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Guides

These are various guides that I have created. They are in no specific order.

Convert MBR partition table to GPT

This guide covers how to convert a MBR disk partition table to to GPT.

When do you need this

• You need to boot from EFI
• You need more than 4 primary partitions
• You have a disk larger than 2TB

Overview

1. use gdisk to add a new partition to convert to GPT
2. use gdisk to delete the new partition
3. use growpart to to extend the partition to the full space
4. grow the filesystem to fill the partition

Assumptions

• The partition table to be converted is on the disk /dev/nvme0n1
• The disk has 3 partitions; generally the case for arm64.raw images
  1. /boot/efi
  2. /boot
  3. /

Steps

1. Inspect the initial block setup

   lsblk
   

2. Inspect the initial disk setup

   sudo gdisk -l /dev/nvme0n1
   

3. Convert MBR to GPT by adding a new partition

   sudo gdisk /dev/nvme0n1
   

   Interactive command:
   • Use n for adding a new partition
   • Use the defaults provided to add a new partition at the end
   • Use w to write the changes to disk
4. Inspect the partition table again

   sudo gdisk -l /dev/nvme0n1
   

5. Delete the newly created partition

   sudo gdisk /dev/nvme0n1
   

   Interactive command:
   • Use d for deleting a partition
   • Use the new partion number; see the output from the previous list command
   • Use w to write the changes to disk
6. Tell the kernel to rescan the partition table to pick up the changes

   sudo partprobe
   

Optional steps

These steps are needed if you want to expand the last partition to fill the disk

1. Install growpart

   sudo apt-get update
   sudo apt-get install cloud-guest-utils
   

   sudo dnf install cloud-utils-growpart
   

2. Grow the partition to fill the space

   sudo growpart /dev/nvme0n1 3
   

3. TODO: grow the filesystem
   • This may be done automatically by growpart

References

• https://ahmedmansouri.medium.com/convert-an-mbr-disk-into-a-gpt-disk-in-linux-161ded50697a

OrangePi5Max

Initial state:

• able to boot from SD card
• able to boot from USB2.0
• only some official Linux distros work (~Ubuntu 22.04)¹
• unable to boot from NVMe
• unable to boot from USB3.0

Initial hardware support when booted from the official Ubuntu image:

• HDMI furthest away from USB-C power
• 2xUSB2.0
• 2xUSB3.0
• Bluetooth
• Ethernet
• HDMI next to USB-C power
• WiFi

Boot order

By default it can only boot from the SD card slot. You need to flash the SPI with a new u-boot image to be able to boot from USB or the NVMe slot. After flashing the order is:

1. SD Card
2. NVMe
3. USB

Debugging over serial

1. power off the orangepi
2. plug in the wires on the USB to TTL into the orangepi. See Debug TTL UART in the top view image down below in the specs.
3. in a terminal run

   ls -l /dev/ttyUSB*
   

   screen /dev/ttyUSB0 1500000
   

4. power on the orangepi

SPI Flash

Flashing the SPI is for changing the bootloader to support different disks. The official OrangePi image and u-boot support booting off the NVMe disk.

Bootloader from Official Image

1. Download Ubuntu from the OrangePi site¹

   • This goes to a shared Google Drive
   • You need to be signed in with a Google account to be able to download
   • Download Orangepi5max_1.0.0_ubuntu_jammy_desktop_xfce_linux6.1.43.7z
     • Date modified: 2024-07-18
     • Size: 1.36GB
     • SHA256 of the 7z archive: ba429281271680455e9b73e3548d97f63268a259424f52b4020f407c05a2b015

2. Verify the download

   echo "ba429281271680455e9b73e3548d97f63268a259424f52b4020f407c05a2b015  Orangepi5max_1.0.0_ubuntu_jammy_desktop_xfce_linux6.1.43.7z" > CHECKSUMS
   sha256sum -c CHECKSUMS Orangepi5max_1.0.0_ubuntu_jammy_desktop_xfce_linux6.1.43.7z
   

3. Extract the image

   7z e Orangepi5max_1.0.0_ubuntu_jammy_desktop_xfce_linux6.1.43.7z
   

4. Verify the image

   sha256sum -c Orangepi5max_1.0.0_ubuntu_jammy_desktop_xfce_linux6.1.43.img.sha
   

5. Flash the image to a class 10 SD card

   ⚠️ This assumes /dev/sda is where the SD card is. Update accordingly.

   output=/dev/sda
   pv Orangepi5max_1.0.0_ubuntu_jammy_desktop_xfce_linux6.1.43.img | sudo dd iflag=fullblock oflag=direct of="${output}" bs=512b
   sudo sync
   

6. Insert the SD card into the orangepi and boot up the device

   NOTE: Use the HDMI port next to the USB-C power.

7. Once booted, open a terminal and run

   # user:pass is orangepi:orangepi
   sudo nand-sata-install
   

8. Then choose 7 Install/Update the bootloader on SPI Flash and pres <OK>

   

9. Then choose <Yes>

   

10. Wait for the burning to complete. Done will appear in the bottom left corner after the burning is completed.

    

11. Power off the orangepi

12. You will now be able to boot off of the SD card and the NVMe drive. Boot order:

    1. SD Card
    2. NVMe

Zeroing the SPI

This is to be done before flashing new bootloaders. There is ~16Mb of storage and this is a slow process. ~5min

pv /dev/zero | sudo dd iflag=fullblock oflag=direct of=/dev/mtdblock0 bs=512b
sudo sync

Specs

https://orangepi.net/product/orange-pi-5-max-16gb-ram

References

Primary site¹; uses http; not always available

1. http://www.orangepi.org/html/hardWare/computerAndMicrocontrollers/service-and-support/Orange-Pi-5-Max.html ↩ ↩2 ↩3

Source

The content for this site is available at: https://gitlab.com/perobertson-tools/www-perobertson-com/