Concerns before trying to boot Armbian from SD card on GS King-X

[marfalk]

Hello everyone,
I would like to test Armbian on my GS King-X (S-922X). I have prepared a SD Card by using Armbian Imager. Then I have followed the instructions here:

• modified the "armbi_boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf" file, specified: "fdt /dtb/amlogic/meson-meson-g12b-gsking-x.dtb";
• copied "u-boot-s905x2-s922" as "u-boot.ext".

 

Now before trying to make the device boot from the SD Card, I would like to know:

1. If I do not install Armbian to the internal eMMC, will I be able to boot back to Android, by just removing the SD Card and powering off then back on the device?
2. Later, if I decide to install Armbian to a USB drive or an internal SATA Hard-Drive, will I be able to boot back to Android, or it will modify the boot loader in a way that it will not be possible?

 

Thank you in advance

[SteeMan]

5 hours ago, marfalk said:

 

1. If I do not install Armbian to the internal eMMC, will I be able to boot back to Android, by just removing the SD Card and powering off then back on the device?
2. Later, if I decide to install Armbian to a USB drive or an internal SATA Hard-Drive, will I be able to boot back to Android, or it will modify the boot loader in a way that it will not be possible?

As long as you don't install Armbian to your emmc, you should be able to still boot android by removing the SD and/or usb drives.  Once you install to emmc you will overwrite the android installation

[marfalk]

Thank you. I have managed to successfully boot Armbian from SD card. Android is preserved.

 

Now I am trying to install (move) Armbian (the "/root" partition) to an external USB drive.

 

I run "armbian-config", then I pick "System" --> "Storage", but no "Install" (Copy the running Armbian system to another device) option is listied (according to the documentation here). I get only the following items:

• Download a fresh, official Armbian OS image and write it to a device
• Enable read only filesystem
• Enable Network filesystem (NFS) support

etc...

 

I have tried also in Terminal: "armbian-config --cmd STO001" but I get an error.

 

In the instructions for TV boxes here it says: "running the shell script in the /root directory: install-aml.sh"

 

But it refers to installing (moving) Armbian to the internal eMMC, if I am not mistaken.

 

Is it possible to install it either to an external USB HDD or internal SATA HDD?

Edited yesterday at 01:24 PM by marfalk

[SteeMan]

40 minutes ago, marfalk said:

external USB HDD

You would just burn your downloaded image file to any USB storage, just like you would to an SD card (i.e. plug the USB storage into another device and burn the image to the storage)

[marfalk]

Thank you again for your reply.

I am facing an issue though. When i try to shut down the device (either by issuing the poweroff comand or picking the "Exit" on screen menu item), the shut down process does not complete. I can see the dots spinning on the screen for about 5-10 seconds, but then they freeze and the device stays on... The only way to shut it down is to disconnect the device from the power supply, but, because of that, of course the hard drive can not reach the sleep mode as I can hear it is still spinning.

Can I try something to solve this and have a clean power off?

[SteeMan]

poweroff doesn't work on any of my boxes either.  Does reboot work correctly for you? It does on my boxes, and I usually issue a reboot and then time a power disconnect when the drives have spun down and before they restart.