He Debian Arm folks,

Out of curiosity, I recently bought a couple of Orange Pi zero2 kits because I wanted to see what could be done with such a really inexpensive board.

Now I'm looking for an OS. The Orange Pi web site claims that it supports Debian and Ubuntu among others, but I can't find any links to where to download Debian or Ubuntu for this hardware. So far the best I've been able to do is a Bullseye-based
version of Armbian. But I'd really like to have an un-modified Debian, if such a thing is possible.

Anybody got any suggestions?

Thanks in advance!
Rick

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Hi Rick,

On 10-10-2022 04:17, Rick Thomas wrote:

He Debian Arm folks,

Out of curiosity, I recently bought a couple of Orange Pi zero2 kits because I wanted to see what could be done with such a really inexpensive board.

Now I'm looking for an OS. The Orange Pi web site claims that it supports Debian and Ubuntu among others, but I can't find any links to where to download Debian or Ubuntu for this hardware. So far the best I've been able to do is a Bullseye-based

version of Armbian. But I'd really like to have an un-modified Debian, if such a thing is possible.

Anybody got any suggestions?

did you try the link on the Orange Pi wiki? [1]

[1] <http://www.orangepi.org/html/hardWare/computerAndMicrocontrollers/service-and-support/Orange-Pi-Zero-2.html>

Thanks in advance!
Rick

GRTNX,
RobJE

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

W dniu 10.10.2022 o 04:17, Rick Thomas pisze:

Out of curiosity, I recently bought a couple of Orange Pi zero2 kits
because I wanted to see what could be done with such a really
inexpensive board.

Now I'm looking for an OS. The Orange Pi web site claims that it
supports Debian and Ubuntu among others, but I can't find any links
to where to download Debian or Ubuntu for this hardware. So far the
best I've been able to do is a Bullseye-based version of Armbian. But
I'd really like to have an un-modified Debian, if such a thing is
possible.

Anybody got any suggestions?

Grab generic AArch64 installer image, dd it to usb stick and boot it
from u-boot. Similar to how you would do it on x86-64 platform.

Arm SBC vendors love to write "our sbc supports distroX, distroY and
distroZ" while it usually means "we have some random rootfs with out
fugly kernel glued to it" which was loosely based on one of those distros.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Sun, Oct 09, 2022 at 07:17:44PM -0700, Rick Thomas wrote:

He Debian Arm folks,

Out of curiosity, I recently bought a couple of Orange Pi zero2 kits because I wanted to see what could be done with such a really inexpensive board.

Now I'm looking for an OS. The Orange Pi web site claims that it supports Debian and Ubuntu among others, but I can't find any links to where to download Debian or Ubuntu for this hardware. So far the best I've been able to do is a Bullseye-based

version of Armbian. But I'd really like to have an un-modified Debian, if such a thing is possible.

Anybody got any suggestions?

Thanks in advance!
Rick

Hi Rick,

It looks as if it might not be supported by Debian - yet - in the SD card images but the download link is here - http://www.orangepi.org/html/hardWare/computerAndMicrocontrollers/service-and-support/Orange-Pi-Zero-2.html

There is at least a Bullseye image with desktop and a Bullseye server image.

Orange Pi zero 2 Debian into a search engine found it for me quickly.

Aha - found it - http://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/stable/main/installer-arm64/current/images/netboot/SD-card-images/ shows a current Debian image for it.

Debian SD card images found me that one.

Hope this helps,

With every good wish, as ever,

Andy Cater

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Mon, Oct 10, 2022, at 3:31 AM, RobJE wrote:

Hi Rick,

On 10-10-2022 04:17, Rick Thomas wrote:

He Debian Arm folks,

Out of curiosity, I recently bought a couple of Orange Pi zero2 kits because I wanted to see what could be done with such a really inexpensive board.

Now I'm looking for an OS. The Orange Pi web site claims that it supports Debian and Ubuntu among others, but I can't find any links to where to download Debian or Ubuntu for this hardware. So far the best I've been able to do is a Bullseye-based

version of Armbian. But I'd really like to have an un-modified Debian, if such a thing is possible.

Anybody got any suggestions?

did you try the link on the Orange Pi wiki? [1]

[1] <http://www.orangepi.org/html/hardWare/computerAndMicrocontrollers/service-and-support/Orange-Pi-Zero-2.html>

Thanks in advance!
Rick

GRTNX,
RobJE

Yes, in fact I discovered that one after I had written my original post. It works pretty well. But there's some rather strange things about it:
The /etc/apt/sources.list file is directed to http://mirrors.tuna.tsinghua.edu.cn/debian
rather than
https://deb.debian.org/debian
Is there something special about the Chinese mirror that I should know? If not, can I replace it with the stock debian mirror?
And there are a few .deb packages that come pre-installed but are not present on that mirror. Most of them have "orangepi" as part of their package name. Their purpose seems to be to help in configuring the system. Many of them are borrowed almost
verbatim from the Armbian distribution for Orange Pi with "armbian" replaced by "orangepi".
Also, the installed system uses zram files for swap and /var/log . This is probably to limit the space the distro takes up on an SD card, and it works OK, but it's not what I'd expect from a "stock" Debian install. It would be interesting to know
where those .deb files reside when their at home (i.e. is there a repository that could/should have been included in the sources.list ?)

In any case, my next try will be the stock Debian AArch64 installer image as recommended by Marcin.

Thanks to everyone for all the good answers so far -- keep 'em coming!
Rick

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Tue, 2022-10-11 at 02:31 -0700, Rick Thomas wrote:

    The /etc/apt/sources.list file is directed to http://mirrors.tuna.tsinghua.edu.cn/debian
    rather than
https://deb.debian.org/debian
    Is there something special about the Chinese mirror that I should know?  If not, can I replace it with the stock debian mirror?

It is probably more accessible in China than the Fastly CDN and
probably the image creators are in China so they used it.

Other than that it looks like a normal working Debian mirror:

https://mirror-master.debian.org/status/mirror-info/nanomirrors.tuna.tsinghua.edu.cn.html
https://mirror-master.debian.org/status/mirror-info/neomirrors.tuna.tsinghua.edu.cn.html

    And there are a few .deb packages that come pre-installed but are
not present on that mirror.  Most of them have "orangepi" as part of
their package name.  Their purpose seems to be to help in configuring
the system.  Many of them are borrowed almost verbatim from the
Armbian distribution for Orange Pi with "armbian" replaced by
"orangepi".

This is pretty common, although it would be nice if those config
changes were either not necessary or included in Debian itself.

Also, the installed system uses zram files for swap and /var/log . 
This is probably to limit the space the distro takes up on an SD
card, and it works OK, but it's not what I'd expect from a "stock"
Debian install.

Debian has two different zram packages for enabling swap, docs:

https://wiki.debian.org/ZRam

It would be interesting to know where those .deb files reside when
their at home (i.e. is there a repository that could/should have been included in the sources.list ?)

This makes me think it is deb.odroid.in:

https://wiki.odroid.com/?q=sources.list&do=search

--
bye,
pabs

https://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----

iQIzBAABCgAdFiEEYQsotVz8/kXqG1Y7MRa6Xp/6aaMFAmNGDWoACgkQMRa6Xp/6 aaOi3Q/9GSAK44YCfODrcA6WO5ujSBZBMSx8nLP32V57uPzso6WtrNy0A99MnwsK Aa7saP2GreH1BZj50+G6+DbYqV1VEs0lS15376L6f8W2qvROZRlhr5LWfxZti0HF pG+jTwHhtuYItFkbJCU3sgSkYE3/eNYkk69gRqLn22Vj5wmOxi+DsEpS0ASHca5e odQmcpTdeBdFHL0/Jr8UTEJOHU+pldQ/97d7+J4q05rKaOAaWZIrNgcM8I5BYF58 5lxCXWgOjrL2ZOf4flEZ41DyGTScFnJIm59C1m+dymvArcD0BNgDpaGxwnRwZKgV u/TSTfFjLBHsNAuA4jdnErBohciJb0JhJjlGgJaQpXCtWfvyp6pde1PmiJMsqwjF zAF2HNtP3HulGha1t4DfiJ4xL1XcL72z7xxBoM1zwU/5gF95RSYzvbi+NcfNdF4b /bGfarvZ2XcBBL7gzIylZ4+M3em265U5LwPklKeK2av2HwMSyICEW6SNLngr0rW5 r2P/CJJ6fl8WH+PhNuTZX/DtxWu8vjY1QUAKc3SSy4PwM/HqFDDIG101TI3LPqaf uTdl/eK/kD04oD4DuoTzmPTA6h14KYSFYn2+3kiFs0C7jBdcwmN50yGKQgcx6C9A gM1y/uDjLfG+StkyExwl4UG9Muqw3U8turuUgD3wBkgebty8g4g=
=xzih
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Thanks, Andy! I'll try the ftp.debian.org link tonight. It looks like exactly what I'm looking for.

Rick

On Mon, Oct 10, 2022, at 3:32 AM, Andrew M.A. Cater wrote:

On Sun, Oct 09, 2022 at 07:17:44PM -0700, Rick Thomas wrote:

He Debian Arm folks,

Out of curiosity, I recently bought a couple of Orange Pi zero2 kits because I wanted to see what could be done with such a really inexpensive board.

Now I'm looking for an OS. The Orange Pi web site claims that it supports Debian and Ubuntu among others, but I can't find any links to where to download Debian or Ubuntu for this hardware. So far the best I've been able to do is a Bullseye-based

version of Armbian. But I'd really like to have an un-modified Debian, if such a thing is possible.

Anybody got any suggestions?

Thanks in advance!
Rick

Hi Rick,

It looks as if it might not be supported by Debian - yet - in the SD
card
images but the download link is here - http://www.orangepi.org/html/hardWare/computerAndMicrocontrollers/service-and-support/Orange-Pi-Zero-2.html

There is at least a Bullseye image with desktop and a Bullseye server image.

Orange Pi zero 2 Debian into a search engine found it for me quickly.

Aha - found it - http://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/stable/main/installer-arm64/current/images/netboot/SD-card-images/
shows a current Debian image for it.

Debian SD card images found me that one.

Hope this helps,

With every good wish, as ever,

Andy Cater

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)