Booting with default debian image

[electriccrowbar]

Next stupid question:

I see that extlinux.conf defines a boot menu. Is the menu only available via serial console?

Yes.

Hopefully this can change as the platform matures (u-boot can draw to framebuffers and listen to USB keyboards but it requires drivers and these don't exist just yet) but at present you need a serial port to interact with the boot menu.

A simple approach is to put your boot partition on an SD card since if you need to change kernel you can eject the card, boot from a eMMC and edit extlinux.conf .

Is this menu enabled by default in the debian image?

I'm in an unfortunate place where my emmc is stuck in a boot loop and preventing a boot from the sdcard. 

I can boot from the sd if i switch off the emmc, but then i can't write a fix back to it...