So when I try to run the Buster image for Olinuxino64, after the initial U-Boot screen it spends some excessive time with lines

Starting version 241

(about a minute or two)

Begin: Running /scripts/local-premount ... Scanning for Brtfs filesystems. done.

(many minutes. Does it have anything to do with the fact I have some old data on the on-board eMMC?)

These appear on the splash screen with armbian logo via HDMI, not on the serial console.

When it finally boots, USB keyboard is not working (nor USB in general, dmesg shows nothing when i try to plug/unplug various devices)  and the system is very unstable... It took me several times to even run armbianmonitor -u as the system otherways crashed trying to run that.

Last update was not fully tested, but previous was and I haven't notice problems like you describe. Try older 5.83 builds from here https://dl.armbian.com/lime-a64/archive/ and provide board revision number. How do you power the board?

On 7/13/2019 at 9:54 AM, Igor said:

Try older 5.83 builds from here https://dl.armbian.com/lime-a64/archive/ and provide board revision number. How do you power the board?

I have been using the 5.87 builds from Olimex and they seem to work fine (but it's still stretch-based). I might try some of the 5.83 builds when I have time.

The board has Rev.E printed on it, and it is the "industrial component" variant A64-OLinuXino-2Ge8G-IND. Is that what you asked?

 

It is powered using a SY0605E adapter Olimex sells as compatible with the board and a LIPO battery as a backup. It is a 1.2A supply nominally, but acording to my wattmeter the consumption peaks at over 8 W – not sure whether this is because of the losses on the power supply or whether the board itself draws more than the 1.2 A nominally provided by the supply.

 

In any case, the 5.87 build has been runing stably (right now I am using the bootloader, kernel and firmware from the 5.87 build, but all the other SW comes from Debian Buster; and it works as long as I don't accidentally update the armbian-specific parts).

58 minutes ago, MMN said:

The board has Rev.E printed on it

Good. That helps.

 

1 hour ago, MMN said:

as long as I don't accidentally update the armbian-specific parts

The problem is that Olimex is using NEXT tag with 5.1.y while our NEXT tag is still attached to 4.19.y which is the first semi usable image for this board. Kernel 5.x. is better ... our tag for 5.x is DEV. When you run apt upgrade your NEXT kernel is downgraded to 4.19.y ...

 

Will be sorted out. 5.2.y kernel is still in the works ... freeze kernel updates with armbian-config until then so you will be able to update other packages without a problem.