BeagleBone Black microSD boot issue

[kb4fxc]

Hi Everyone,

I'm recently purchased several new BBB's and have installed the most recent alarm to a microSD card using the standard instructions. To get alarm to load, I must press the user/boot button at cold boot time. Otherwise, the BBB appears to just lock up. Once I successfully get alarm loaded from cold boot by pressing the button, warm reboots load fine--no button press needed.

I really, really need to make alarm cold boot without requiring a button press. And, I know this is possible to do because the Debian Wheezy distro accomplishes this....It cold (or warm) boots from microSD with no user/boot button press needed, etc.

Note that I've got the "default" Angstrom Linux as shipped with the BBB installed on the eMMC and don't want to change or otherwise clobber it. I also have the most recent alarm installed on a 8GB microSD card.

I don't yet have a console serial cable, but, it's ordered and should get here in a couple days so I can see what's happening during the u-Boot process.

I've been round and round hacking on the uEnv.txt file, etc., with no success in overcoming this limitation. And, I'm figuring this is of interest to the alarm developers, since I think this is a desirable default configuration.

....Thanks in advance for help!!!

David, KB4FXC

[WarheadsSE]

I would suggest updating the eMMC image with the latest uboot & pile from Angstrom. It includes an update that removes the need for the button press.

[kb4fxc]

Hi WarheadsSE,

As I mentioned, I installed the latest Wheezy distro to another microSD and it cold boots *without* a need for any button press. And, this works great without changing or upgrading the default Angstrom on the very recent BBB's.

So, there has to be a way to accomplish this with alarm without upgrading (or touching) the default Angstrom install. I don't want to have to upgrade or change the eMMC due to the complexity for inexperienced users.

Any other ideas?

Thanks!

David, KB4FXC

[WarheadsSE]

Then at this point, serial is your savior.