DietPI, RADXA ZERO 3E/3W and onboard eMMC?

General Discussion
1

Hello Community,

I’m currently working on an ADS-B project. Thanks to this page and the list of small computers for which DietPI is available (and there are a lot! Thanx to all who make that possible!), I also came across the RADXA ZERO 3W/3E (Radxa). I wasn’t familiar with the manufacturer before, but I’m now impressed by the performance and options that you won’t find in vain with other manufacturers in the ZERO format.

I also tried a BananaPI M2 ZERO and a RaspberryPI ZERO 2. The RaspberryPi works, too, but it’s missing a few things that I can use for the project. The BananaPi (two of them) are now in the scrap heap. I couldn’t get the USB-connected RTL-SDR to work with either of the brand-new BPIs, regardless of the OS. There’s obviously a hardware problem with the interfaces.

But that’s just for your information about what’s going on here right now… My reason for being here is different, related to the RADXA and DietPI…

The RADXA, among other good things, also has an onboard eMMC.
Since I’m good at hardware but terrible at software or Linux, I just can’t figure out how to use the eMMC effectively or even access it.
I assume that in the following screenshot, mmcblkl(pl) is the SD card and partition, and zram0 (presumably) is the eMMC (and if so, why show they 0Byte size?)?

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Does it make sense, if that’s even possible, to clone the SD card onto the eMMC and then boot and run the system from the eMMC without the SD card? I also suspect that it must be handled differently by each manufacturer?
Especially considering the durability of SD cards, that would certainly make sense, right?

DLzG, 73
Micha

2

Hello,
zram is usually the swap partition, mmcblk0 is usually the eMMC and mmcblk1 the SD card.

So you are booting from SD and your eMMC is not recognized!?

Durability wise I would boot from an external disk like and HDD/SSD, outperforms eMMC and SD easily and is more robust.

3

This isn’t possible because the computer with the PoE HAT and RTL-SDR stick must fit directly under the antenna in the mast. If there’s a hard drive that’s no larger than the ZERO, it might work, but not in this case.

Japp.

Are you sure? I once learned that the lines visually connect the partitions on a disk to the physical drive. It’s the same with my NAS:

img-2025-05-06-12-02-33
img-2025-05-06-12-02-33759×488 10.6 KB

So I think MMCBLKL is the physical SD card (the storage shown also matches) and MMCBLKLPL is the partition on it.

EDIT say:
The letter “L” is indistinguishable from the number “1” in the terminal.
Therefore, the correct form is: MMCBLK1(P1)

4

Yes, zram0 has nothing to do with your eMMC and SD card.

So your system just recognizes the SD card, but not your eMMC (which should be mmcblk0).

What model do you use, the heading says 3E/3W, but only the Zero 3W has eMMC.

This is absolutely possible, but let’s figure out your eMMC problem first.

5

Yes, you’re right. I’m currently using the 3W with eMMC for the 1st test runs. I just realized after your comment that the 3E doesn’t have an eMMC…
Then I have to split the “problem” into two sub-problems:

  • 3W: How do I get the eMMC to work / useable?
  • 3E: Is there any way to get it to boot from the network (i.e. from its own share on the NAS in the LAN)?