Hello dear readers and Support group@bananaPI
I understand BPI-M7 is fairly new and therefor it is normal to have some gaps and bugs and I think the people here are all people who like to tinker and get things sorted out.
This message is about the LINUX environments
I am trying the different official linux OS on this board using a LINUX host (Ubuntu 24.04 updated with the latest updates). I followed the following instructions found here : Upgrading Sige7 Image in Linux - General - ArmSoM Community
I downloaded the development tools , the MiniLoader and the debian image
- In the tools directory there are 2 directories … a Linux_Upgrade_Tool and an upgrade_tool_v2.22_for _linux
- to erase emmc only the command upgrade_tool in the Linux_Upgrade directory worked
./Linux_Upgrade_Tool/Linux_Upgrade_Tool/upgrade_tool ef /home/philip/Downloads/MiniLoaderAll-v1.15.bin but when using the Upgrade_Tool version 2.22 I got the following response upgrade_tool ef ./MiniLoaderAll-1.15.bin Loading loader… Loading loader failed,err=-1!
when upgrading the firmware with the debian img I tried to use first the first version but got an error and when using 2.22 the firmware was able to be loaded into the emmc and booted the device upgrade_tool uf ./BPI-M7_armsom-sige7-debian-bullseye-xfce4-arm64-20241029.img Loading firmware… Support Type:3588 FW Ver:1.0.00 FW Time:2024-10-29 15:23:19 Loader ver:1.11 Loader Time:2024-10-28 09:12:32 Start to upgrade firmware… Test Device Start Test Device Success Check Chip Start Check Chip Success Get FlashInfo Start Get FlashInfo Success Prepare IDB Start Prepare IDB Success Download IDB Start Download IDB Success Download Firmware Start Download Image… (100%) Download Firmware Success Upgrade firmware ok.
a bit confusion that the 2 versions of the Upgrade_Tool have each different issues … maybe a new version is needed
when trying to use the same way to program the emmc with the ubuntu image I ran into the problem the tool gave the following error upgrade_tool uf ./ubuntu-22.04.3-preinstalled-desktop-arm64-bpi-m7_armsom-sige7.img Loading firmware… Loading firmware failed! Note:invalid tag of firmware,please check firmware
The last line was generated by V2.22 but was not generated in the previous version (just fail message)
I would actually like to install the ubuntu version on the device to evaluate if that is a more user friendly img compared to the debian version.
I also flashed a sd card with the armbian OS and that worked well (flash the SD card → put the sd card in the sd slot → boot → move the installation from sd to emm) armbian worked well (but I would need some more exposed to Armbian to be able to keep it as a daily driver. With Armbian I had as problem I was not able to change the desktop from armbian to XFCE (download of the packages failed although the device was connected to the internet (chrome was open and played a youtube )
on the debian image I tried to install an android emulation and it failed during initialisation of waydroid as it could not fild some files (more info can be given if requested)
Dear Support :
- please explain what I need to do for the ubuntu-desktop flashing on emmc as it works from sd card but I don’t seem to be able to move the installation from sd → emmc
- the official download page contains not all WORKING images and maybe it needs to be reorganised with something like - to be tested (alpha, beta) , official and historical and sorted by type like android, Linux Ubuntu etc
- please check why the waydroid emulation gives a problem after successful installation but during the initialisation phase (some items that are not there and it seems wayland is not completely working as when installing the display manager for wayland I get into an infinte login loop and please make sure the images are able to be flashed onto the emmc?
PS : I like the board and both Armbian and Debian are VERY snappy and could almost be a real replacement of a desktop
an old software engineer (retired) with too much time on his hands Philip