Legit. every distro and every image i’ve downloaded for the the Potato is straight trash. nothing boots right. boot loops upon boot loops. if you’re going to market a sbc to compete with RPi, at least have your shit together.
I’ve tested quite a few; they have all booted first try except Lakka, which took a search on this forum, and a single file swap, about 10 minutes. We’re all using these images.
I think you’re doing something wrong. Boot loops are usually an out of spec power supply or images weren’t extracted before flashing.
Oh yeah, and welcome to the community or whatever.
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You are entitled to your opinion but the problem is your power supply.
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I’ve tried multiple different power supplies, all capable of providing more than enough current (ie. they work powering a RPi 3b+).
I’ve tried multiple brand new SD cards.
When it’s trying to boot, the text on the screen is garbled and unreadable. (Tested on multiple monitors and TV’s)
I can get it to boot if I don’t plug the USB keyboard in (tried multiple keyboards), but what good is it if I can’t use the keyboard to set anything up?
I also apologize for my harsh and hasty initial post. I’ve been searching google and smacking my head off the desk for 3 days just trying to get something to boot and run correct.
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If it can power a Pi 3, it can definitely power a Le Potato. Make sure the power supply is between 5V and 5.5V. Some Pi 3 Power supplies deliver between 5.5V and 6V which is out of spec and will fry USB devices.
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Can you send a picture of what you see on your monitors? Along with the monitor make(s) and model(s) so we can look up the resolution?
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Keyboards should work fine. If it does not, it is usually because of a power problem. A picture of your setup would help.
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If you are having problems with the stock images, maybe you can try some others,
Official Libre Computer Support Group | Facebook can get more help here.
https://support.endlessos.org/en/installation/aml_s905x_cc
https://distro.libre.computer/ci/raspbian/11/
https://distro.libre.computer/ci/ubuntu/22.04/
(Choose s905x for Le Potato)
aml-s905x-cc - Google Drive Android 9 Le Potato
and there are plenty of youtube videos about Le Potato. I will locate a few and post them here.
Actually, my main goal was trying to build a RetroPie setup on top of Ubuntu, Debian, or Armbian as I absolutely despise Lakka.
I finally got things with RetroPie somewhat working with the Armbian image since it actually ended up booting correctly with none of the errors I previously mention.
I’ve since found a Batocera image that works beautifully no matter what is plugged into the USB ports or what monitor I have it attached to. batocera.linux - 2023/03/04 23:03:56 (o2switch.fr)
Thanks to all for the suggestions and again, I apologize for my kind of angry OP.
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Ah. You recanted. I was going to flame you because Armbian imstantly worked for me. Only weirdness I had was having to use --fix missing for the first time ever, because there wasmsome kind of desync with apt-get. After that everything has worked perfectly. The le potato is ALOT less catty about power supplies than my rpis or tinkerboard.
There is no point to flame any other users here. Yes, there are a lot of people who get the basics wrong. This is for helping people, not social media.
5 Likes
Thus far, I agree. Le Potato. I’m 4 months in one trying to put an OS on the EMMC card.
SMH
It’s one command to dump an image and boot from eMMC. As long as you’re not trying to boot from a 4.x eMMC module on a 5.x board, it’s really simple and there’s multiple guides with either libretech-flash-tool or dd. This has been covered to death on multiple threads. Use search.
It definitely has. If it worked I would definitely quit asking also.
Now that I am able to connect, I erase the eMMC, then mount it, then using DD/Balena, etc I load an OS image onto the eMMC.
Then I cant boot off of it. Holding down the UBOOT button or not.
I actually THOUGHT I had succeeded, but apparently I was booted off the SDCard finally! I dont want to boot from the SDCard, but nothing I add to the eMMC module ever boots.
root@Ayana-Angel:/home/soyderdyne/Documents/Projects# pyamlboot/run.sh aml-s905x-cc erase-emmc Using GX Family boot parameters ROM: 2.4 Stage: 0.0 Writing /home/soyderdyne/Documents/Projects/pyamlboot/files/libretech-cc/u-boot.bin.usb.bl2 at 0xd9000000... [DONE] Writing /home/soyderdyne/Documents/Projects/pyamlboot/files/usbbl2runpara_ddrinit.bin at 0xd900c000... [DONE] Running at 0xd9000000... [DONE] Waiting... [DONE] ROM: 2.2 Stage: 0.8 Running at 0xd900c000... [DONE] Waiting... [DONE] Writing /home/soyderdyne/Documents/Projects/pyamlboot/files/libretech-cc/u-boot.bin.usb.bl2 at 0xd9000000... [DONE] Writing /home/soyderdyne/Documents/Projects/pyamlboot/files/usbbl2runpara_runfipimg.bin at 0xd900c000... [DONE] Writing /home/soyderdyne/Documents/Projects/pyamlboot/files/libretech-cc/u-boot.bin.usb.tpl at 0x200c000... [DONE] Writing scripts/libretech-cc-erase-emmc.scr at 0x8000000... [DONE] Running at 0xd900c000... [DONE] root@Ayana-Angel:/home/soyderdyne/Documents/Projects# pyamlboot/run.sh aml-s905x-cc ums-emmc Using GX Family boot parameters ROM: 2.4 Stage: 0.0 Writing /home/soyderdyne/Documents/Projects/pyamlboot/files/libretech-cc/u-boot.bin.usb.bl2 at 0xd9000000... [DONE] Writing /home/soyderdyne/Documents/Projects/pyamlboot/files/usbbl2runpara_ddrinit.bin at 0xd900c000... [DONE] Running at 0xd9000000... [DONE] Waiting... [DONE] ROM: 2.2 Stage: 0.8 Running at 0xd900c000... [DONE] Waiting... [DONE] Writing /home/soyderdyne/Documents/Projects/pyamlboot/files/libretech-cc/u-boot.bin.usb.bl2 at 0xd9000000... [DONE] Writing /home/soyderdyne/Documents/Projects/pyamlboot/files/usbbl2runpara_runfipimg.bin at 0xd900c000... [DONE] Writing /home/soyderdyne/Documents/Projects/pyamlboot/files/libretech-cc/u-boot.bin.usb.tpl at 0x200c000... [DONE] Writing scripts/libretech-cc-ums-emmc.scr at 0x8000000... [DONE] Running at 0xd900c000... [DONE]
Libretech Flash Utility doesnt make it bootable either:
The bootable flag on partition 1 is enabled now. Command (m for help): p Disk /dev/sda: 14.56 GiB, 15634268160 bytes, 30535680 sectors Disk model: UMS disk 0 Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disklabel type: dos Disk identifier: 0x928eeea0 Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type /dev/sda1 * 2048 1026047 1024000 500M 83 Linux /dev/sda2 1026048 30535679 29509632 14.1G 83 Linux Command (m for help): w The partition table has been altered. Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table. Syncing disks. root@Ayana-Angel:/home/soyderdyne/Documents/Projects# ls libretech-flash-tool pyamlboot root@Ayana-Angel:/home/soyderdyne/Documents/Projects# libretech-flash-tool/lft.sh b-emmc rebind This command is designed for Libre Computer products. This command is designed for Libre Computer products. lib/board.sh: line 73: BOARD_EMMC_DRIVER: bad array subscript root@Ayana-Angel:/home/soyderdyne/Documents/Projects# libretech-flash-tool/lft.sh d-list main: COMMAND d-list is not valid. root@Ayana-Angel:/home/soyderdyne/Documents/Projects# libretech-flash-tool/lft.sh dev-list sda root@Ayana-Angel:/home/soyderdyne/Documents/Projects# libretech-flash-tool/lft.sh b-emmc rebind This command is designed for Libre Computer products. This command is designed for Libre Computer products. lib/board.sh: line 73: BOARD_EMMC_DRIVER: bad array subscript root@Ayana-Angel:/home/soyderdyne/Documents/Projects# libretech-flash-tool/lft.sh aml-s905x-cc sda main: COMMAND aml-s905x-cc is not valid. root@Ayana-Angel:/home/soyderdyne/Documents/Projects# libretech-flash-tool/lft.sh bl-wipeaml-s905x-cc sda main: COMMAND bl-wipeaml-s905x-cc is not valid. root@Ayana-Angel:/home/soyderdyne/Documents/Projects# libretech-flash-tool/lft.sh bl-wipe aml-s905x-cc sda BOOTLOADER_wipe: dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=512 seek=1 count=2047 status=progress BOOTLOADER_wipe: run the above command to flash the target device? (y/n) dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=512 seek=1 count=2047 status=progress 2047+0 records in 2047+0 records out 1048064 bytes (1.0 MB, 1.0 MiB) copied, 0.20213 s, 5.2 MB/s BOOTLOADER_wipe: bootloader wiped from sda successfully. root@Ayana-Angel:/home/soyderdyne/Documents/Projects# root@Ayana-Angel:/home/soyderdyne/Documents/Projects# libretech-flash-tool/lft.sh bl-flash aml-s905x-cc sda BOOTLOADER_get: downloading aml-s905x-cc bootloader to /tmp/tmp.FzEvtDG3uA. --2023-12-27 14:34:14-- https://boot.libre.computer/ci//aml-s905x-cc Resolving boot.libre.computer (boot.libre.computer)... 192.53.162.101, 2600:3c00::f03c:93ff:fea1:358c Connecting to boot.libre.computer (boot.libre.computer)|192.53.162.101|:443... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK Length: 802816 (784K) [application/octet-stream] Saving to: ‘/tmp/tmp.FzEvtDG3uA’ /tmp/tmp.FzEvtDG3uA 100%[===================>] 784.00K 2.91MB/s in 0.3s 2023-12-27 14:34:14 (2.91 MB/s) - ‘/tmp/tmp.FzEvtDG3uA’ saved [802816/802816] BOOTLOADER_get: downloaded aml-s905x-cc bootloader to /tmp/tmp.FzEvtDG3uA. BOOTLOADER_flash: dd if=/tmp/tmp.FzEvtDG3uA of=/dev/sda bs=512 seek=1 status=progress BOOTLOADER_flash: run the above command to flash the target device? (y/n) dd if=/tmp/tmp.FzEvtDG3uA of=/dev/sda bs=512 seek=1 status=progress 1568+0 records in 1568+0 records out 802816 bytes (803 kB, 784 KiB) copied, 0.163407 s, 4.9 MB/s BOOTLOADER_flash: bootloader written to sda successfully. root@Ayana-Angel:/home/soyderdyne/Documents/Projects# root@Ayana-Angel:/home/soyderdyne/Documents/Projects# libretech-flash-tool/lft.sh bl-offset aml-s905x-cc sda 1 root@Ayana-Angel:/home/soyderdyne/Documents/Projects# libretech-flash-tool/lft.sh bl-flash aml-s905x-cc sda BOOTLOADER_get: downloading aml-s905x-cc bootloader to /tmp/tmp.edk6ZoYFNS. --2023-12-27 14:36:37-- https://boot.libre.computer/ci//aml-s905x-cc Resolving boot.libre.computer (boot.libre.computer)... 192.53.162.101, 2600:3c00::f03c:93ff:fea1:358c Connecting to boot.libre.computer (boot.libre.computer)|192.53.162.101|:443... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK Length: 802816 (784K) [application/octet-stream] Saving to: ‘/tmp/tmp.edk6ZoYFNS’ /tmp/tmp.edk6ZoYFNS 100%[===================>] 784.00K 2.37MB/s in 0.3s 2023-12-27 14:36:37 (2.37 MB/s) - ‘/tmp/tmp.edk6ZoYFNS’ saved [802816/802816] BOOTLOADER_get: downloaded aml-s905x-cc bootloader to /tmp/tmp.edk6ZoYFNS. BOOTLOADER_flash: dd if=/tmp/tmp.edk6ZoYFNS of=/dev/sda bs=512 seek=1 status=progress BOOTLOADER_flash: run the above command to flash the target device? (y/n) dd if=/tmp/tmp.edk6ZoYFNS of=/dev/sda bs=512 seek=1 status=progress 1568+0 records in 1568+0 records out 802816 bytes (803 kB, 784 KiB) copied, 0.1738 s, 4.6 MB/s BOOTLOADER_flash: bootloader written to sda successfully.
at this point, Armbian doesnt work. Ubuntu doesnt work. OpenElec doesnt work. Desktop/CLI/Server, whatever.
Nothing boots. I have 3 of these AML-S905X-CC boards, 2 of these 16GB eMMC boards, official power supplies, nothing works.
It wouldnt need to be covered ‘exhaustively’ in so many threads if these things actually worked.
Jus’ sayin’ 
Running random commands without any idea of what they do is not going to work. Spamming a half dozen thread with unrelated messages and then being snarky isn’t going to work either. Refrain from doing so.
If I was in your shoes, I wouldn’t answer the rude guy and would’ve kickban’ed them immediately.