armbian-install not detecting devices on RockPi-S correctly

[Meestor_X]

Is there a github repo for armbian-install? On the RockPi-S with both eMMC and SD cards installed, it's showing the devices backwards or un-named in the menu. I'd like to open an issue report to see if it can be fixed.

Edited October 5 by Meestor_X

[Meestor_X]

Can someone explain these lines?

	# find real mmcblk device numbered 0, 1, 2 for eMMC, SD
	for ret in $(find /dev -name 'mmcblk[0-2]' -and -type b)
	do
		if [ -b ${ret}boot0 ];then
			emmc_dev=$ret
		else
			sd_dev=$ret
		fi
	done

On the RockPi-S, $ret would equal mmcblk0 and mmcblk1 which are the eMMC and SD card, respectively. There's no device called "mmcblk0boot0" or "mmcblk1boot0".

[Meestor_X]

Oh! I guess I reported this same issue a while ago - never got an answer.

Is there a github repo to report issues with this program?

[going]

16 часов назад, Meestor_X сказал:

Is there a github repo for armbian-install? On the RockPi-S with both eMMC and SD cards installed, it's showing the devices backwards or un-named in the menu. I'd like to open an issue report to see if it can be fixed.

Please post the output of the df -h and lsblk commands here.

Which image are you using and which version of u-boot is running on your board? (this can be seen in the UART console)

[Meestor_X]

df -h
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
udev            159M     0  159M   0% /dev
tmpfs            47M  4.8M   42M  11% /run
/dev/mmcblk1p1   58G  3.4G   53G   7% /
tmpfs           234M   76K  233M   1% /dev/shm
tmpfs           5.0M     0  5.0M   0% /run/lock
tmpfs           234M  4.0K  234M   1% /tmp
/dev/zram1       47M  2.4M   42M   6% /var/log
/dev/mmcblk0p1  3.4G  2.0G  1.3G  62% /media/emmc
tmpfs            47M     0   47M   0% /run/user/0

 

lsblk
NAME        MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
mmcblk1     179:0    0  59.6G  0 disk 
└─mmcblk1p1 179:1    0    59G  0 part /var/log.hdd
                                      /
mmcblk0     179:32   0   3.6G  0 disk 
└─mmcblk0p1 179:33   0   3.5G  0 part /media/emmc
zram0       252:0    0 233.1M  0 disk [SWAP]
zram1       252:1    0    50M  0 disk /var/log
zram2       252:2    0     0B  0 disk 

 

lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID:	Debian
Description:	Armbian 25.8.1 bookworm
Release:	12
Codename:	bookworm

uname -r
6.12.44-current-rockchip64

 

I don't have an easy way to do the serial terminal thing to check U-Boot. I have updated it to the "latest" using armbian-install, however...

[going]

1 час назад, Meestor_X сказал:

mmcblk1     179:0    0  59.6G  0 disk 
└─mmcblk1p1 179:1    0    59G  0 part /var/log.hdd

Is this your SD card?

 

1 час назад, Meestor_X сказал:

mmcblk0     179:32   0   3.6G  0 disk 
└─mmcblk0p1 179:33   0   3.5G  0 part /media/emmc

This is your eMMC just 3.6G in size.
This is the first time I have met this variant.
We need to think about whether it is possible to add an exception for this case.

 

[Meestor_X]

Correct. Many Radxa SBC’s work this way. RockPi-S, RockPi-S0, RockPi-E, E20c, e25c, e52c, rock-pi-zero, etc.

[Meestor_X]

If I understood a bit better what the script is doing, i.e. this part: 

 

Then maybe I could help with updating it to work with the Radxa products.

[going]

18 часов назад, Meestor_X сказал:

If I understood a bit better what the script is doing, i.e. this part: 

 

Then maybe I could help with updating it to work with the Radxa products.

 

On 99% of the devices I know, eMMC is initialized in the OS as /dev/mmcblk0, but there are cases when this is not the case.

# find real mmcblk device numbered 0, 1, 2 for eMMC, SD
	for ret in $(find /dev -name 'mmcblk[0-2]' -and -type b)
	do
		if [ -b ${ret}boot0 ];then
			emmc_dev=$ret
		else
			sd_dev=$ret
		fi
	done

This part of the code was implemented due to the fact that on some eMCC platforms there can be

both /dev/mmsblk0 and /dev/mmcblk1(2)

This works for chips that provide boot0\boot1 partitions to write the bootloader.

 

I think we can add more sophisticated logic to handle this exception for these chips.

You can add here the name of the chip on your device.
The translation may not be accurate. Please specify if something is not clear.

[Meestor_X]

Thank you.
What do you suggest I do?
I'm not sure that the "update bootloader" choices are showing the correct devices either.

[going]

1 час назад, Meestor_X сказал:

What do you suggest I do?
I'm not sure that the "update bootloader" choices are showing the correct devices either.

Please show screenshots of the selection menu step by step when you are trying to install the OS on eMMC.
Show me what you see that I cannot see.

[Meestor_X]

Screenshot is in the original post, it still looks the same now.

 

[going]

06.10.2025 в 03:32, Meestor_X сказал:

Can someone explain these lines?

	# find real mmcblk device numbered 0, 1, 2 for eMMC, SD
	for ret in $(find /dev -name 'mmcblk[0-2]' -and -type b)
	do
		if [ -b ${ret}boot0 ];then
			emmc_dev=$ret
		else
			sd_dev=$ret
		fi
	done

On the RockPi-S, $ret would equal mmcblk0 and mmcblk1 which are the eMMC and SD card, respectively. There's no device called "mmcblk0boot0" or "mmcblk1boot0".

 

Copy armbian-install to bin home directory

Цитата

cd $HOME

mkdir -p bin

cp /usr/bin/armbian-install $HOME/bin/

 

nano ./bin/armbian-install

Please replace line 839 as indicated here:

Цитата

@@ -836,7 +836,7 @@ main()
       # find real mmcblk device numbered 0, 1, 2 for eMMC, SD
       for ret in $(find /dev -name 'mmcblk[0-2]' -and -type b)
       do
-               if [ -b ${ret}boot0 ];then
+               if [ -b ${ret}boot0 ] || [  "${emmccheck}" == "$ret"  ]; then
                       emmc_dev=$ret
               else
                       sd_dev=$ret
 

 

Run the corrected version of the script.

Цитата

sudo ./bin/armbian-install

 

If everything works correctly for you, confirm it here.
I will add a correction to the next pull request.

[Meestor_X]

That seems to work!

 

Let me ask you this, though. Can you clarify what selection #2 means?
Selection #1 will copy the eMMC image to the SD card.
Selection #3 will copy the SD card to the eMMC (shouldn't the text read "Boot from eMMC - system on SD Card, SATA, USB or NVMe")

What is selection #2 for?
 

[going]

19 минут назад, Meestor_X сказал:

What is selection #2 for?

see:

/usr/bin/armbian-install

The create_armbian function takes different arguments depending on the selection number.

 

49 минут назад, Meestor_X сказал:

That seems to work!

Everything looks right on this selection screen.
But it seems to me that we see an excessive selection offer in the next selection step and this is misleading.
But on other platforms where loading is possible only from a soldered chip, which is defined by the kernel as /dev/mtd,

the selection screen will look logical.

 

Try installing the OS on an eMMC or on an SSD connected to the device via a USB-SATA adapter using various options.
Experiment.
If you find illogical options, then feel free to write your opinion here.

 

 

[Meestor_X]

Ok, I only use this utility on Radxa products ATM, and AFAIK they can't boot from USB without a bootloader on the eMMC or SD card.
If I had an image on a USB flash drive attached to the SBC, where would armbian-install expect to find it mounted? And then, would choice #1 or #3 use the SD card or the USB image?

Also, should option #2 not show? I don't know how it would copy from the eMMC to the eMMC...

 

The operation of the script works well, but the menu could be much clearer for the Radxa products.

[going]

2 часа назад, Meestor_X сказал:

If I had an image on a USB flash drive attached to the SBC

Sorry, I don't have this device.
Try inserting a USB flash drive into the USB connector and installing the OS from the SD card on it.
Try the available options. And choose focusing on your own real logic.

 

Of particular interest and attention if you install the OS on eMMC.

Then boot from the eMMC without an SD card connected.

And then insert the card into the SD connector and run $HOME/bin/armbian-install.
What do you see in the selection window?

[going]

PR for these changes: https://github.com/armbian/build/pull/8734

[going]

@Meestor_X Please check the following:

Цитата

for X in 0 1;do echo "mmcblk${X}: $(cat /sys/block/mmcblk${X}/device/type)";done

on a running device.

 

It seems that we have a more reliable way to determine the block device SD or eMMC

[Meestor_X]

On 10/10/2025 at 3:15 AM, going said:

It seems that we have a more reliable way to determine the block device SD or eMMC

Maybe not?
 

root@rp-satellite-01:~# for X in 0 1;do echo "mmcblk${X}: $(cat /sys/block/mmcblk${X}/device/type)";done
mmcblk0: SD
mmcblk1: SD

root@rp-satellite-01:~# lsblk
NAME        MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
sdb           8:16   1 238.3G  0 disk
└─sdb1        8:17   1 238.3G  0 part /media/usb
mmcblk1     179:0    0  59.6G  0 disk
└─mmcblk1p1 179:1    0    59G  0 part /var/log.hdd
                                      /
mmcblk0     179:32   0   3.6G  0 disk
└─mmcblk0p1 179:33   0   3.5G  0 part
zram0       252:0    0 233.1M  0 disk [SWAP]
zram1       252:1    0    50M  0 disk /var/log
zram2       252:2    0     0B  0 disk
root@rp-satellite-01:~#