Install Manjaro into eMMC

Just did 2 runs and it worked fine for me. The only issue I had was that I need to run date -s 2022-01-01 first, otherwise tar will spam the console with future timestamp warning.

# Linux Host, Zero in mass storage bootrom
## Wipe mmcblk0 and install vendor U-Boot
sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdX bs=128M status=progress && \
sudo dd if=android-bootloader.img of=/dev/sdX bs=512 seek=1 && \
sync
# Now go to Zero's vendor U-Boot console
# WARNING
# If you have 3 devices instead of 2 listed by the command below,
# you are using upstream U-Boot.
# Change all `mmc dev 1 X` command to `mmc dev 2 X`
mmc list
## Wipe mmcblk0boot0
mmc dev 1 1
mmc erase 0 2000
## Wipe mmcblk0boot1
mmc dev 1 2
mmc erase 0 2000
reset
# Now boot into microSD to install

The vendor U-Boot is now on our website.

Edit: I might speak too soon. 2nd install completed without error but I can’t boot into eMMC. Might have something to do with how I flashed bootloader. However, the script itself gave no error for me.

Yes that’s normal for any file transfer if your current date is old.

The script cannot detect if the existing uboot can work on emmc so yes the script will only show success.

I think an extra option like --warning=no-timestamp to suppress this message will be very helpful.

I wasn’t expecting the script to do that. I was talking about the timeout issue you were having. Right now I feel like you are having hardware issue, but I’ll need the error message to check with our hardware engineer.

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Good idea.

Yes I suspect something similar.

I will try it out tonight and share the logs.

Hi,

I flashed Manjaro-ARM-minimal-radxa-zero-20220117.img.xz with the followig steps on windows:

  1. radxa-zero-erase-emmc.bin
  2. android-bootloader.img
  3. rz-udisk-loader.bin
    With etcher:
  4. Manjaro-ARM-minimal-radxa-zero-20220117.img.xz

Problem is I don’t get any HDMI output as it does not seem to boot.

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks.

This image is to be used with bsp uboot on emmc as the Manjaro Image does not have any uboot.

Please try this steps.

  1. Flash Android on eMMC.
  2. Boot into Android. (just to make sure it works)
  3. Flash Manjaro-ARM-minimal-radxa-zero-20220117.img.xz with etcher on sdcard.
  4. Insert SD Card and it should boot into Manjaro over sdcard.
  5. Test if everything that you want works on sdcard and make sure the time is synced to your current time.
  6. Run the Install emmc script as root. sudo /boot/install-aml-emmc.sh (This will install the same OS from SD Card to emmc).
  7. Reboot. (without sdcard to boot into emmc)

Future images will come with uboot in the Manjaro Images as we just discussed this today with Radxa team.

Hi, thanks a lot for your swift reply and advice.

Hm, no SD card here at hand :frowning:

Will maybe then wait for the release with the uboot!

Thanks again.

Try with usb. But you will need typec hub for it.

Ok will try to release one image with uboot.

You can try flashing Manjaro directly to eMMC after spikerguy’s step 2. Installing Android according to our official guide will install bootloader to eMMC’s boot partition, so that will be used to boot Manjaro.

Hello, i was wondering if there is image version with uboot available ?

Hello rpx,
did you find solution for this problem ? I tried couple of more times but even when i flash android bootloader nothing happens.
Nothing boots.

Hi,

no, I could not flash Android because the provided script following the documentation did not work for me.

I think it’d be useful to have some kind of tutorial for beginners. There is documentation available but it seems it outdates either quickly or is too fragmented.

For myself a couple of things are not clear. Is there an emmc inside the amlogic (boot only), too or is it just the emmc on the zero board?

Where does the uboot go to?
Where does the image go to?
Are the partitions identically for every image?
What is the standard structure and how does the boot process work.

In my mind there is a fixed boot order in circuites and then control flow is handed over to uboot and then to the kernel…

But, honestly, I do not know what exactly is happening when I flash loader X or Y or some images. Where do things go to? Why do I need to flash something else before I flash the real image?

Why is there obviously a different tooling for Android and Linux?

Regards.

Hi, happy to test the image once it is available. Thanks!

yes i do have the same questions and on top of it. To be able to work efficiently, there should be a way to revert back to factory settings.
I did try android wiki page to basically install Android (factory settings) and then continue to install manjaro. But i was unsuccessful in all the attempts and android never booted for me.

and after bunch of attempts i finally got debian working on the zero. which isn’t very beneficial for me but it’s start…

radxa-zero-debian-buster-xfce4-arm64-20211121-0245-mbr.img

it would be great to have the Manjaro image with U-boot - I love to give a try for sure…and hopefully it will work out and i will move forward to what i need to do, instead of dealing with zero problems and boot issues.

Wow getting so much love for Manjaro on Radxa Zero.

I will prepare one on this weekend for the community :slight_smile:

Normally at Manjaro we follow the default os installed on the device and as Radxa have been selling it with Android default we have to make sure that it is very easy for normal users to just boot with default os on emmc.

Radxa have confirmed that they plan to uae better os on new devices with mainline uboot so we should also use mainline uboot in default images.

With this said, I will move Zero images to have Mainline uboot in newer images by Saturday.

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Great Manjaro is my choice for the zero

Something is getting built here

Wait for it to be ready for download and try the image.

This image have mainline uboot built by radxa. I have not tested it yet though. I will test it tomorrow as it is late night here.

Enjoy.

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I will test after work if Ihave time thanks

I got off work and flashed the Manjaro Mate Image but it didn’t go very far this is what I got.

Do you have anything on emmc?

Where did you flash the image though?