Can't create a bootable Ubuntu sd card

[Gary Pajer]

I have an old 4 GB SD card which has Ubuntu 11 on it.  I have two 8 GB SD cards to play around with.  I'm not willing to overwrite the 4G card.   I've tried all kinds of permutations of installation instructions, none have worked.  I've used RCN's netinstall, his "regular" (non-net) install script, and I've tried using dd to write an image directly on the card.  I get one of two results:  A card that does almost nothing on boot (it prints the characters "60" to the screen), or a card that starts to boot, but fails when it can't find or write certain things, dropping me into that tiny "debugging" shell.

I *have* been able to create a card that boots Angstrom.  But opkg, the package manager, looks for packages to a URL that does not exist.  Evidently, the URL is coded into opkg somewhere, and I haven't found a way to change it.  BTW, if there are better Angstrom docs than the thin pdf with basic info, please let me know where I can find it.

I'd prefer Ubuntu or Debian over Angstrom because I'm more familiar with it,  but I'm willing to give Angstrom a try if I can get opkg working.

Can anyone suggest what might be wrong, or point me to reliable instructions?  I know the info I've given is sparse, but I've tried about 15 different ways to do this, and I  don't remember what went wrong in each case.

   TIA ...

[Robert Nelson]

On Fri, Nov 20, 2015 at 9:44 AM, Gary Pajer <gary....@gmail.com> wrote:
> I have an old 4 GB SD card which has Ubuntu 11 on it. I have two 8 GB SD
> cards to play around with. I'm not willing to overwrite the 4G card. I've
> tried all kinds of permutations of installation instructions, none have
> worked. I've used RCN's netinstall, his "regular" (non-net) install script,
> and I've tried using dd to write an image directly on the card. I get one
> of two results: A card that does almost nothing on boot (it prints the
> characters "60" to the screen), or a card that starts to boot, but fails
> when it can't find or write certain things, dropping me into that tiny
> "debugging" shell.

Well that 2nd one is closer, care to pastebin.com your serial log from
that and "cat /proc/cmdline"

Regards,

--
Robert Nelson
https://rcn-ee.com/

[Gary Pajer]

I've gotten a little farther using netinstall.   I don't know what I did differently... maybe I ejected the SD card more properly from my laptop.  At any rate, now the BB gets to "Starting kernel ..." then stalls.

Installation log:  http://pastebin.com/qnUwHiVR

Beagleboard boot-up log: http://pastebin.com/5Ud0iPNq

... and thanks for all your work on this, and your patience.

[Robert Nelson]

"Installer for [trusty-armhf] is using the Video Interface
Use [--serial-mode] to force Installing over the Serial Interface"

Well, can we assume you have a monitor and keyboard plugged in?

If not then add this option "--serial-mode"

Regards,

[Gary Pajer]

I did see the note saying something about Ubuntu taking a very long time for ... something.   The BB has been stalled at this point for at least 45 minutes.

[Gary Pajer]

Surely you've learned not to assume anything.  I am connecting via serial port.

That option gets much farther.  I'm now configuring Ubuntu.  I have a problem there, but I'll start a new thread for that.

Thanks.