H7S MultiBoot "How To" - installing multiple images in H7S's internal flash!

The Zgemma H7S has a large 4GB eMMC NAND flash, split into 4 major partitions — which means you can install up to 4 different images natively, with no extra "multiboot" plugin and no need to run images from a USB stick, provided the image itself supports it. Here's how.

Installing a new image (PurE2)

1. This assumes you've already installed PurE2 on the first/default partition in the usual way.
2. Download the other compatible images you want to try (OpenATV, OpenHDF, OpenSPA, etc.) to your PC — do not unzip/decompress them.
3. Have a USB stick formatted as FAT32, and copy the image you want to install onto it, still zipped as downloaded. Plug the stick into the H7S.
4. Go to MENU > pMANAGER > SW MANAGER > FLASH ON THE FLY to reach the flashing menu. linuxsat-support.com/cms/attachment/108347/
   • Yellow button — choose which H7S partition to install to. Be careful not to overwrite an existing installed image — pick a different partition unless overwriting is what you want. linuxsat-support.com/cms/attachment/108348/
   • Blue button — local file installation (as opposed to online installation). linuxsat-support.com/cms/attachment/108349/
   • Choose the device to install from, then find the unzipped image you want to flash. linuxsat-support.com/cms/attachment/108350/
   • Green button — starts installing the chosen image from the USB stick. linuxsat-support.com/cms/attachment/108351/
5. Wait for it to finish. When successful, press OK to reboot the H7S.

Notes

• Installing from the network: you can also install E2 images from the internet, or send images from your PC to the H7S's HDD/SSD via FTP (for example using FileZilla Client).
• Partition naming can look confusing: once you've installed more than one image, you may see 5 partitions listed when choosing where to install: START, START_1, START_2, START_3, START_4. The current image/partition is likely "STARTUP" (the default partition). After rebooting, this is no longer an issue in MultiBoot — you can rename an image using the yellow button for clarity, and pressing Save on an image is presumed to make it the default.
• Each image has 2 versions: linuxsat-support.com/cms/attachment/108358/
  1. Without PiP (Picture in Picture — viewing 2 channels at once, e.g. for simultaneous sport events). linuxsat-support.com/cms/attachment/108359/
  2. With PiP — marked "experimental" since it's not yet believed to be fully functional, likely due to driver issues. linuxsat-support.com/cms/attachment/108360/ linuxsat-support.com/cms/attachment/108361/

In short: send a zipped image to the H7S's HDD/SSD or USB stick, choose the partition to install it to, then choose the zipped image and flash it.

Switching between installed images

Press the EXIT button several times to reach Standby > MultiBoot > Startup_X and boot into the image of your choice.

Flashing via OpenATV instead

If the currently-running image is OpenATV, the menu path is different:

MENU > Setup > SW Management > Flash Online/Local >
Yellow (choose where to flash the new image, e.g. STARTUP_2) >
Blue (Local image, as opposed to Online) >
Choose the image and press Flash, wait, then press OK when finished.

Using the 2-partition PurE2 image on Zgemma H7

http://pur-e2.club/OU/images/i…irdigital/H7-2partitions/

To use it, you need to flash this image via USB once, using the button behind the front door. After that, you can flash images online (from SW Manager or PurE2 Manager) into STARTUP_1 or STARTUP_2 — you can use 6.2 or 6.3 images, and can also flash other images into the other partition the usual USB-stick way.

To go back to 4-partition images, flash a "normal" image via USB using the same front-door button.