I have an old Cubieboard 2 that I used to run Cubian on but later retired because of constant issues when updating the linux-sunxi based kernel on it. Yesterday I found that mainline kernel support is now good enough for it to work as a simple server so I wanted to try that.
I created a combined image with the Cubieboard 2 firmware image and base image (but the Buster versions) as described here:
https://www.debian.org/releases/stretch ... 01.html.en
Using dd to write that image to a microsd card, I see it booting but as soon as it boots the kernel I get stuck with a black screen with a blinking cursor. What I'm seeing sounds exactly like what is described in the old thread below regarding another board with the same or a similar SoC:
http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=133383
In his case, the solution was to use a serial cable to be able to see the setup interface. I don't have one of those cables though and my board is in the official case which doesn't expose those pins and hides the screw which prevents me from opening it without destroying the case.
Is it possible to modify the image to force the output to hdmi? I unpacked the ramdisk to see if I saw an obvious place to do that but came up short. Based on the assumption that it was just a display issue, I also tried doing the install blind by running the installer in a VM at the some time and just mirrored my keyboard input between the two far enough that it should've started obtaining an IP via DHCP. That never happened though so it seems it either doesn't accept keyboard input or it fails to boot to the installer.
Any ideas?
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