How to mainline kernel on daniel thompson's debian installer?

[Der Geist der Maschine]

Hi, i installed debian with daniel thompson's debian installer.

I noticed that the kernel is from a repository, and it's 5.8. 
I want to install the lastest(5.10 in bullseye), mainline kernel.

Installing `linux-image-5.10-x-arm64` or something like that, and rebooting my system showed black screen.

How can i properly switch kernel on it?

I upgraded Daniel Thompson's Debian to 11 and 12.

Now that he does not support his 5.5 and 5.7 kernels anymore, I wanted to move to a vanilla Debian kernel by installing linux-image-arm64 (6.1.0)

Code:

apt-get install linux-image-arm64
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
The following additional packages will be installed:
  firmware-linux-free linux-image-6.1.0-9-arm64
Suggested packages:
  linux-doc-6.1 debian-kernel-handbook
  The following NEW packages will be installed:
  firmware-linux-free linux-image-6.1.0-9-arm64 linux-image-arm64
0 upgraded, 3 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 57.6 MB of archives.
After this operation, 355 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]
Get:1 http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm/main arm64 firmware-linux-free all 20200122-1
Get:2 http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm/main arm64 linux-image-6.1.0-9-arm64 arm64 6.1
56% [2 linux-image-6.1.0-9-arm64 35.2 MB/57.6 MB 61%]
Get:3 http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm/main arm64 linux-image-arm64 arm64 6.1.27-1 [1,436 B]
Fetched 57.6 MB in 4min 1s (239 kB/s)                                                   
Selecting previously unselected package firmware-linux-free.
(Reading database ... 219467 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../firmware-linux-free_20200122-1_all.deb ...
Unpacking firmware-linux-free (20200122-1) ...
Selecting previously unselected package linux-image-6.1.0-9-arm64.
Preparing to unpack .../linux-image-6.1.0-9-arm64_6.1.27-1_arm64.deb ...
Unpacking linux-image-6.1.0-9-arm64 (6.1.27-1) ...
Selecting previously unselected package linux-image-arm64.
Preparing to unpack .../linux-image-arm64_6.1.27-1_arm64.deb ...
Unpacking linux-image-arm64 (6.1.27-1) ...
Setting up linux-image-6.1.0-9-arm64 (6.1.27-1) ...
I: /vmlinuz.old is now a symlink to boot/vmlinuz-5.7.0-2-pinebookpro-arm64
I: /initrd.img.old is now a symlink to boot/initrd.img-5.7.0-2-pinebookpro-arm64
I: /vmlinuz is now a symlink to boot/vmlinuz-6.1.0-9-arm64
I: /initrd.img is now a symlink to boot/initrd.img-6.1.0-9-arm64
/etc/kernel/postinst.d/initramfs-tools:
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-6.1.0-9-arm64
/etc/kernel/postinst.d/yy-update-pinebookpro-fdt:
P: Found /usr/lib/linux-image-6.1.0-9-arm64/rockchip/rk3399-pinebook-pro.dtb
/etc/kernel/postinst.d/zz-u-boot-menu:
P: Checking for EXTLINUX directory... found.
P: Writing config for vmlinuz-6.1.0-9-arm64...
P: Writing config for vmlinuz-5.7.0-2-pinebookpro-arm64...
P: Writing config for vmlinuz-5.5.0-1-pinebookpro-arm64...
P: Updating /boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf...
Setting up linux-image-arm64 (6.1.27-1) ...
Setting up firmware-linux-free (20200122-1) ...
Processing triggers for initramfs-tools (0.142) ...
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-6.1.0-9-arm64

That installs a new device tree, initrd and vmlinux into /boot. It also hooks them up in /boot/extlinux/

Code:

root@pinebook-pro:~# dir /boot/
total 108469
drwxr-xr-x  5 root root    1024 Jun 25 18:57 .
drwxr-xr-x 18 root root    4096 Jun 25 18:56 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  209169 Feb 13  2020 config-5.5.0-1-pinebookpro-arm64
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  212744 Sep 25  2020 config-5.7.0-2-pinebookpro-arm64
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  291075 May  8 13:16 config-6.1.0-9-arm64
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root      512 Dec 31  1969 efi
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root    1024 Jun 25 19:00 extlinux
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  6387878 Aug 27  2020 initrd.img-5.5.0-1-pinebookpro-arm64
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  7976725 Jun 18 15:49 initrd.img-5.7.0-2-pinebookpro-arm64
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  9215674 Jun 25 18:56 initrd.img-6.1.0-9-arm64
drwx------  2 root root    12288 Jan 22  2020 lost+found
-rw-r--r--  1 root root    64389 Jun 25 18:56 rk3399-pinebook-pro.dtb
-rw-r--r--  1 root root    60731 Jun 25 17:04 rk3399-pinebook-pro.dtb.thompson
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  5149167 Feb 13  2020 System.map-5.5.0-1-pinebookpro-arm64
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  5248249 Sep 25  2020 System.map-5.7.0-2-pinebookpro-arm64
-rw-r--r--  1 root root      83 May  8 13:16 System.map-6.1.0-9-arm64
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root 21666304 Feb 13  2020 vmlinuz-5.5.0-1-pinebookpro-arm64
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root 22149632 Sep 25  2020 vmlinuz-5.7.0-2-pinebookpro-arm64
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 32348672 May  8 13:16 vmlinuz-6.1.0-9-arm64

Just like OP's kernel, that kernel just does not boot. The screen remains black.

I can change the default boot label to 5.7 in extlinux.conf and Debian boots successful. So, installing linux-image-arm64 did not mess around with my invisible u-boot partition and alike.

The bottom line is to find the proper initramfs configuration matching the actual hardware.

I don't have a console cable and can't learn where the boot process hangs. I though I read that Debian supports the Pinebook Pro and so I expect to get the Debian kernel running with little hassle. So, how have any of you successfully upgraded Daniel Thompson's kernel?