Zero/install/eMMC Android
Radxa Zero > Installation > Install Android to eMMC
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How to install Android to Radxa Zero eMMC
This guide describes how to install Android to Radxa Zero eMMC. Currently there are two types of Android image that can be flashed on Radxa Zero: Android OTA image, which is a zip archive with multiple smaller img files in it; and amlupdate image, which is just one big img file. Android OTA image is a standard image format that can be flashed by fastboot tool, while amlupdate image is a proprietary format and requires aml-flash-tool. This guide will only cover Android OTA image format. User of amlupdate image should follow this guide instead.
Requirement
- Radxa Zero
- A PC/laptop running Windows, Linux, or macOS
- USB A to C cable or C to C cable, depending on your host
- Android 9 image, which should be unzipped after downloading, and you will find files like this in the folder:
$ ls android-info.txt dtbo.img flash-all.sh product.img vbmeta.img boot.img dt.img logo.img recovery.img vendor.img bootloader.img flash-all.bat odm.img system.img
bootloader.img will be needed later to run Zero in fastboot mode. Do not use rz-fastboot-loader.bin as it doesn't have the necessary partition info.
Windows
Step 1: Wipe eMMC
Please follow this guide to wipe eMMC. Do not close RZ USB Boot Helper when you finish.
Step 2: Flash Android 9
Select extracted bootloader.img in RZ USB Boot Helper, and click Run to run Radxa Zero in fastboot mode.
Then Open Windows PowerShell from the Start Menu and execute this command to install fastboot tool:
iex ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://raw.githubusercontent.com/corbindavenport/nexus-tools/master/install.ps1'))
Execute flash-all.bat from extracted Android 9 image folder to flash all partitions to eMMC.
If Zero did not reboot automatically after flashing, you should reconnect USB cable to reboot it.
Linux & macOS
For Linux and macOS, we use amlogic boot tool to download the bootloader and boot the Zero into the USB Disk mode. This is to expose the eMMC to host PC as a USB Disk. Then we can use dd or other tools to write images to the USB Disk(eMMC).
Step 1: Wipe eMMC
Please follow this guide to wipe eMMC. Please make sure you are in fastboot mode before next step.
Step 2: Flash Android 9
Nexus Tools is an installer for the Android SDK Platform Tools package, which includes ADB, Fastboot, and other applications. We use Nexus Tools to install fastboot. If you already have fastboot installed, you can skip this step.
bash <(curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/corbindavenport/nexus-tools/master/install.sh)
After it finishes, which fastboot should return you the install location.
Now execute flash-all.sh from your extracted Android folder to flash all partitions images to eMMC
$ ./flash-all.sh error: no devices/emulators found OKAY [ 0.040s] Finished. Total time: 0.040s OKAY [ 0.039s] Finished. Total time: 0.039s ... Finished. Total time: 0.038s Rebooting OKAY [ 0.002s] Finished. Total time: 0.454s
If Zero did not reboot automatically after flashing, you should reconnect USB cable to reboot it.
FAQ
1. How to erase Android?
A:
- To erase partitions
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/<emmc device> bs=1M count=500
2. Why is there no fastboot device?
A: If the board not able to run into fastboot, please try:
- If you can boot to android, try "adb reboot fastboot" or (uart console) "reboot fastboot"
- If you can visit u-boot console, execute command "fastboot"