eMMC setup questions

#1

Just waiting for my Rock Pi 4B kit to arrive, w/ 64 GB eMMC module, uSD adapter, Heatsink, SSD adapter card, & 1 TB Samsung SSD. I read a few posts regarding uSD & eMMC boot issues So, I plan to take initial setup one step at a time:

  1. Boot from uSD w/o eMMC nor SSD installed.
    Q1: Will the SBC boot w/o the eMMC socket being populated?
  2. Flash the eMMC with the adapter.
  3. Install eMMC & attempt boot via eMMC.
    Q2: Can the installed eMMC be re-flashed with a different OS image, directly from the uSD card?
    Q3: Can the eMMC module be removed, re-flashed (step 2, above), then reinstalled, once the heatsink has been installed?

Thanks

#2

Hi,

  1. Q1: Will the SBC boot w/o the eMMC socket being populated?

Currently you need either eMMC module or uSD card to boot.

Q2: Can the installed eMMC be re-flashed with a different OS image, directly from the uSD card?

Yes, uSD will boot first, then eMMC.

Q3: Can the eMMC module be removed, re-flashed (step 2, above), then reinstalled, once the heatsink has been installed?

Actually yes, but you need to wipe the first bootable sectors of eMMC(dd /dev/zero to eMMC), and remove uSD card. The board will reboot into maskrom mode. Then you can update with USB OTG from PC. Check: https://wiki.radxa.com/Rockpi4/dev/usb-install

#3

Thanks, Jack.
With the ability to re-flash the eMMC directly from the uSD, there is no reason to remove the eMMC, unless to upgrade, correct? It appears that the eMMC module is quite inaccessible after the heatsink has been installed.
Just followed your link. Thanks for putting me on the path. The article didn’t specify whether to insert the USB adapter into the host computer or the Rock Pi’s USB, so I assumed it is the Rock Pi USB 3.
Didn’t see anything regarding re-flashing the eMMC, after it has been installed on board. Perhaps that is common Linux knowledge, whereby since the eMMC has already been initialized as a boot device, the OS files would simply be extracted on the existing boot device, via a helper like u-boot?
Reading the tea leaves, is the uSD-USB adapter initially used, simply because the system sees the eMMC as a USB bootable device, so it formats the ‘USB’ and installs the OS? Once installed into its socket, the system automatically recognizes it as a bootable device?

The good news is that Debian popped up on first boot last night. WIFI was easy setup. Video ran fine via YouTube. Tried installing RealVNC, but errored. First guess is that I’m not logged on as local admin.
Arrnbiam 64 never booted. Only a double flash on the red power led. One step forward, one step back.
Sorry about being such a newbie.

#4

Thanks for your assistance.

#5

Hi, @TheHermit

You can try this arm64 image:

https://github.com/SX-GitHub/Debian-RockPi4/releases

Thanks @O635789. See discussion [here].