🛠 Flasher l'image Debian sur la microSD puis l'eMMC 16 Go

Objectives

Flash the official Debian image for the BeaglePlay onto a microSD card, boot from it, then copy the system to the onboard 16 GB eMMC chip for cardless operation. At the end, the board boots on its own, without a microSD card, keeping the debian account / temppwd password unchanged (the image's default USER is preserved, ensuring that booting from SD and booting from eMMC work with the same credentials).

Hardware

• A BeaglePlay board
• A microSD card of at least 8 GB (class 10)
• A USB-C data cable (the USB-C port marked 5V in is power only; the other USB-C port carries data in gadget mode)
• A PC with balenaEtcher or the dd command

Complete code

# 1. Depuis le PC : graver la microSD (remplacer X par le bon disque !)
sudo dd if=debian-12-trixie-arm64-beagleplay.img of=/dev/sdX bs=4M status=progress oflag=sync

# 2. Démarrer sur la SD, se connecter (ssh debian@beagleplay, mdp temppwd)
#    ou en gadget USB-C : ssh debian@192.168.7.2

# 3. Copier la SD (mmcblk0) vers l'eMMC (mmcblk1)
sudo dd if=/dev/mmcblk0 of=/dev/mmcblk1 bs=4M status=progress oflag=sync
sudo partprobe /dev/mmcblk1
sync && sudo poweroff

# 4. Retirer la microSD, rebrancher : le système boote depuis l'eMMC

Expected verification

After removing the SD card, the board boots in under a minute; lsblk shows mmcblk1p1 (FAT32 /boot/firmware) and mmcblk1p2 (ext4 root) mounted. The USB-C data port exposes the usb0 gadget interface: the PC sees the board at 192.168.7.2 and the welcome web server responds at http://192.168.7.2:3000. A WiFi access point BeaglePlay-XXXXXX is also broadcast on first boot.

Common errors

• Mistaking the disk with dd and wiping the PC: always check with lsblk first.
• Using a charge-only USB-C cable: no gadget appears, leading you to wrongly believe the board is dead.
• Plugging power into the data port: 5V in is a dedicated port, the other USB-C is data-device only.
• Forgetting oflag=sync and unplugging too early: the eMMC gets corrupted, restart the dd.
• Changing the password before flashing the eMMC and then looking for temppwd: the flashed image keeps debian/temppwd.