T95 max plus sdcard not

[JP Toggl3]

I've spent the last couple of months playing around (low-end testing just to see what the software and I are capable of) with Debian and docker: RSS, Nextcloud, navidrome, immich, nothing earth-shattering.  I was doing this in a VM so I could wipe and restart in case of failure/learning curve issues, which was great.  Everybody's got to have a hobby, right?   After much foibles, I had gotten the setup into something I liked and understood the pratfalls to expect in installation.  Ready for primetime, I didn't want to leave this in the VM  (I have constant paranoia about usage on my power-sucking desktop), but I have a T95 Max plus TV box sitting around doing nothing but Kodi and it's on all the time, so I started dreaming about how I could get a version of Linux on it and do all my docker homelab junk and kodi and maybe make a diy NAS out of the thing.  Armbian to the rescue!

 

I grabbed the wrong image (I got the barebones CLI only version instead of something with a graphic interface that I figured would be easier to manage) and I was able to boot off the sdcard and was able to install docker and portainer and had a working web interface, so...great...for a first try.  I then installed it to the emmc and managed to get xfce4 for a desktop interface so I can see what I'm doing.   The CLI version didn't really match any of the tutorials I was reading (there are suggestions that I could change the desktop with arnbian-config, but that's either false or was published for an early version and weeded out in later version, iDK).

 

Anywho, after mixing and matching instruction from amlgoic s905x3 and s905 versions, I have a working armbian with an xfce4 interface with working sound, USB, wireless and Ethernet.  I was warned that all of those peripherals may or may not work in this endeavour, but I am happy to say they all work after I did a bunch of updates and upgrades of the armbian.  Docker is going and the containers are all going and after 2x installs, I have a working Kodi going, so I am delighted and amazed. 

 

Now I have a couple of smallish problems.   Honestly they are minor, but I have succeeded so far and I'm full of false bravado so I an hoping I can Gert some insight or suggestions:

 

First, when I write the armbian to the emmc, the sdcard stopped working, period.  Armbian refuses to see it as a device and I can't boot off it using the toothpick reset method.  I've also tried using the amlogic flash utility with a male-to-male usb cable and my PC won't see it either, which tells me the sdcard interface is bunged, either the kernel can't see it or does not have drivers.  Either way, if I have future problems I have to trash the whole setup because I am incapable of reflashing the box. Plus, the box is only 32gb and I was hoping to use the sdcard as storage, but I guess not.  I've also thought of adding a USB card reader and seeing if I can get the box to see an sdcard through that, but I don't have a lot of faith there if it's a driver issue.

 

Second, the xfce interface asks for my username and password every boot but my mouse and keyboard take a minute to kick in.  It's annoying to me to be waving a mouse around and thinking the system has locked up, when it's really just taking some time to activate the USB.  What would be attractive to me is that I bypass the login screen,but I can't find the spot in arnbian-config that allows me to set an automatic login (again, the tutorial I'm reading may be old, but the options just aren't there in my version).

 

Sigh.  So my questions to the geniuses and gurus out there: Has anyone had the same problem with the sdcard and/or were able to fix it and how, and How can I set an automatic login through terminal?   The interface I have really doesn't have any real system settings like peripherals to show and won't let me adjust anything anyways.

[SteeMan]

I'll start on congratulating you for all you have accomplished.

 

Now to your questions.  I've never experienced a case where installing to emmc took away the ability to boot from the SD card, nor have I ever heard that reported by other users in the forums.  So that one is a mystery.  To debug that you would need to find your uart connection on the board and hook up a usb-uart adapter to monitor the uboot process.

 

I would also recommend you try putting your image on a usb thumb drive and see if that works for a workaround.

 

For autologin, you should just be able to follow any standard guidelines for doing that with a google search of 'xfce4 auto login' and you will likely need to edit some config file somewhere to enable this.  Exactly what may depend on are you running Ubuntu or Debian userland with the Armbian kernel.