[SOLVED] Boot linux from USB

tlgimenes

Dear all,

I'm a recent buyer of a firefly rk3288 and I would like to boot my new board using a non supported linux distribution, more specifically, Arch Linux from a USB stick.

I've read on the wiki that it's possible to boot from USB stick using the "miniroot" environment, but, the thing is, that for configuring the miniroot environment, it's necessary a serial debug cable, something I don't have. Another thing that bothers me on the miniroot article on the wiki is the necessity of flashing the miniroot image into the board.

I was wondering if any of you guys made a miniroot image that doesn't need to be flashed into the firefly and/or that doesn't need a serial debug cable.

Thank you !

tlgimenes

Hello again !

Since there is no reply with booting from USB, does anyone know how the firefly team generated the Ubuntu SD boot image ?

Thanks !

tlgimenes

Hello again !

After hours on the firefly, radxa, androtab and other tons of websites I could gather all of the information necessary to create a SD bootable image using any root filesystem, in particular, the Arch Linux ARM one.

If there is anyone interested on how to create a SD bootable image or on the Arch Linux ARM SD bootable image, please comment bellow and I can write a detailed description on how I created the image and/or share the images that I created with you.

I created an Arch Linux ARM and an Ubuntu Server 14.04 SD bootable image. The Ubuntu one works well. The Arch Linux one needs still more work (mali GPU works fine but I wireless doesn't) and I will be glad to have your help !

Cheers ! \o/

tlgimenes

FesterBester38 Posted at 1/8/2016 05:04
Oh please, share this info with us. Did you try to install the "standard" Firefly linux on your US ...

Hello FesterBester38

I just wrote a tutorial on how I made it work. Basically I have the kernel on the sdcard and the ArchLinux root filesystem on the USB stick.
You can find more info here

tlgimenes

FesterBester38 Posted at 1/15/2016 16:22
Hi,

Is there a reason for the kernel to be located on an SD card instead than on the USB stick? ...

Hi,

I'm not sure if we can boot directly from the USB stick because I'm not sure if u-boot supports it. When I put the kernel on the SD card and use the USB stick for the root filesystem, I'm actually booting from SD card (which u-boot supports) and then just loading the filesystem from the USB after that the kernel is loaded (booted).

If you are willing to use your internal memory, I suggest you to use miniroot as described in here. The only problem with this method is that you need to have a debugging serial cable for setting up miniroot.

I don't recommend doing the same procedure as described in that post with the internal memory since you can brick your device. I suggest, however you to change your parameter file for loading from the USB instead the eMMC, something that will hardly brick your device and it's easy to recover.