An unofficial Debian Installer for Pinebook Pro
#26
(12-16-2019, 05:09 AM)danielt Wrote: @Solra Bizna : The hack doesn't seem that nasty when you look at how it works... however when you start to think about the consequences then it does get a bit nastier.

When the kernel boots up it reads the status registers of the online CPUs and decided what workarounds it needs to deploy for the CPUs it finds itself running on. If the A72 cores are not online during the boot then the workarounds are not deployed because they are not needed for hte A53 cores that are online. When we try to online to A72 cores the kernel notices there is a workaround missing and refuses to let them boot (and your desktop will feel slow as a result... it needs the big cores to make things smooth). To get the A72s to work we have to turn off workarounds such as HARDEN_EL2_VECTORS in the kernel. Turning off HARDERN_EL2_VECTORS makes it slightly easier to exploit security bugs in the KVM hyypervisor so it is definitely not a good thing. I'm just about OK turning it off on a laptop but things like this cannot be turned off for generic modular distro kernels so I'm still on the lookout for a proper fix.

Aha. I can definitely see how that would be a problem. This would also explain why only the most recent kernel actually, successfully, onlined the big cores—it has the workarounds disabled.


Messages In This Thread
RE: An unofficial Debian Installer for Pinebook Pro - by Solra Bizna - 12-16-2019, 06:26 PM
First boot - by JaredT66 - 05-19-2020, 09:49 AM
RE: First boot - by carletes - 05-19-2020, 01:35 PM

Possibly Related Threads…
Thread Author Replies Views Last Post
  Unable to install Debian Bullseye because of missing wifi firmware Pino64 8 7,670 06-26-2025, 09:20 PM
Last Post: reukiodo
  Boot Order in Pinebook Pro food 11 5,794 03-28-2025, 10:08 AM
Last Post: DrYak
  Upgrading Armbian from v24.2.1 gnome, breaks pinebook pro Sb2024 0 643 11-10-2024, 02:50 PM
Last Post: Sb2024
  Pinebook pro won't boot after bootloader installation jwensouls 4 2,496 08-21-2024, 04:17 AM
Last Post: KC9UDX
  Official Debian support moonwalkers 64 79,050 07-08-2024, 01:40 PM
Last Post: Humid Stylus
  [Pinebook Pro/Mobian/XFCE4] can fix touch or screen in greeter not both SynthGal 0 920 05-31-2024, 09:42 AM
Last Post: SynthGal
  Debian on Pinebook Pro u974615 7 4,897 03-31-2024, 10:11 AM
Last Post: u974615
  Pinebook Pro upgrading from the factory image yamsoup 12 7,540 02-22-2024, 04:02 PM
Last Post: tllim
  Help installing Manjaro on eMMC of Pinebook Pro pine4546464 4 4,562 12-13-2023, 07:22 PM
Last Post: trillobite
  Need Help Recovering Manjaro /boot Contents on Pinebook Pro calinb 6 5,244 12-11-2023, 03:47 AM
Last Post: calinb

Forum Jump:


Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)