Any suggestions for a Debian(based/like) OS for the Orange Pi zero2

[Rick Thomas]

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

[Andrew M.A. Cater]

Post by Rick Thomas
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

[Rick Thomas]

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

Rick

Post by Andrew M.A. Cater

Post by Rick Thomas
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

[RobJE]

Hi Rick,

Post by Rick Thomas
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>

Post by Rick Thomas
Thanks in advance!
Rick

GRTNX,
RobJE

[Rick Thomas]

Post by Andrew M.A. Cater
Hi Rick,

Post by Rick Thomas
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>

Post by Rick Thomas
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

[Paul Wise]

    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

[Marcin Juszkiewicz]

Post by Rick Thomas
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.