Debian bootable on SD

General Discussion
1

Can someone point me to the instructions on how to put debian on an sd card and make it always boot from the SD?

2

… i read that as always boot no matter what…

Hardware wise…

uSD boot button is tied to SYS_BOOT2/LCD_DATA2

Are you using the Video output?

If NOT, then just Ground P8.43 which is SYS_BOOT2/LCD_DATA2

If you are using the Video Output, then you’ll need to do something custom in the software…

Software wise, if your not use the eMMC, just erase it with dd…

If you are using the eMMC, make sure MLO/u-boot.dtb are not installed to it…

If none of those apply, please be more verbose on what you need done…

Regards,

3

Specifically I am looking for instructions on how to put the latest preferred version of debian for BBB (not the IOT version) onto an SD card and have that be the main boot and operating system drive. Also, what is the latest BBB stable version anyway? The list is kind of confusing as to what is what. I am not using the video output yet but will in the future one i have the basics figured out. What is dd?
Sorry but i am new to the BBB and have a couple that are a couple of years old and just started using them.

4

The latest tested and supported versions can be located here:

https://forum.beagleboard.org/tags/c/general/8/latest-images

Updated once month…

Grab the latest “microSD” version of Debian 10.x or Debian 11.x, write it to a microSD with etcher.io , then boot the first time by holding the ‘boot’ button, then erase the eMMC with dd…

As long as you don’t run the ‘flasher’ after that, it’ll always boot from mircroSD…

Regards,

5

Thanks, what is dd?

6

dd is a tool in linux to “convert and copy a file” we use it to erase the eMMC… dd (Unix) - Wikipedia

Start your board and login…

debian@bbb-pwr05-ser13:~$ uname -r
5.10.120-ti-r48
debian@bbb-pwr05-ser13:~$ lsblk 
NAME         MAJ:MIN RM  SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
mmcblk1      179:0    0  1.8G  0 disk                      <- eMMC
mmcblk1boot0 179:256  0    1M  1 disk 
mmcblk1boot1 179:512  0    1M  1 disk 
mmcblk0      179:768  0 29.8G  0 disk                      <- microSD
└─mmcblk0p1  179:769  0 29.8G  0 part /

Notice those mmcblk1boot0 entry? that’s the eMMC, therefor the mmcblk0 device is the microSD…

So to erase the eMMC, one would issue this command…

debian@bbb-pwr05-ser13:~$ sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/mmcblk1

Regards,

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