How to prod dperly flash latest debian images for the Lime2 board

[Danrancan]

I am a bit confused with all of the different ISO files I'm finding, some with instructions saying to use bs=1024 seek=8 on your DD command when flashing debian images to sd cards. I am just looking for a very normal debian install as close to a regular PC installation as possible, yet, I cant seem to get any of the images i flash with dd to boot, except for the very outdated debian Jessie img file listed on the lim2's web page. I am also very confused as to why we are still using Jessie as our main image? Its a completely outdated and unsupported OS at this point, so how come the latest updated image on the main web page for the lime2 boards points us to that very outdated debian version?

could someone just please point me in the right direction for some legitimate installation ISO or IMG files for debian on the lime2, and possibly some solid instructions on the right way to dd non .iso or .img files to my sd card to run on my lime2? Also, last question, is USB booting possible from a usb stick?

Thanks anyone for any help. Anything to confuse me less would be really great!

[JohnS]

Just a quick note to point out that the u-boot/Linux people changed things and that's beyond Olimex control.

So with an old image I expect you need the old dd offsets etc & with the newer you'll need the revised ones.

Linux on Allwinner (or many other uC devices) is far newer than on PCs so you probably have to expect some of this stuff that no longer happens on a PC (but maybe it did in the past...)

The good news with Allwinner A20 etc is you can't brick it by a messed up flash so at least you can just do it again.

John

[Danrancan]

Anyone out there?

[LubOlimex]

Just use BalenaEtcher free software to write and verify images and use these images for LIME2:

http://images.olimex.com/release/a20/

If you are wondering which image to get - get the Base images, for example the Bionic Base one - "http://images.olimex.com/release/a20/A20-OLinuXino-bionic-base-20201217-194545.img.7z". This is 7-zip archive so you need to extract it before downloading to the card!

[Danrancan]

Just use BalenaEtcher free software to write and verify images and use these images for LIME2:

http://images.olimex.com/release/a20/

If you are wondering which image to get - get the Base images, for example the Bionic Base one - "http://images.olimex.com/release/a20/A20-OLinuXino-bionic-base-20201217-194545.img.7z". This is 7-zip archive so you need to extract it before downloading to the card!

Thank you both for your answers. However, After installing the latest A20 bionic Base image in your link, My board seems to become unbootable after updating. I tried a second time, and before I did so, I checked the /etc/apt/sources.list file, in which it only has one single link which seems to be some sort of redirect link for sources. It does not list the mainline debian sources. Is there a reason for this, and might you be able to explain why updating would cause my board to no longer boot (black screen syndrome after device reboot, after updating).

Thanks for the help!

[LubOlimex]

Can you provide any logs so we can track why it doesn't boot?