Investigate the possibility of using a "dual-boot" between the original firmware and a Linux based system on a single SD card

[butrus]

It would be nice to have a dual boot possibility with a single SD card (obviously with a greater capacity - not the original one). I have already tested the idea of transferring the original image into a bigger SD card which works well. (See https://discourse.openmixerproject.de/t/investigate-the-possibility-of-using-larger-capacity-sd-cards-on-the-i-mx25-board/39)

The Behringer X32 has already some sort of “bootloader” (partition 1) which in case of some keys-combinations loads a dedicated test binary for the surface test. Maybe it could be possible to extend this bootloader to load a Linux system (or to enter another bootloader in between) upon pressing a specific key from another location on the SD-card.

One problem to solve would be that Behringer uses the MBR in it’s firmware and has all 4 partitions used, so no are left for Linux/OpenX32. A possible solution would be to use the GPT which can possibly be relocated to another location (usually it uses sector 2 which is already in use) but this would have to be checked if it is possible.

A “dual-boot” would really be convenient for people who would use the normal firmware for “production” while be able test and/or develop the OpenX32 occassionaly.

In the long term it may even be possible for OpenX32 to import and even export the settings directly from/to the original firmware partitions while using Linux/OpenX32. (The structure of the “filesystem”, used in the original firmware needs to be reverse-ingeneered, though...)