See also vmdebootstrap which can automate the image building. I
remember having to modify slightly it's scripts in /usr/share. But it
should automate the building of that for you. See here:
https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/TI/BeagleBone.

The other way is a chroot install via ssh, which is more involved.

 
On Thursday, May 25, 2017 8:29 PM, Gregory Nowak <greg@???>
wrote:
 
> On Thu, May 25, 2017 at 01:50:33PM +0200, Antoine wrote:
>> Better yet, can anyone recommend a howto or something similar? I
>> would be
>> interested in learning exactly what is needed to boot and run an OS
>> on an
>> ARM SBC (u-boot? .dtb files? other things I don't know?).
> If you're adventurous, and are willing to learn, have a look at
> debootstrap(8). Once you prepare your sd card with everything needed
> to boot the system, you can use debootstrap's --arch and --foreign
> flags to do the initial stage on a x86 or x86_64 system, and then use
> the --second-stage option to finish the install on your device. This
> has a steep learning curve, but is rewarding once it's mastered, and
> provides full control over exactly how the system is installed.
>
> Greg
>
>
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