Building the Ultimate Debian SD card

[kelamahim]

Hi!

I just recieved my olinuxino a20 and im trying to make a bootable debian sd.

I was following the instructions at

http://olimex.wordpress.com/2013/11/05/building-the-ultimate-debian-sd-card-for-linux-with-kernel-3-4-for-a20-olinuxino-micro/

and I stuck at

# git rev-parse --verify HEAD

where I got this message (on both ubuntu 13 and debian unstable)

fatal: Not a git repository (or any of the parent directories): .git

Please help!

Thanks,

Miha

[Javier]

Hi Miha,

I think the author intended that git rev-parse command to be just informational. To build U-Boot you would start with the next command, the git clone, which would download the U-Boot source.

But if you're just starting out with your board, I recommend you make life easy for yourself and use the pre-built image. You can always build your own image later if you want.

The official pre-built image is linked from https://www.olimex.com/wiki/A20-OLinuXino-MICRO#Official_Images_from_OLIMEX.  You just have to download it, unzip it, and write it to a blank card with a tool such as dd.

Let us know how you get on.
Best wishes,
Javier.

[kelamahim]

Hi!

Do I have to partition the SD card as stated in the tutorial (with two partitions (vfat and ext3)) and also write the uboot on it or just format it and write the image on it?

Thank you!

Miha

[Javier]

Hi Miha,

That tutorial is for building the system files then copying them onto the card, so it has to include steps for partitioning and formatting the card. But if you're going to use the pre-built card image then you don't need to do any of the steps in that tutorial.

Some people buy a microSD card from Olimex that is ready to use (https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/A20/A20-Debian-SD/). The official image you can download is just the raw content of that card, so it includes the partition table, the U-Boot bootloader, the vfat and ext3 filesystems - everything.

I recommend you read around on how to write an image to a card using the dd command before you try doing it. Some things to watch out for are:

• Make sure you are writing to the correct device. If you think that /dev/sdb is your card and you write the image to it, but /dev/sdb is actually your hard disk, then you will have wiped your hard disk and lost your personal data.
• Make sure the card is unmounted before writing to it. If the card already has a filesystem on it, your OS might automatically mount it when you insert it.
• Make sure the system has completely finished writing to the card before you eject it. The sync command is supposed to do this.

Best wishes,
Javier.

[kelamahim]

Thank you Javier!

I did what you told me. I succesfully uzipped and wrote the latest image

( A20_debian_kernel_3_4_LAN_USBx2_Cards_LCD_HDMI_SATA_TS_X_GPIO_OTG_MIC_Video_accel_release7.7z )

using dd.

It booted ok, but the enviroment isn`t xfce but openbox, and it doesn`t support VGA

Am I missing something?

Cheers,

Miha

[Javier]

Great, glad to know you solved your original problem.

Regarding the problem with VGA, the FAQ relating to the VGA cable (https://www.olimex.com/Products/Components/Cables/A20-VGA-CABLE/) looks like it has the answer you need. If that doesn't help, I suggest you search the forums or post a new topic (I'm not using VGA myself, so other people here would be able to help more than I could).

As for switching to your preferred desktop environment, that's not specific to Olimex boards but a question any Debian user might ask, so you can probably find the answer on the web.  I think it will involve installing the xfce4 package.

Best wishes,
Javier.

[kelamahim]

Thanks again!