Booting Linux From SD Card

[Anon]

Hello,

I received a new hikey 960 board and am interested in booting Debian from an SD card. I initially downloaded the SD card image that the 96 Boards’ download page links to (http://snapshots.linaro.org/96boards/hikey/linaro/debian/latest/). I flashed this image to my SD card using Linux’s “dd” command. My host Linux machine identifies both a Boot partition and a RootFS partition on my SD card. When I insert the SD card into my hikey 960 and power on, the board boots straight into Android Oreo. How do I boot from the SD card? I have a few further questions regarding this:

  1. Do I need to flash a new UEFI to the hikey 960 before I can boot from an SD Card?
 
  2. I am also interested in using HDMI and USB hardware with Debian. I understand that Kernel 4.15 does not support this hardware. What is the best way to accomplish this and use a separate kernel for Debian from my SD card?

Thank you!

[Mani]

Hi @Anon

I have just tested the SD booting on hikey960 board and it works fine with the latest snapshot image pointed by you. It is recommended to use the new UEFI firmware for this.

2. I am also interested in using HDMI and USB hardware with Debian. I understand that Kernel 4.15 does not support this hardware. What is the best way to accomplish this and use a separate kernel for Debian from my SD card?

Please use the kernel here: https://github.com/96boards-hikey/linux/tree/hikey960-upstream-rebase

You can build and flash the kernel onto hikey960 board running debian by following this guide: https://github.com/96boards/documentation/blob/master/consumer/hikey/hikey620/build/linux-kernel.md

Thanks,
Mani