Hello,

 

is there something like a VirtualBox that can emulate a BP(M1) hardware, that can run Armbian inside?

 

I'm looking for a way to set up a new Armbian system for a BPM1, without having to shut down the running one longer than absolutely necessary. I have done this before with Linux servers: I installed and configured a hole server inside a VirtualBox alongside my normal computer work, then I copied the image to the real disk and swapped the disks, with a downtime of only about 5 minutes. So I was wondering if this was possible with the BananaPi as well.

1 hour ago, pi-rat said:

So I was wondering if this was possible with the BananaPi as well.

You will need to make support. The only (Armbian) image that I manage to boot with actual kernel under QEMU was Cubieboard 1 (A10):

https://wiki.qemu.org/Documentation/Platforms/ARM
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel/2015-10/msg01401.html

 

Setting up a NFS boot with or without FEL or using special kernel
https://docs.armbian.com/Developer-Guide_FEL-boot/

is the only way to get closer to this.

Welcome to non x86 world