Official Debian support!

[foresto]

1. copy a DTB to the boot partition (mmcblk0p2)

[...]

Code:

$ sudo mount /dev/sdX1 /mnt/oldboot
$ sudo mount /dev/sdX2 /mnt/boot
$ sudo mkdir /mnt/boot/dtbs
$ sudo cp /mnt/oldboot/dtbs/rockchip/rk3399-rockpro64-v2.dtb /mnt/boot/dtbs/

Thanks for the tip!

Did you mean to write mmcblk0p2 in the first case and sdX2 in the second case?

Shouldn't this step be done by the debian installer, or if not, then at least documented someplace official and easy to find?

[kuleszdl]

I recommend making a script that copies the dtb file over everytime you install a new kernel. You can use one of the hooks by providing a script in

Code:

/etc/kernel/postinst.d/

for that (don't forget to make it executable).

[xmixahlx]

borrow the script from danielt's installer. it works most of the time, although if installing a kernel "less than " current you must do this manually.

[therrmann]

Thanks for all the work you put into the debian installer! I have it running nicely with 2 minor problems:

- the rockpro64 hangs if I reboot the board using "reboot". But there are no problems with "shutdown -r now". I can live with that.

- the pwm-control ist missing from sysfs, so the fan is always running at 100%. With older kernels, /sys/class/hwmon/hwmon0/pwm1 worked flawlessly to control the fan, with the current debian kernel the file is missing.

Any ideas?

[therrmann]

- the rockpro64 hangs if I reboot the board using "reboot". But there are no problems with "shutdown -r now". I can live with that.

Update: on 5 reboots, "reboot" seemed to hang each time. "shutdown -r now" worked at least 3 consecutive time. But just now, the rockpro hang with "shutdown -r now" as well. So maybe that was just coincidence.

[pinepersoon]

Did you mean to write mmcblk0p2 in the first case and sdX2 in the second case?

I performed those steps on my PC where the sd-card shows up as /dev/sdX. I edited my post to make it clearer. Thanks!

Shouldn't this step be done by the debian installer, or if not, then at least documented someplace official and easy to find?

A 'DebianOn' page on the debian wiki would be the place to document this i think: DebianOn ROCKPRO64
I seem to have gotten my IP blocked upon registering an account there so i have not yet been able to set it up. Please do so if you have the time!

---

- the rockpro64 hangs if I reboot the board using "reboot". But there are no problems with "shutdown -r now". I can live with that.

Update: on 5 reboots, "reboot" seemed to hang each time. "shutdown -r now" worked at least 3 consecutive time. But just now, the rockpro hang with "shutdown -r now" as well. So maybe that was just coincidence.

According to this post it might be related to Arm Trusted Firmware. Reboot fails for me with the installer's u-boot as well. (for me it does not work at all no matter how i invoke it). But with u-boot v2020.04 with an ATF v2.3 BL31 blob, rebooting works every time.

[wasgurd]

I could see 5.7 kernel in the testing, has somebody tried?

[bcnaz]

Will the Debian arm64 official download work on my Pinebook Pro ?

[Nikolay_Po]

Have tried pineperson's recommendations about files for booting. No boot. Console output:

U-Boot TPL 2020.07+dfsg-1 (Jul 08 2020 - 23:29:02)
Channel 0: LPDDR4, 50MHz
BW=32 Col=10 Bk=8 CS0 Row=15 CS1 Row=15 CS=2 Die BW=16 Size=2048MB
Channel 1: LPDDR4, 50MHz
BW=32 Col=10 Bk=8 CS0 Row=15 CS1 Row=15 CS=2 Die BW=16 Size=2048MB
256B stride
256B stride
lpddr4_set_rate: change freq to 400000000 mhz 0, 1
lpddr4_set_rate: change freq to 800000000 mhz 1, 0
Trying to boot from BOOTROM
Returning to boot ROM...

U-Boot SPL 2020.07+dfsg-1 (Jul 08 2020 - 23:29:02 +0000)
Trying to boot from MMC1
mmc_load_image_raw_sector: mmc block read error
Trying to boot from SPI
Trying to boot from MMC1
mmc_load_image_raw_sector: mmc block read error
Trying to boot from MMC2
mmc_load_image_raw_sector: mmc block read error
SPL: failed to boot from all boot devices
### ERROR ### Please RESET the board ###

At the end of Debian installation I got a message: "You will need to boot manually with the /vmlinuz kernel on partition /dev/mmcblk01p1 and root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 passed as a kernel argument".
So I tried root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 first. The tried root=/dev/mmcblk0p3 - no luck. Then connected UART to console output to discover it completely broken.

[foresto]

Have tried pineperson's recommendations about files for booting. No boot.

I suspect that's because pineperson left out some important details. I got it working by doing all of the following:

• Create my /boot partition on the same microsd card that contains the installer image. This becomes partition 2 on that card.
  
• Set the bootable flag on partition 2.
  
• Create the boot/dtbs/rockchip directory on partition 2.
  
• Copy boot/dtbs/rockchip/rk3399-rockpro64-v2.dtb from partition 1 (the installer partition) to the same directory on partition 2.
  
• Create the /extlinux directory on partition 2.
  
• Create an extlinux/extlinux.conf file in that directory on parition 2, with this content: (Note the root= line!)
  

Code:

menu title Debian
prompt 0
timeout 50

label l0
menu label Debian
linux /vmlinuz
append root=<your-root-device>
initrd /initrd.img
fdt /dtbs/rockchip/rk3399-rockpro64-v2.dtb

I believe the reason this works is because the installer image already contains the various u-boot components needed for boot, in the correct disk locations preceding the first partition.

Preparing a fresh sd card (or emmc module) with those required components is most likely possible, but would require more work. I hope to figure out how to do this at some point in the future, when I have more time. If I succeed, I'll describe the procedure in my debian setup thread.