Magia, debian or ubuntu?

Banana Pi Router design BPI-R4(MT7988)
1

Hello

I use Linux since 18 years. I use Mandrake, Mandriva and now I use Mageia (cooker and now cauldron, the unstable version). I have try debian and ubuntu. I do not like ubuntu that looks too much like windows. I prefer mageia because know her well. I use debian with a raspberry Pi 2 ou Pi 3 since 3 years (debian 8 and now debian 9).

I have my PBI-R2 since 1 week. I hve fisrt find a ubuntu mate 16.04 for this computer. (i don’t remeber where).

Now, I found it : https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1oP7jy1KrrIOifvImo2nQ59wx3_9hHkgk There is a debian stretch. But it’s only 400Mo… Why ?

nb : I don’t speak very good english…

2

This image is created from scratch (empty sdcard) installed only basic system, overridden freespace with zero-bytes (for better packing) and packed…thats why it is (packed) only 400MB…you have to unpack it first (6 or 7gb) and burn with dd

3

We can install this install, add the source for apt and install all what we need ? After we and update all with “apt-get update;apt-get upgrade” but not the kernel. Isn’t it ?

4

Right,you can install every package available on official debian repository for armhf architecture.

Kernel is bpi-r2 specific and needs manual upgrade…see my kernel-repo on github for this

5

I have try deb_stretch_4.14.13_SD.img.gz and after bpi-r2_debian_stretch_4.14.13.img.gz . They’re don’t work. Or I don’t know how use it. I don’t nothing understand about the LED…

  1. No led
  2. I push the power key 3 led (a small blue, a green and a big red)
  3. After Only the green and the screen (hdmi) is green
  4. With deb_stretch_4.14.13.img only the 3 led (small red) and nothing…

I have modifie the partiton nb2 => 30Go

  1. No led
  2. I push the power key : No led.
6
  1. unpack image (tar -xzf filename.gz)
  2. burn it to sd-card (dd if=filename.img of=/dev/sdx)
  3. sync
  4. remove from host-pc & enter in R2
  5. press & hold power-button ~10-12 sec

if you want to boot from SD…please use SD-Image and not the emmc one

7

I don’t know sync…

“man sync” and I understand…

Thank’s.

edit : (tar -xzf filename.gz) ??? not gzip -d deb_stretch_4.14.13_SD.img.gz ?

Modifie the partition is not a good idea. Isn’t it ? Have do for the raspberry pi 2 and 3. But, I have do it for the BPI-R and ubuntu- after it don’t work.

8

I come back with ubuntu.

[root@localhost bpi-r2]# dd bs=1M if=2017-09-04-ubuntu-16.04-mate-desktop-bpi-r2-sd-emmc-v1.2.0.img of=/dev/sdb  status=progress conv=fsync;sync

    7945060352 octets (7,9 GB, 7,4 GiB) copiés, 532 s, 14,9 MB/s

    7580+0 enregistrements lus

    7580+0 enregistrements écrits

    7948206080 octets (7,9 GB, 7,4 GiB) copiés, 600,562 s, 13,2 MB/s
And it's good...

Where can I found a doc about this led ?

9

you’re right gunzip / gzip -d it’s not a tar

what do you mean with modify partition?? what have you done? resize rootfs?

you can burn my image like you’ve done with ubuntu…and just hold power-button 10-12seconds to power on

imho the leds having no special meaning atm…you can set them via gpio-access

10

I have found my img hier : http://www.banana-pi.org/r2-download.html

Ich verstehe warum es geht nicht mit Debian 9. Jetzt, arbeite ich mit Ubuntu. Ich warte von ein neue SD card für debian probieren.

11

how do you test if it is working? 4.14.13 does not support hdmi, network-config is in BPI-ROOT/etc/network/interfaces (change lanx or wan)

have you a debug-uart-cable?

after writing the image to sd-card and reinsert you should see BPI-BOOT and BPI-ROOT-Partition

12

I don’t know how test if it’s working. I have no debug-uart-cable. I think that’s my DHCP server have not found, but it’s only a internet box.

I think that’s it not working because the blue led was big. And when the card works I see only the green led.

I have ask you where can I find a doc for the BPI-R2 with the led. I don’t understand this 3 led. I don’t understand who use the “Onboard 8GB eMMC Flash”.

13

the leds are different on kernel-version and image…the only interesting is the red near gpio-header which cannot switched by kernel…this is on if r2 is running and off if not (depends on poweroff working if running before)

for network please look in interfaces file…imho i have defined a static ip. look in my wiki if you don’t know how to set port to dhcp-client

14

Yes I wanted use all the place. I always made that with raspberry pi. I use the “Mageia control center” for resize the partition. It’s besser to do a partition 3 for use the last 24 Go ?

If I want hdmi for debug the BPI-R2 what can I do ? The BPI-R2 is far from the desk. It’s simpler to wear a keyboard and a screen when the network is out. Is your lan config here : http://www.fw-web.de/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=en:bpi-r2:debian ? Who is eth0 and lan0 ?

15

+1 for additional data-partition

Hdmi is not usable for debugging

16

When I say “debug”, it’s only debug the web server.

If I do a error in /etc/network/interface or with iptables or with… It’s possible that’s I can’t do a ssh with my BPI-R2. I nead a screen and a keyboard.

17

You cann configure another port to dhcp and leave the existing.

Anyeay you can make a backup of interfaces first which you can revert by client-pc (remove sdcard)

18

It is sometimes simpler to work on the BPI-R2 with the bash to understand the problem.

19

Right,thats why i say use debug-uart… :slight_smile:

20

I have do a new data-partition in sdb5, and now the SD card desn’t work :frowning: