Tinker Board Forum

Maybe there could at least be some inventorization of the images that have the required UMS part included?

The u-boot on the EMMC is responsible to handle such feature. I think that all installation require such u-boot feature. But on the SD card is not used, when is away from the TBS. Even thought is the same u-boot. The host computer or a reader will identify the SD card, without to run anything from that.

For better understanding, the u-boot on eMMC will try always to boot, but it will find the answer that is plugged to a USB port and then start to serve the internal memory as a reader does.

Beware that if  there is anything connected to the USB, on TBS, it may get spoiled because of power glitches and any other attempt to run the system, before to surrender to serve as reader. I blown my WiFi dongle, because I oversight to remove it.

(09-23-2018, 12:44 PM)mas9l4ever Wrote: [ -> ]I "bicked" eMMC of my TBS in the first day of use, today I managed to boot TBS from eMMC for the first time. Here is what I did:

0. Boot your TBS using SD card, use terminal or SSH to input following commands.

1. Download TinkerOS distribution and unzip: 

Code:

wget [link***]
unzip 20180622-tinker-board-linaro-stretch-alip-v2.0.7.img.zip

2. Delete old partitions from eMMC(mmcblk1 in my case):

Code:

sudo fdisk /dev/mmcblk1
d
1
2
w

3. Reboot TBS.

4. Unpack image file to the cleaned partition:

Code:

sudo dd if=20180622-tinker-board-linaro-stretch-alip-v2.0.7.img of=/dev/mmcblc1 status=progress && sync

After this you should be able to boot your TBS form eMMC, do not forget to change jumper to the parking position. Result is not optimal through - root partition on eMMC created by dd tool is only 3GB, rest left not used, I do not know why it happened, and I do not know how to change partition size in fdisk tool, so I used gparted tool to increase root partition on eMMC to use all available space.

I'm complete noob to linux & terminal, so do not blame my solution for the incompetence, on the other hand optimization tips are appreciated.

***P.S. I can not post links, so you have to find workable link for Tinker OS distribution by yourself, I used archive provided on this website wiki section.

Holy crap this actually worked. I've searched dozens of tutorials and nothing, not even the tinker boards own wiki was helpful. I think the key was writing that table using the fdisk tool. The 'd', '1' and '2' didn't do anything in my case but the 'w' did something and i was finally able to boot from emmc after finishing the rest of your instructions. 

quick question though. When you say the root partition was only 3GB, do you mean your file browser said "Free space: 3GB" or something like that? because mine is saying i have 11.6GB (14.3 total) and I didn't have to expand anything. the difference (14.3 - 11.6 = 3) is about 3GB. Is that what you meant? Being a noob, should I still need to expand the partition or is it already expanded?

There's my write up on the previous page, it might help you a bit.
The OS is indeed 3 Gb, but no space after left as the first installation. The first time you'll startup the TB, it will take a bit longer, because it will expand the root partition to the maximum.

Hi All,

I tested the Tinker Board S with Android on EMMC, it was sooo easy with this SOP, thanks to Rjp663. and I must say that the performance of TBS is amazing. I already own a RPI 2, 3, Zero W, TinkerBoard and TinkerBoard S. Congr. to Asus for creating a great single board.

I had an issue, on Android, I could install games, Youtube etc.. on web browser, Youtube mouse and keyboard work perfect. but on the games, mouse doesnt work. any way to make it work?

I think you could find a better answer or this one.
Anyway your question's answer is related how the games handle the hardware, which might be direct rather than through the driver.

[quote="Robertspark" pid='6581' dateline='1529718490']
Nice

And when you put another os on the eMMC and cant reflash it later.....(been there, had that panic, done that)


I could not get it to work with all the instructions here. Until I saw this on the Banana pi forum

how to write and boot from eMMC:

1. boot from SD - I used elar systems Lubuntu since it works nicer
   
   
2. umount /dev/mmcblk1p1 /dev/mmcblk1p2
   
   
3. dd if=xxx.img of=/dev/mmcblk1 bs=10M -downloaded the original OS from the Asus Website. The extracted it in the Tinker folder. and replaced xxx.img withe the file name. 
   
   
4. sync
   
   
5. power off & remove SD
   
   
6. power on with eMMC
   

(02-24-2020, 02:27 AM)Jimbo128 Wrote: [ -> ]how to write and boot from eMMC:

Its well described here:
https://tinkerboarding.co.uk/wiki/index....t_Priority

(11-02-2018, 05:27 AM)Im4Tinker Wrote: [ -> ]

(11-01-2018, 02:26 PM)Radioman Wrote: [ -> ]I'm thinking I can overwrite the TOS with the new ELAR OS, is that correct?

Yes, you're correct. The variation is to change the content of the second partition, AKA rootfs. But it takes some care that the extlinux.conf in the first partition must point to the rootfs partition. For TinkerOS is omitted, because the u-boot has it set as default. So check carefully the append statement.

If we look at the ELAR partition scheme, we'll find that is the same as linaro one (TinkerOS). The first partition is vfat of few tenth of  Mb, and contains the files for booting, later is mounted on /boot.

If you'll plan such switch, then you need to understand which partition you should copy. That is a bit trickier than simply copy the whole image.
First we need to see the image partition scheme

Code:

$ sudo fdisk -l TinkerBoard-Lubuntu18.04LTS_ELAR-Systems-SD-v2.img      ## after unrar-ed
Disk TinkerBoard-Lubuntu18.04LTS_ELAR-Systems-SD-v2.img: 2.9 GiB, 3038773248 bytes, 5935104 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x00f43486

Device                                              Boot  Start     End Sectors  Size Id Type
TinkerBoard-Lubuntu18.04LTS_ELAR-Systems-SD-v2.img1 *      8192  212991  204800  100M  c W95
TinkerBoard-Lubuntu18.04LTS_ELAR-Systems-SD-v2.img2      212992 5935103 5722112  2.7G 83 Linux

$ dmesg |tail                        ## find which is the kernel name when the SD card is plugged in
[ 5850.123697] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Mode Sense: 03 00 00 00
[ 5850.124769] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] No Caching mode page found
[ 5850.124778] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 5850.130022]  sdc: sdc1 sdc2 sdc3
[ 5850.134126] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Attached SCSI removable disk

$ sudo fdisk -l  /dev/sdc                         ## check the partition scheme
Disk /dev/sdc: 14.6 GiB, 15665725440 bytes, 30597120 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x58bc1052

Device     Boot    Start      End  Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/sdc1           8192   139263   131072   64M  c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sdc2         139264  6283263  6144000    3G 83 Linux
/dev/sdc3       10117120 30597119 20480000  9.8G 83 Linux

Then from those details we'll understand where to start to skip the unnecessary blocks. In particular where the first sector of rootfs starts.
So for the case we may give the command

Code:

$ sudo dd if=TinkerBoard-Lubuntu18.04LTS_ELAR-Systems-SD-v2.img of=/dev/sdc bs=512 seek=212992 skip=139264

seek means where to start reading and skip where to start writing.
But it must check that the host partition is big enough 5722112 < 6144000. Later just try it out. Don't try to modify the partition prior a new reboot, because the system needs to expand the partition to the maximum.

A second approach would be to format the linaro rootfs and then write the ElarOS onto the partition.

Code:

$ sudo su                                       ## be a master :-)
# mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdc2                              ## new format
# mkdir /tmp/dest_root                            ## destination mount point
# mkdir /tmp/src_root                               ## source mount point
# mount <path_to_file>/TinkerBoard-Lubuntu18.04LTS_ELAR-Systems-SD-v2.img /tmp/src_root -o loop,offset=104M
# rsync -axHAWXS --numeric-ids --info=progress2 /tmp/src_root /tmp/dest_root
# umount /tmp/dest_root
# umount /tmp/src_root
# e2label /dev/sdc2 <rootfs_partition_name>

Before to start it up, care must be taken to modify the extlinux.conf and set the new rootfs pointer. So  by the help of gparted (the simplest way) set a name to the partitions (unless done). Later browse the plugged TBS and open the extlinux.conf for editing (as administrator), that should reside in the smaller partition.
if there's a statement root=<something> or none, then we need to modify to root=LABEL=<rootfs_partition_name>

A side note, I used to set a second partition for /home, so the system may change but my data won't disappear along the system.

ok I found you yet again to be correct

My problem at hand I have installed Fedora ELAR as mentioned to this post

https://tinkerboarding.co.uk/forum/threa...l#pid12253

when I change the pins to boot from eMMC the system starts in Android Recovery Mode
When I boot from the SDCard into my Fedora install gParted shows my /dev/mmcblk1 = eMMC to be Unallocated

In another post you mentioned not to Format the entire eMMC partition
So I want to be able to boot from my eMMC (because its faster than the SDCard)

Upper in this post you mentioned to format the eMMC and copy+mount the /boot to the eMMC + the / partitions
if I format them as is in the SDCard (i.e /boot = FAT16 and / = ext4)
shouldn't they've be seen by my MACbook ?
And then again Im reflashing the eMMC with Fedora ELAR and boot normally? (like with the SDcard ?)

Cheers yet again from Greece...

(02-24-2020, 02:27 AM)Jimbo128 Wrote: [ -> ][quote="Robertspark" pid='6581' dateline='1529718490']
Nice

And when you put another os on the eMMC and cant reflash it later.....(been there, had that panic, done that)


I could not get it to work with all the instructions here. Until I saw this on the Banana pi forum

how to write and boot from eMMC:

1. boot from SD - I used elar systems Lubuntu since it works nicer
   
   
2. umount /dev/mmcblk1p1 /dev/mmcblk1p2
   
   
3. dd if=xxx.img of=/dev/mmcblk1 bs=10M -downloaded the original OS from the Asus Website. The extracted it in the Tinker folder. and replaced xxx.img withe the file name. 
   
   
4. sync
   
   
5. power off & remove SD
   
   
6. power on with eMMC
   

Im4Tinker
Thank you for not answering because you made me read and search and most impotantlly Learn
After 8 hours of tinkering my Tinkerboard's eMMC finaly works again
I really Love All of you Guys in this Forum for all your hard work and the lessons