Installing Debian to a MinnowBoard MAX.

Finally I got Debian (Jessie) installed at the MinnowBoard MAX.  I had to do a couple of tries 'cause with the emotion I forgot to check the minimum space needed to perform a very basic installation.

 I tried first using a 2 GB USB key, then a 4GB USB key which worked perfectly fine with the exception of the /var partition, which almost got full while downloading packages. So let's see (almost) every step.

1.- Booting

I got "UEFI shell" and saw the USB key available and ready to boot, some explanations here about this.

Really, it's not that hard to boot and start the installation, you just need to read a little if you really don't know what are you doing.

2.- Install

Let's start the installation of Debian!

"Some of your hardware needs non-free firmware files to operate". As of now, I didn't take a look at this, I just continue with the installation and everything went fine.

As I said before, I used a couple of USB keys (2 GB with the image to install, 4GB to get the basic installation completed) to get things done. The board comes with 2 USB ports, 2.0 and 3.0. Also a  SATA port is available so you can use a hard drive if you plan to use this a a mini-pc or something like that.

 

 Look at the size of the partitions, I tried with different approaches until I got enough space for /var partition, remember I'm using a 4 GB USB key, if you're not planning to put some big files inside your home, use that space and assign it to the /var partition. 

Yes please! let's get this installation completed! (check that I was using "sdb", the 2 GB USB key)

And here's when I found my mistake (not checking the minimal space required for partitions) I was using the 2GB USB key as final destination, I should have used the 4GB USB key from the very beginning.

  
Yeah.... error but not related to what is provided by the installation procedure so, let's take a look at virtual console 4 (or just skip it and keep reading).

If you check slowly the messages you're going to read "No space left on device".   I powered off the board, swapped the USB keys, booted, restarted the installation and.....

1.1 (Re) Installation.

Yes!! this time we got the installation going on, btw... when you're doing a network installation remember to use your nearest mirror :)

And we're done! The installation of Debian (Jessie) is completed I just need one more thing. A case.