[GUIDE] ArchLinuxARM on Pinebook Pro - Printable Version

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[GUIDE] ArchLinuxARM on Pinebook Pro - Printable Version

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[GUIDE] ArchLinuxARM on Pinebook Pro - hku2 - 01-21-2020

Hello!
I just got my Pinebook Pro (ANSI) a couple of days ago.
I tried a few of the various OS images out there, and was really impressed with the performance.

I do like to run ArchLinux on my machines though, and since I am relatively new to the ARM architecture, I felt like I owed it to myself to at least try and get arch running on my pinebook pro!

[Image: EOr8IRyWsAIhGG5?format=jpg]

[Image: EOr8IRyWsAIhGG5?format=jpg]

Below is the process I used. There's probably a better way of going about this, but like I said, this is my first attempt at bringing arch up to an unsupported device.

1) Environment Setup

Boot from your SD card to any Manjaro image (I used the Manjaro XFCE one).

Code:
sudo -i

pacman -S arch-install-scripts

Next, get the Generic AArch64 ArchLinuxARM image from here.

2) Prepare the eMMC (or NVMe)

We will have to prepare our eMMC (or NVMe) for the installation.
I initially installed mine on an NVMe, but even though its power consumption was 2.5W, the maximum supported by the pinebook pro, it would keep crashing at peak draws from the drive, so I ended up installing to the emmc instead.
The following guide applies to the emmc, but if you're installing to an nvme, simply replace /dev/mmcblk2 with /dev/nvme0n1.

Code:
fdisk /dev/mmcblk2

g # to create a new GPT

n # to create a new partition

1 # partition mumber

65536 # as the starting sector (we will need this space to flash Uboot in)

<ENTER> # for the last sector (auto)

w # to write the changes to disk

# create a filesystem

mkfs.ext4 /dev/mmcblk2p1

# mount the partition

mount /dev/mmcblk2p1 /mnt

# extract the image to the mounted partition

bsdtar -xpf ArchLinuxARM-aarch64-latest.tar.gz -C /mnt

# generate the fstab entry for your emmc partition

genfstab -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab

# switch to the arch chroot

arch-chroot /mnt

3) Configure the installation

We will now need to configure the installation, and make some necessary changes to make it work with the pinebook pro's SoC.
For this, I have used the Manjaro packages for the kernel, uboot and wifi firmware.
I imagine these packages will soon be backported from manjaro to arch, although I am not quite sure how this process works.
If I am mistaken, and they do not make it to the arch repos, then I'll try and create AUR packages for them, so we can get updates.

Code:
# initialize the pacman keyring

pacman-key --init

pacman-key --populate archlinuxarm

# install wget

pacman -S wget

# for now, get the packages from the manjaro arm repos (feel free to use a mirror closer to you instead)

cd

mkdir manjaro-packages

cd manjaro-packages

wget http://ftp-nyc.osuosl.org/pub/manjaro-arm/repo/stable/aarch64/core/linux-pinebookpro-5.5.0-0.2-aarch64.pkg.tar.xz

wget http://ftp-nyc.osuosl.org/pub/manjaro-arm/repo/stable/aarch64/core/uboot-pinebookpro-2020.01-4-aarch64.pkg.tar.xz

wget http://ftp-nyc.osuosl.org/pub/manjaro-arm/repo/stable/aarch64/community/pinebookpro-post-install-20191121-1-any.pkg.tar.xz

wget http://ftp-nyc.osuosl.org/pub/manjaro-arm/repo/stable/aarch64/community/ap6256-firmware-2020.01-1-aarch64.pkg.tar.xz

# install the downloaded packages

pacman -U linux-pinebookpro-5.5.0-0.2-aarch64.pkg.tar.xz

pacman -U uboot-pinebookpro-2020.01-4-aarch64.pkg.tar.xz

pacman -U pinebookpro-post-install-20191121-1-any.pkg.tar.xz

pacman -U ap6256-firmware-2020.01-1-aarch64.pkg.tar.xz

# install uboot on the emmc

dd if=/boot/idbloader.img of=/dev/mmcblk2 seek=64 conv=notrunc

dd if=/boot/u-boot.itb of=/dev/mmcblk2 seek=16384 conv=notrunc

# generate the new initramfs (chances are it's already been generated by now, but no harm in doing it again)

mkinitcpio -P

4) Final Steps

- Rename the alarm user, and change passwords for your new user and root
(Reference: https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/Pinebook_Pro#Initial_user_changes.2C_password.2C_name.2C_etc)

Code:
usermod -l myself -d /home/myself -m alarm

chfn -o "John A Doe" myself

groupmod -n myself alarm

passwd myself

passwd

- Follow the archwiki installation guide and complete any missing steps, like editing /etc/hostname, /etc/hosts, /etc/locale.gen, /etc/locale.conf, etc:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Installation_guide

- Install optional packages

Code:
pacman -S base-devel vim bash-completion networkmanager htop lsof strace

- Power off your pinebook pro, remove the SD card, and boot to your new ArchLinuxARM installation!

Code:
exit # exit the chroot

umount /mnt

sync

poweroff

- Install a WM/DE. I am currently testing out SwayWM, and it appears to be very stable and fast!

5) Potential ToDos

- Consider creating AUR packages for the packages we borrowed from Manjaro in Step 3, if they don't get backported soon.
- Perhaps create an image you can flash straight to your emmc, instead of having to do all of the steps above.

RE: [GUIDE] ArchLinuxARM on Pinebook Pro - tophneal - 01-21-2020

Moving to Tutorials.

RE: [GUIDE] ArchLinuxARM on Pinebook Pro - madalin - 01-21-2020

Try the kingston a1000 nvme series. It uses <1w even if hammered at max.

RE: [GUIDE] ArchLinuxARM on Pinebook Pro - hku2 - 01-21-2020

(01-21-2020, 01:54 PM)madalin Wrote: Try the kingston a1000 nvme series. It uses <1w even if hammered at max.

Will do, thanks!

RE: [GUIDE] ArchLinuxARM on Pinebook Pro - jahn07 - 01-25-2020

Have you managed to get WiFi working? I can't get networkmanager to show anything but lo in devices..

RE: [GUIDE] ArchLinuxARM on Pinebook Pro - hku2 - 01-25-2020

(01-25-2020, 04:35 AM)jahn07 Wrote: Have you managed to get WiFi working? I can't get networkmanager to show anything but lo in devices..

Yep, WiFi works just fine, super stable.
I did have to install the firmware package from the manjaro repo though for it to start working ("ap6256", mentioned in the guide above).

RE: [GUIDE] ArchLinuxARM on Pinebook Pro - Damon - 01-25-2020

Thanks for this guide and @madalin for the SSD recommendation! I have been planning on using Arch, but didn't know how to approach it. I'm coming from Gentoo (with systemd), so I partly just want to use Arch to have to do the installation so I learn its approach and where it differs from Gentoo.

RE: [GUIDE] ArchLinuxARM on Pinebook Pro - alexandre - 04-11-2020

Thanks for this guide, very efficient. Doing accordingly to this, the wifi would not work as a firmware is missing. I get it using the so-called pinebookpro-firmware package available by adding this to your pacman.conf :

Code:
[pinebookpro]

SigLevel = Optional TrustAll

Server = https://simulated.earth/archlinux/$repo/$arch

They also provide some kernel and uboot packages (although, migt not be as up-do-date as those from the manjaro communty…). They may welcome others to maintain thoses packages (I am not skilled enough…).

RE: [GUIDE] ArchLinuxARM on Pinebook Pro - HeckDSL11 - 06-08-2020

Thank you for the great guide!

If you don't mind, could you show me your the configuration of SwayWM?

I want to have a reference in case of something goes wrong.

RE: [GUIDE] ArchLinuxARM on Pinebook Pro - josmo - 12-22-2020

sorry for the necroposting, but
just found this one with root lucks encryption:

https://ryankozak.com/luks-encrypted-arch-linux-on-pinebook-pro/