I don't have time to look into all of this right now.

My log of prior updates shows
/boot/uImage-armv7, /boot/uinitrd-armv7

and now they're not there, maybe I didn't RTFM something.

I got 'trouble ahead', '/bin/sh: can't access tty; job control turned off'.

looks like root drive is not mounted

I've not had to diagnose arm boot failures, what should I look into next?

Thank you

The Banana Pi Hardware Model was migrated to the standard Kernel and initrd formats in 2015. Looks like you've had seamless upgrades working in a way I hadn't planned. Good going :-)

You just need to change the u-boot config and it'll boot. The installation documents provide the correct settings.

Here's what it should look like. This is the default settings from the installation documentation, so you may have /boot on a different storage device.

Copy whatever string yours has presently, substituting 'uImage' with 'zImage' and 'uinitrd' with 'initrd' and keep the rest of the string intact.
Then save the bootcmd_slk variable with the new settings (paste it into the u-boot console):

Again, this is the default so you need your own string after the setenv bootcmd_slk part.

Then:
That's the default and yours needs to look like that (but might not since you're using the older binary format with the u-boot header). However, U-Boot evaluates the strings once and stores the result, so you need to set it once again:.

If yours doesn't look like this, use this:
That should do.

If it doesn't, follow the installation instructions -you might need to change more of the u-boot configuration. That documentation has been fully baked for years now but I don't know what changed since you first installed it. You don't need to reinstall the OS though, just get the u-boot settings right.
Hopefully you have a recent enough U-Boot on there too, otherwise you'll have to upgrade that. If you can get it working by changing the config, there's no need to upgrade U-Boot itself.

Stuart, thank you for the prompt reply.

No, I'm not that clever, I followed INSTALL_AllWinner_A20.txt and tried to do what was said.

Please check out attachments, I think I have what you said to do.

This what I saw before rebooting

Attached Thumbnails

   

Ah, it's not a Banana Pi original.
After the warning message, does it boot properly?

If it fails, or works, what does this show?
It's easy enough to fix.

I can see it in the first screen shot from within U-Boot so it's probably "Lemaker Banana Pro"

If you can boot the machine, download this:
and
Reboot, and it should boot fine.

If it doesn't boot past the warning, I'll be surprised but it's easy enough to fix anyway.

Stuart, thank you again for getting back with me.

Does not boot properly, boot process is stopped as in attached, usb becomes inactive, no keyboard.

What's different about http://armed.slackware.com/tmp/initrd-armv7 than what got just installed:
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 40203445 May 11 15:39 /boot/initrd-armv7-5.10.36

like is my /boot/initrd-armv7-5.10.36 corrupt or something?

I have the OS installed on a 128G ssd, seems like I'm going to have to mount it somewhere to do what you said.

Attached Thumbnails

 

Nothing is corrupt - it's just that the new module loader only loads modules for known Hardware Models, and the Banana Pro doesn't identify as a 'Banana Pi', so it wasn't recognised.
You can check out Slackchat S02E12 for information about how it works.

I'm certain that the new version of the initrd will work because my Banana Pi surfaces the same model name within the U-Boot console as the Kernel /proc interface (as you'd expect!).
In fact you've just given me an idea. Thanks!

Let me know how the new initrd goes.

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Thank you! Good to hear I've given you hopefully a good working idea!

Really trying to get to this, working lots of hours, will let you know what happens.

Stuart, thank you!

Did what you said and here's what you asked about
I checked out Slackchat S02E12 a little and think I see what happens, will look more closely when I have more time.

When boot process gets to
and so on, can what's in /proc/device-tree/model be shown in above message?

Is "LeMaker Banana Pro" something you'll add to boot process to allow banana pro like mine to continue normal slackwarearm kernel updates?

I don't want to break it again and have to bug you some more.

CHEERS!

Yes. The initrd I gave you to try supports it already, and the next version I'll release will display the Hardware Model regardless of whether it's supported, as that'll have informed me immediately as to what the problem was.

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Current (pre-release) ChangeLog for ARM Sat May 29 08:08:08 UTC 2021

it's all good!