Hey there, new to DietPi.
Tried to set up DietPi on my XU4, went through the general guide for setting up the mSD for SBCs, wrote the image with balena Etcher, inserted it into the XU4, powered it on, but it doesn’t seem to boot it for some reason.
Checked the integrity of the DietPi image against it’s hash sums and the image I’ve used is good. Tried using different mSD, and different card readers, but to no avail. When I power the XU4 on, it only has the red LED on, the blue LED doesnt flash (or pulse).
Tried pinging the SBC’s IP address, but wouldn’t get any response, only timeout/unable to reach host errors.
Tried using the mSD with my ArchLinux ARM setup I had prior to this and it boots from that one just fine.
Am I missing something?
Here’s how the partitions look in GParted:
Thinking that maybe the first partition was supposed to have the boot flag on, I enabled it and tried again, but still the XU4 won’t boot it.
Ah sorry, the new image hasn’t been moved into place yet and I did a little enhancement for it to our build script. Please wait for an hour, I’ll trigger the build now and report back once it’s online.
Thank you Michalng, however, I still have the same issue, after flashing the image on the uSD card.
Here’s the partition table:
Tried the same things as in my initial post: different uSD, different reader, pinged the SBC (timeout errors), hooked it up to a HDMI monitor (which received no signal). Red LED on, blue off.
Okay, so the kernel/bootloader/partitioning is not the issue then. Did you try with a different PSU our power cable? Or if any peripherals or USB drives are attached, did you try to detach them, to rule out a powering/voltage issue?
Tried as you suggested. I had only an external HDD hooked in the USB 3.0 port in the front, and that HDD has its own power supply, so I don’t think it was drawing any power over USB.
I unplugged it, also unplugged the eth cable for good measure, but it’s still the same issue. XU4 turns on, the fan speed ramps up, and then does nothing.
It works fine booting with the Arch Linux ARM setup I have and the external HDD plugged in (actually, it doesn’t boot at all if it’s not plugged in as the external HDD has the home partition), so I’m not sure if it’s a power issue.
Also I have the 6A power supply with this XU4.
Unfortunately I don’t have another power supply to try out with this.
Anything else you could suggest I could try?
EDIT: the Arch Linux ARM also has a separate boot partition like the old version of DietPi had.
EDIT2: checked the sum of the image with sha256sum before I wrote the image to the uSD, it was valid, also let Balena Etcher verify the image it has wrote.
There is a switch on the board to choose if it boots from USB or from SD card. Did you set it to SD when you tried it with the SD card? (I know, it’s a stupid question, but maybe you forgot to check that?)
Thank you for the reply Jappe.
Yes you’re right indeed, it does have a switch, however I think it’s between booting from mSD and eMMC. Since I don’t have an eMMC on hand, that switch has always been on mSD, but I’ll check again.
Very strange that old and new image fail to boot since the old one did work for years for others and the new one is quite different and did work for at least some users (you are the first who reports boot issues with it) . As if it’s something with the Hardkernel bootloader and/or kernel (source) itself. Which kernel version does Arch ARM ship with?
I tried that Armbian image (funny how I was about to try that next), and unfortunately same thing occurs.
Not sure what that says about this problem, but I think my XU4 might have an issue.
The ArchLinuxARM kernel I use on this:
$ uname -srm
Linux 4.14.180-3-ARCH armv7l
Unfortunately I don’t have that adapter. I’m guessing it’s not possible to get more info on what’s happening without it?
In that case I’d either have to try out buying a new uSD card (if by the slim chance all uSD cards I tried were faulty), or to buy that adapter.
As it’s Linux 4.14, I’m quite sure it’s the older Hardkernel Linux sources, used in our previous XU4 image as well. Still no hint why it boots while our old one that you tried first does not .
Last thing you could try is the official Hardkernel Ubuntu image linked above and if it fails as well, report at Hardkernel forum: https://forum.odroid.com/viewforum.php?f=95
Probably someone there has a good idea what else to test/how to debug.
In /boot/boot.ini (on ext4 filesystem, so not directly accessible from Windows) or can downclock the RAM and change the initial CPU governor to reduce initial power draw, as a last idea I have.
Thank you, however I’ve tried Hardkernel’s Ubuntu image, and it doesn’t boot from that one either
It’s possible that I’m having some issues with the uSD cards or the card readers (even though I’ve used multiple of them), I’ll have to buy new ones and try with those instead.
Is there a specific thing I need to do to update the kernel?
As said, our image ships with the latest kernel already.
We however found another issue with the entropy daemon which might even be the reason why you don’t see the XU4 on network. I’ll generate a new image on a few hours to test first.
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. As if it’s something with the Hardkernel bootloader and/or kernel (source) itself. Which kernel version does Arch ARM ship with?
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