I have a couple of fairly old BeagleBone Blacks, both version A6A with
2Gb emmc. I have a couple of questions:-
Will a 16Gb microSD card work OK (or is it more to do with the
version/type of the card)?
Is there any advantage to copying the OS to the emmc? I.e. is it
faster than using the SD card?
I have a couple of fairly old BeagleBone Blacks, both version A6A with
2Gb emmc. I have a couple of questions:-Will a 16Gb microSD card work OK (or is it more to do with the
version/type of the card)?
Unless the microSD are "fake", they will work fine..
Is there any advantage to copying the OS to the emmc? I.e. is it
faster than using the SD card?
For your boards installed on your boat, the biggest advantage to
copying a new OS to the eMMC is to remove that ancient image from the
eMMC, that's been blocking your upgrade path for the last 2 years.
"faster" it depends.. The eMMC is an 8-bit interface, while the
microSD is 4-bit interface... You can "buy" faster microSD, that even
with the limited 4-bit interface that are faster than the eMMC
installed...
Regards,
>
> I have a couple of fairly old BeagleBone Blacks, both version A6A with
> 2Gb emmc. I have a couple of questions:-
>
> Will a 16Gb microSD card work OK (or is it more to do with the
> version/type of the card)?Unless the microSD are "fake", they will work fine..
OK, good.
> Is there any advantage to copying the OS to the emmc? I.e. is it
> faster than using the SD card?For your boards installed on your boat, the biggest advantage to
copying a new OS to the eMMC is to remove that ancient image from the
eMMC, that's been blocking your upgrade path for the last 2 years.
I'm actually currently installing Ubuntu 18.04 on one of these A6A
BBBs, it seems to be going OK after a slight hiccough due to just one
corrupt executable.
It seems that one can even run Ubuntu's "do-release-upgrade" to move
to newer releases, I'm trying this at this very moment on the BBB
where I have Ubuntu 18.04 installed. I have a fast[ish] internet
connection here at home so it's not too slow.
"faster" it depends.. The eMMC is an 8-bit interface, while the
microSD is 4-bit interface... You can "buy" faster microSD, that even
with the limited 4-bit interface that are faster than the eMMC
installed...
OK, so it's down to the quality/speed of the microSD really. Given
that and the fact that speed doesn't really matter all that much for
the things I'm using the BBB for I may as well stick with running from
the SD card.
Thanks for the (as always useful) replies Robert.
It worked too! 
So I now have Ubuntu 19.04 installed on my BBB:-
ubuntu@arm:~$ more /etc/issue.net
Ubuntu 19.04
ubuntu@arm:~$ uname -a
Linux arm 4.14.108-ti-r104 #1 SMP PREEMPT Tue Apr 9 18:45:06 UTC 2019 armv7l armv7l armv7l GNU/Linux
ubuntu@arm:~$