I am providing feedback here in case it might help someone else. In another thread I stated how I have spent an enormous amount of time trying different images, but could only get one Debian image to actually boot. After loading SPI with debug uboot and connecting TTL I was able to see that some images do actually boot to a root login prompt, but here is no HDMI display.
By accident I found that the culprit appears to be an HDMI splitter that I am using on my monitor! If I connect the HDMI cable directly to the board then the GUI login page appears and everything seems to work. I must add that the HDMI splitter is part of my standard setup and works with everything else. Hopefully this can save someone the same frustration I went through.