I just recently received a nanopi m4 4G DDR3 with a heat sink and SATA HAT (having ordered in April from China, it came a week ago...). I'm trying to get it up but no joy. I will note I have no linux skills; one point of buying this is to make myself learn linux.

Today... I have the misfortune of having only crappy micro SD cards. I think, at least- because this happens:
when I boot the M4 with an image burned to SD, it gives a nice page with the choice of whichever individual OS I put there... so I click and it installs, where I can "finish" or shut down. If I hit "finish", I go back to the chose-an-OS screen... and if I chose my OS, it cheerfully (re-) installs the OS, and I have the choice again to "finish" or shut down. If I hit "finish" I go back to the first screen, and from there I can only reinstall the OS... again. If I shut down and reboot... same. So ATM I think I just have a crappy card. I did verify the download w SHA256. I have tried Friendly Desktop, eflasher Friendly desktop, and a couple more here, as my linux-fu does not exist.

But I do have an eMMC module and microSD adapter. So I tried burning some image, and it does nothing. Presumably because I wiped whatever came on the SD card and put a package designed for the SD card.

So... is there an image I can burn directly to the eMMC module so I can boot this little guy? Yeah, I'll get a new card but I'd like this running ASAP so I can start learning its uses. My intended use is primarily as NAS and secondarily as a playground and test for other stuff.


Does anyone know where to find an image (Friendly OS or Armbian preferred) I can directly burn to eMMC and use/expect it to boot? Or is this fundamentally impossible?