headless linux box up and running is to flash a disk image to a µSD card and then insert that card into the linux box, boot, answer some questions and it's done.

 

Can I not do the same thing with an image file that I put on the µSD card (in addition to the µSD card having a complete linux OS that the box can boot from) and copy that to the emmc? Then pull the card and boot from the emmc?

Does the image file used for a µSD card differ from the image file that should be written to the emmc?

 

e.g.

I have an armbian image, say "Armbian_25.2.2_Rockpi-s_bookworm_current_6.12.15_minimal.img.xz", on my µSD card at /media/images

The emmc is at /dev/mmcblk0

 

Can I not just go:

dd if=/media/images/Armbian_25.2.2_Rockpi-s_bookworm_current_6.12.15_minimal.img.xz of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=4M status=progress

 

I tried this, but it did not create a bootable image on the emmc.

[SteeMan]

You need to make sure that any disk IDs get updated to the new values for you target media.  Look in your armbianEnv.txt file and possibly your /etc/fstab files.

But in general to solve booting issues you will need a USB uart adapter to see what is happening during the boot process that is failing.

[Meestor_X]

NM. Stupid user error.

Gotta uncompress the image first!

 

xz -d Armbian_25.2.2_Rockpi-s_bookworm_current_6.12.15_minimal.img.xz

then

dd if=/media/images/Armbian_25.2.2_Rockpi-s_bookworm_current_6.12.15_minimal.img of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=4M status=progress

 

Works as expected, but as you say, you do need to make sure you have a new UUID, and change /boot/armbianEnv.txt (and maybe /etc/fstab too)?

Edited March 31 by Meestor_X