BPI-R3 flash Ubuntu to emmc

Banana Pi BPI-R4/BPI-R3 Mini/BPI-R3/BPI-R64/BPI-R2 Linux
1

Hi,

I run the BPI-R3 not as a router but use it for other purposes where I need multiple LAN ports.

Special thanks to @frank-w who provided the ubuntu image and the network config there was a big help to get the device running.

But I wonder if it’s possible to flash the image to emmc. All topics I found were about the openWRT image and the manuals sadly don’t work with ubuntu.

Maybe someone here can advise me some help.

Thanks in advance and have a nice weekend.

2

@frank-w thanks for you reply on my dm, but I’m struggling anyway.

You wrote: “Should be same as debian…go from sd to nand/nor and flash emmc bl2 to boot0 and sd image to emmc userpart,maybe replace fip with emmc version”

I’m not getting the point how to do all that. On SD I got all I need to work and want this now on emmc.

With openWRT image everything works with the u-boot menu, but in ubuntu there it needs some other trick. Maybe anyone can help me here set up a more detailed HowTo that can help others with the same problem:

  1. flash the NAND with a bootable image. What’s needed, what is to do. There is the need of a .bin file, how do I create one. Also in case I have to use a bigger SD-card than the 8GB of installed emmc.

  2. flash the image from nand to emmc. What’s needed, what’s to do. I need the image to flash, of course, butin the BPI-R§ getting started there is bl2_emmx.img needed. Can I use the one from @frank-w or do I need to recreate the images again fom the one on my SD?

My goal is here to have an image of an SD-card which I can load on any device in case of failure and not to have set it up again.

Sorry about this newbe questions, but I want to learn and to understand, what is needed here. I’ve never done that before.

If there is any other topic which describes it please point me to that, I wasn’t able to find it with the search.

Thank you very much and have a nice weekend.

3

For nand i do not have an image…it is only bootchain till uboot (bl2+fip).

When nand is booted you can flash unpacked sdcard-image to emmc (check with “mmc partconf” if emmc is really active). Then write bl2 to emmc boot0 partition and replace fip.

All should be described here: en:bpi-r3:uboot [FW-WEB Wiki]