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?