Slackware (aarch64) on the Pinebook Pro

[wowbaggerHU]

Hi Folks,

After purchasing a Pinebook Pro recently I was faced with the fact that there was no out-of-the-box Slackware (or derivative of thereof) installer available.
After spending some time interacting with forum user mara/sndwvs at LinuxQuestions ( https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions...?p=6093972 )
I managed to cross-compile (on x86_64) an installer file system image with his script that's available at https://gitlab.com/sndwvs/slackware_arm_build_kit

Unfortunately the installer image doesn't seem to work: it doesn't boot on Pinebook Pro for some reason.
What I see is that when the micro SD card is inserted, and the system powered on, the screen stays blank, and seemingly nothing happens.
How could I debug this boot-related problem? Do I need the serial cable to do that, or can it be debugged some other way too?

Thanks in advance!

Best Regards,
János

[zedr0k]

Hi Janos, any news?
Did you succeed and made your image booting?
I'm not that experienced in debugging such systems. But I'm curious if slack is possible.
Best regards
zedr0k

[wowbaggerHU]

Hi Janos, any news?
Did you succeed and made your image booting?
I'm not that experienced in debugging such systems. But I'm curious if slack is possible.
Best regards
zedr0k

No, unfortunately. I haven't been able to make it boot with the slarm64 installer images.

[wowbaggerHU]

No, unfortunately. I haven't been able to make it boot with the slarm64 installer images.

Another update: The installer images look okay, but the different kernels are stuck during startup.
For more information please see: https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions...ost6099060

[wowbaggerHU]

Hi Janos, any news?
Did you succeed and made your image booting?
I'm not that experienced in debugging such systems. But I'm curious if slack is possible.
Best regards
zedr0k

We finally managed to create a working bootable image of the slarm64 installer. For details please see:
https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions...ost6099406

[zedr0k]

Hi Janos,
great news. I tried the image and it works fine.
Thank you. Good to have slack on the pinebook pro

[tophneal]

Hi Janos, any news?
Did you succeed and made your image booting?
I'm not that experienced in debugging such systems. But I'm curious if slack is possible.
Best regards
zedr0k

We finally managed to create a working bootable image of the slarm64 installer. For details please see:
https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions...ost6099406

Awesome stuff! You should add this to the PBP Software Releases wiki page.

[wdt]

Yes, it is very nice, speedy, I started with slackware a long time ago
It is an IMMENSE amount of work to get X running, and imperfectly
Maybe a template? Thanks for your work