Bootable SD card

Identify the card
First identify the device of the card and export it as $card.

 export card=/dev/sdX

Cleaning
To be on safe side erase the first part of your SD Card.  dd if=/dev/zero of=$card bs=1M count=1

Bootloader
 dd if=spl/sunxi-spl.bin of=$card bs=1024 seek=8 dd if=u-boot.img of=$card bs=1024 seek=40

If using u-boot v2013.07 or earlier then the procedure is slightly different

 dd if=spl/sunxi-spl.bin of=$card bs=1024 seek=8 dd if=u-boot.bin of=$card bs=1024 seek=32

Partitioning
 sfdisk -R $card cat < mkfs.vfat ${card}1 mkfs.ext4 ${card}2

With recent u-boot it's fine to use ext2/ext3 as boot partition, and other filesystems in the root partition too.

Boot Partition
 mount ${card}1 /mnt/ cp linux-sunxi/arch/arm/boot/uImage /mnt/ cp sunxi-boards/sys_config/a10/script.bin /mnt/ umount /mnt/

Rootfs
Here this depends on what distribution you want to install.

Using rootfs tarball
 mount ${card}2 /mnt/ tar -C /mnt/ -xjpf my-chosen-rootfs.tar.bz2 umount /mnt

The recommended rootfs is ubuntu-alip.

Linaro rootfs
Linaro offers a set of different root filesystems. A retention policy of 30 days applies to Linaro rootfs on snapshot servers. New snapshots can be generated on request. Latest snapshots can be made from sources such as Ubuntu Build Service

In any case, you can get the actual rootfs tarballs here. ALIP is a minimal LXDE based desktop environment which might me useful to most allwinner users.

Ubuntu Precise Userspace
Normally you would install it using a rootfs tarball as described in the previous section, but debootstraping it is also an option.

 mount ${card}2 /mnt/ debootstrap --arch=armhf --variant=buildd --foreign precise /mnt/ cp /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static /mnt/usr/bin/ chroot /mnt /debootstrap/debootstrap --second-stage exit cat < etc/apt/sources.list deb http://ports.ubuntu.com/ precise main universe deb-src http://ports.ubuntu.com/ precise main universe deb http://ports.ubuntu.com/ precise-security main universe deb-src http://ports.ubuntu.com/ precise-security main universe deb http://ports.ubuntu.com/ precise-updates main universe deb-src http://ports.ubuntu.com/ precise-updates main universe EOT cat <> etc/fstab none	/tmp	tmpfs	defaults,noatime,mode=1777 0 0 /dev/mmcblk0p1	/boot	vfat defaults 0 0 EOT umount /mnt

=Troubleshooting=


 * re-check that you have written the image correctly Check image checksum if provided. Re-read writing instructions carefully. Try another writing method if available - dd/phoenixsuit/win32-diskimage. Especially writing on Windows tends to cause trouble. If your board is new you can try an image for similar board with the same CPU. Use console cable if you have one to check the boot messages.


 * power off the board completely before booting If you are using a console cable the board may not power off completely. There is a possiblility that self-powered USB peripherials or USB hubs may cause sililar issue. The red power light would get dimmer when the board is off but does not turn off completely. In this case the mmc controller may not get reset properly and the board boots from nand. Power off the board, disconnect all peripherials, and disconnect the serial console cable. Try booting again. You can re-connect your peripherials before booting. This issue does not seem to happen when the kernel powers down the mmc controller properly but is common when the kernel crashes.


 * check for bad micro-SD card contact This is common issue on boards that use micro-SD socket. Try removing and re-inserting the card, cleaning the contacs on the card and dusting off the SD card socket. Some people report that inserting the card together with a piece of paper improves contact and allows booting cards which are too loose in the socket.

= See also =

U-Boot

 * U-Boot

External

 * Additional info on sunxi's flavor of U-Boot