Okay, I hadn't been thinking in those terms because in my mind
I already had the sdcard 'allocated'. That is useful. Bricking
GlobalScale units is definitely a thing... I managed to do it
to one of there Guru boxes back in 2012. Never had time to
fix it; at those prices it was cheaper to bin it than have them
pay me to figure it out!
As to the development, I can do both. I have a full set of the
packages for the release on the Miraboxes (7.1) ... it is an old
release but they have stayed with it for years and but for the
kernel it serves my purposes. I have one of the test units
designated as the development system for my own debian packages
anyway and I've already got gcc and all of the debian helper
package tool chain on it.
Also, I have several 256 GB USB 3.0 sticks laying around my lab
bench, so no problem.
I am really glad to hear that cross compilers have been
simplified. Walking 10 miles to school in deep snow, up hill
both ways, is best left in the past.
I'm hoping to come out of this with a simple, replicable
install sequence using the newly built kernel and module
set... I will have to replicate this on at least 4 other
units. It would also be nice if I can breath life into 4
old units I have and be able to describe the process to a
couple of folks who work with me remotely on occasion so
they can upgrade as well.