SD Card booting without flashing your device

[Boocy]

Boocy, thanks for a prompt reply!
Do I have to flash anything to my device's ROM? As far as I understand from http://androtab.info/radxa_rock/sdboot/ to following commands



need to be done against sdcard but not device's ROM.
But if I do these steps on sdcard the device's bootloader remains the same and it boots kernel from device's kernel partition but not from sdcard.

You don't get it mate, you are not flashing anything on your device, you only need SD card reader, and type in terminal lsblk to see what devices you have available.. if using ubuntu 14.04 it's usually /dev/sdc
That being said, part of dd command such as $((0x2000+0x4000)) in them parts like "0x4000" is offset in parameter.
And you need to use everything from your specific firmware image; your parameter your recovery image, boot, etc.. keep in mind that you need to repack parameter.img file with parameter from your specific firmware.. but thats all useless, when I tried radxa's SD firmware everything worked just nice, and now I am trying to port MK802IV firmware to work for weeks now, and still no luck. :/

With some firmwares I get the device to start booting but it never shows the home screen, and they wrote on their site (androidtab) that any kernel can be used and ramdisk or Root file system has to be changed in order to work.. but I still can't figure it out.. I just hope its not kernel's fault.. :/

regards.

[Boocy]

You don't need to flash your normal device. If the sdcard is inserted with this special bootloader it is used instead of the normal bootloader on the nand.As picbuntu kernel image is booting and giving a command prompt we think it is matter of having the right ramdisk image and references

Mate, did you make any progress in last few days?

[knawnd]

marcelv, boocy, thanks you both for the explanation!
To make sdcard bootable I used marcelv's script mentioned in the 1st post of that thread. I specified as a value for KERNEL variable the absolute path to kernel.img which is flashed into kernel partition of my device and which I am using to boot linux from sdcard. When I shutdown my device (Minix Neo X7), replace sdcard (there is linux root fs on it) with just formatted sdcard by mentioned script I get a initramfs prompt. But I am not sure which kernel was loaded: the one from sdcard or the one from my kernel partition. Is there any way to check it?

[Boocy]

marcelv, boocy, thanks you both for the explanation!
To make sdcard bootable I used marcelv's script mentioned in the 1st post of that thread. I specified as a value for KERNEL variable the absolute path to kernel.img which is flashed into kernel partition of my device and which I am using to boot linux from sdcard. When I shutdown my device (Minix Neo X7), replace sdcard (there is linux root fs on it) with just formatted sdcard by mentioned script I get a initramfs prompt. But I am not sure which kernel was loaded: the one from sdcard or the one from my kernel partition. Is there any way to check it?

Yeah, these days every kernel has image compiled in it, just try running dd command on your sd card with firmware parts from another firmware (like some finless version), that way when you start your device with inserted sd card you get different image on startup if it is booting from your sd card, if not you will see what you used to see before on your device without inserting the card..

Regards.

[knawnd]

Boocy, thanks a lot for your reply! I could boot from other kernels (tried android Finless 1.9 1080p stock one and chenac's linux one). I am interested in booting linux. Currently boot process ends with initramfs command prompt. So I wonder how I can go further and boot linux. I guess linux root fs needs to be copied on the same sdcard. But if there is any way to put linux root fs that bootable sdcard? In linux on my PC 'parted' shows there is no proper partition table on that sdcard:

Error: /dev/sdb: unrecognised disk label                                  
Model: Multiple Card Reader (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 1948MB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: unknown

Thus I can't mount it to copy linux root fs there, can I? Or it can be mounted by specifying some offset?

[Boocy]

Boocy, thanks a lot for your reply! I could boot from other kernels (tried android Finless 1.9 1080p stock one and chenac's linux one). I am interested in booting linux. Currently boot process ends with initramfs command prompt. So I wonder how I can go further and boot linux. I guess linux root fs needs to be copied on the same sdcard. But if there is any way to put linux root fs that bootable sdcard? In linux on my PC 'parted' shows there is no proper partition table on that sdcard:

Error: /dev/sdb: unrecognised disk label                                  
Model: Multiple Card Reader (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 1948MB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: unknown

Thus I can't mount it to copy linux root fs there, can I? Or it can be mounted by specifying some offset?

Linuxium had an update regarding booting linux like ubuntu directlly from sd card with kernel and everything.. research linuxium's bootloader for minin neo x7.

Regards.

[knawnd]

Linuxium had an update regarding booting linux like ubuntu directlly from sd card with kernel and everything.. research linuxium's bootloader for minin neo x7.

Regards.

if you meant that thread then as far as I understand that bootloader doesn't boot kernel from sdcard. I had tried to clarify that but I've not got any reply yet.
As for topic in this thread it seems I couldn't boot my minix neo x7 from sdcard using recipe described in this thread. Although I flashed 3.0.36+ chenac's kernel on sdcard and 'uname -a' in initramfs command line prompt shows me 3.0.36+ version but I get exactly the same result (initramfs command line prompt with 3.0.36+ kernel version) if device is booted without sdcard inserted at all. It looks really strange to me since 3.0.101+ kernel is flashed in my kernel partition and I expected to observe '3.0.101+' as the output of uname.

[linuxium]

See https://plus.google.com/109451178006...ts/TTXkb7pX7SG

Ever fancied trying out Linux but don't want to 'flash' your device?
Tried 'flashing' but now have a 'bricked' and unuseable device?
Do you have a broken reset button so you can't change the firmware?

Then try booting from an SD card. Simply download the relevant file from the list below whilst on a Linux machine, unzip it, insert an SD card and run the script 'create_sdcard' to create a bootable SD card. Then with the power off on your MiniPC, insert the SD card and turn the power on. Linux will boot and you will now be able to login into Ubuntu 12.04 with the password of 'p'.

I've created versions for three of the more popular MiniPCs:

Minix Neo X7 https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B99...3V0UHBwa1J4enM
Radxa Rock https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B99...Eo5TUNkLV9zMGc
Rikomagic MK802IV https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B99...HBFRXdHR3FzMEE

All credit goes to Fukaumi-san who documented the SD card boot method here http://androtab.info/radxa_rock/sdboot/.

My software includes a simplified 'initram' and a script to build the SD card. Because it is a script you can easily edit to use your preferred 'kernel' or 'rootfs'. Once you have created the SD card you can comment out the 'rootfs' load command and use the script to try out different kernels by changing 'kernel.img' to another kernel image file. If you want more functionality like running a 'rootfs' from NAND or a USB then I recommend using Fukaumi-san's 'miniroot' software which is very powerful. Simply point to his downloaded 'boot.img' in the script. Don't forget to first enter 'sudo resize2fs /dev/mmcblk0p1' afer logging in so that the file system can use the entire SD card.

[knawnd]

Ian, thank you very much for your work! But I get just black screen on my display connected to Minix Neo x7. Screen flashes sometime tne "HDMI 1 No signal" appears. And then that loop is repeated: "No signal" -> flashed screen -> black screen.

[linuxium]

Ian, thank you very much for your work! But I get just black screen on my display connected to Minix Neo x7. Screen flashes sometime tne "HDMI 1 No signal" appears. And then that loop is repeated: "No signal" -> flashed screen -> black screen.

I've just re-tested and it works fine so I'm happy there has been no corruption with the upload of the file. FYI, I downloaded the zip from from the link as a different user to my development id, unzipped it, put in an SD card and then ran the script with 'sudo ./create_sdcard' (as it was 'rwx' for root), answered the questions, waited for the 'Finished creating a bootable SD card', took the card out and put it into my X7, powered up and after a brief flash of a message on the screen, up came Ubuntu.

Therefore, please can I suggest you try another SD card and let me know the results? Try cycling the power a couple of times to see if this gets it to boot (if you've not already tried that).

[AudioBubble]

SD Card booting without flashing your device

Hello Ian, does my device (mk809III/qc802) need to be rooted to boot ubuntu on the sd card with you're method ? Thanks, Guillaume.


Envoyé de mon iPhone en utilisant Tapatalk

[thafath]

Hello, I tried this and it worked (boot) like a charm on my MK802IV (new model with AP6210). One issue, when in the ubuntu login screen, I can't login. It stays some seconds (may be 30sec) then it reboots (and keeps like this rebooting), I checked the sdcard on my laptop, can't see any error logs (all files in var/log are empty). If possible, how can I get Kali instead of ubuntu, is it only the rootfs to change or have to get/keep some modules. Thank you for this great work.

[linuxium]

I've updated my earlier post https://plus.google.com/109451178006...ts/TTXkb7pX7SG to include a new version of the SD card creation script to support MMC (e.g. /dev/mmcblk0) devices as before it only worked on a machine that recognizes the drive as a HDD device (e.g. /dev/hda or /dev/sda).

This new version can be downloaded from https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B99...3VZMzMtNGVHMkk and the file should first be unzipped and then run as root by running the command 'sudo ./create_sdcard'. It will prompt you with a suggested name of the device where the SD card is loaded (the default is 'sdc') and if this isn't correct the script will allow you to enter the actual device name. The script will automatically use the correct partition name (e.g. /dev/sdc1 or /dev/mmcblk0p1) as part of this updated version.

[linuxium]

Hello Ian, does my device (mk809III/qc802) need to be rooted to boot ubuntu on the sd card with you're method ? Thanks, Guillaume.


Envoyé de mon iPhone en utilisant Tapatalk

No, no need for root - booting this way from SD card should be totally independent to how you have your current device set up.

[linuxium]

Hello, I tried this and it worked (boot) like a charm on my MK802IV (new model with AP6210). One issue, when in the ubuntu login screen, I can't login. It stays some seconds (may be 30sec) then it reboots (and keeps like this rebooting), I checked the sdcard on my laptop, can't see any error logs (all files in var/log are empty). If possible, how can I get Kali instead of ubuntu, is it only the rootfs to change or have to get/keep some modules. Thank you for this great work.

If it is rebooting then it sounds like the kernel is panicking for some reason. I've heard that the latest model of the MK802IV using the RK3188T CPU has issues with this kernel in that the screen flickers so maybe this is related. You could try using someone else's MK802IV kernel to confirm whether this is the case.