Void Linux is probably possible.

[aaspectre]

I'm feeling a bit lazy today, but it occurred to me since Void updated it's images for the first time in a while today and the news happened to meet my eyeballs,. Void has a generic aarch64 rootfs that one could probably just add the bootloader and modules to to get working, I'm posting before trying since I'm pretty dang confident this would work considering the same thing has worked for me before on other devices (e.g. pi4). I will be trying it later tonight, but just getting this info out there in case someone else wanted to do it.

Update:
You can track this issue on github about it:
https://github.com/void-linux/void-mklive/issues/105

[signaryk]

That's pretty much exactly what I'm doing with Arch Linux ARM right now. I took the generic rootfs and installed tsys' mainline kernel, the bootloader, mesa with the panfrost driver, and firmware for the wireless card and the GPU. So far things have been going fairly well with that. I'm sure a similar process with Void Linux would work as well, just a matter of compiling/packaging everything.

[Zachir999]

I would like to be in the loop if this works. If you don't try by then, I can take a few stabs at it tomorrow evening after work, and I will update here if anything sticks.

[aaspectre]

Sorry I didn't get back to this when I said.
It works just fine, it just isn't fully supported so it's not the smoothest experience in the world.
You can track this issue on github about it:
https://github.com/void-linux/void-mklive/issues/105

Looks like we have enough people interested to make this happen in a more supported capacity, so I'm waiting on that to actually try and use it.

[branon]

I am quite keen to see Void running on the Pinebook Pro as well. Following that GitHub issue and this thread...

[aaspectre]

Since this is taking longer than I thought to produce a more official way to do, and there are probably curious ppl, there are two ways I've done this that work, starting with Manjaro or Debian, depending on which features you want from their respective kernels.

Get an image of manjaro or debian for pbp, restore it to SD.

From now on do everything as root to keep file permissions.

Take from the restored SD the /boot (partition for debian, folder for manjaro) contents and set them aside, furthermore, set aside /lib/modules on either.

Then as root delete everything on the main partition that was created during restore rm -rf * (I do all this btw, because I don't know about how uboot on pbp detects bootable stuff and I am too lazy to look into it)

Then I move the generic void aarch64 tar to the root of the partition I just deleted everything from.

Then I run "tar --preserve-permissions -xaf *rootfs*" (replace the *rootfs* with the filename of the rootfs tar)

Then I delete the rootfs tar

Then I restore the set aside contents of /boot or of the boot partition to /boot on the rootfs, and copy the previously set aside modules folder into the /lib/ folder.

Enlarge the partition manually since it won't do that for you.

It should then work and boot fine, packages for it are not in the repos yet so the experience can only be described as workable atm unless you have a high amount of knowledge on getting everything over to void.

I know that when this gets official support I will be switching over as void linux has always been my goto for my less powerful computers and I generally prefer runit to systemd

[notpod]

I basically installed manjaro removed all the filesystem and replaced it with the void arm filesystem tar ball.

It mostly works.

I can update with xbps without trashing boot so I doubt I will put and more effort into it as my lust for ARM has faded.

[matosys]

it's looking like progress. https://github.com/void-linux/void-packages/pull/17672

[branon]

it's looking like progress. https://github.com/void-linux/void-packages/pull/17672

Excellent! I am extremely excited. Hoping for a bootable Void image that I can dd to my eMMC

[branon]

Just an update on this, there is now a (fairly) trivial process known for building bootable Void Linux images for Pinebook Pro.

I have tested this and booted from SD card successfully. Here's where you can find the info: https://github.com/void-linux/void-mklive/issues/105

This is still very much a WIP as nothing is merged into the main Void repository yet, but some community members have done great work adding support for Pinebook Pro!