04-27-2020, 07:33 PM
Hi folks,
I just tried the installer on my PBP (installing to eMMC) and would like to share my experience with you:
- no graphical display, you have to use the serial console to install the system; this also means you have to use the limited serial console installer
- to use the built-in wifi, you would need to add the required proprietary firmware during installation as it's not included in Debian by policy. Personally, I didn't want it anyways and used a USB to Gigabit LAN Adapter to install the system.
- guided partitioning seems to leave around 245 MiB before the boot partition which seems fine to me. However, unlike in Daniel Thompson's installer no nice GPT scheme is suggested.
- unfortunately, I forgot to check whether the installer supports f2fs ootb meanwhile (but that's not a pbp-specific matter)
- looks like they do NOT have a packaged version of u-boot yet - at least the installer did not offer me the option to install it.
- the installation media uses extlinux.conf instead of the crufty boot.cmd/boot.scr stuff. This was quite useful even for the installation and allowed me to easily change the serial console speed.
- the console speed of the trusted firmware image is "wrong" as it runs at 115200 baud while the rest runs at 1500000.
- I am not sure but it seems that the system did not properly reboot after installation but hangs at "reboot: Restarting system" (but maybe just due to missing bootloader).
Regarding patches, Debian *does* apply some patches to the kernel. However, I looked in their package source and spotted only this one file with non-main rk3399-related patches. It basically adds the dts file from Manjaro to enable support for the PBP:
https://salsa.debian.org/kernel-team/lin...ook-.patch
The good news is that it's likely this patch will not be needed in the near future anymore since the dts file for the pinebookpro was merged upstream two days ago and will be included in the next official mainline kernel release (version 5.7):
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/ker...h=v5.7-rc3
That's it for now. For next run, I plan to redo the installation using a GPT scheme and install the bootloader later on manually in order to finally boot up the installed system.
I just tried the installer on my PBP (installing to eMMC) and would like to share my experience with you:
- no graphical display, you have to use the serial console to install the system; this also means you have to use the limited serial console installer
- to use the built-in wifi, you would need to add the required proprietary firmware during installation as it's not included in Debian by policy. Personally, I didn't want it anyways and used a USB to Gigabit LAN Adapter to install the system.
- guided partitioning seems to leave around 245 MiB before the boot partition which seems fine to me. However, unlike in Daniel Thompson's installer no nice GPT scheme is suggested.
- unfortunately, I forgot to check whether the installer supports f2fs ootb meanwhile (but that's not a pbp-specific matter)
- looks like they do NOT have a packaged version of u-boot yet - at least the installer did not offer me the option to install it.
- the installation media uses extlinux.conf instead of the crufty boot.cmd/boot.scr stuff. This was quite useful even for the installation and allowed me to easily change the serial console speed.
- the console speed of the trusted firmware image is "wrong" as it runs at 115200 baud while the rest runs at 1500000.
- I am not sure but it seems that the system did not properly reboot after installation but hangs at "reboot: Restarting system" (but maybe just due to missing bootloader).
Regarding patches, Debian *does* apply some patches to the kernel. However, I looked in their package source and spotted only this one file with non-main rk3399-related patches. It basically adds the dts file from Manjaro to enable support for the PBP:
https://salsa.debian.org/kernel-team/lin...ook-.patch
The good news is that it's likely this patch will not be needed in the near future anymore since the dts file for the pinebookpro was merged upstream two days ago and will be included in the next official mainline kernel release (version 5.7):
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/ker...h=v5.7-rc3
That's it for now. For next run, I plan to redo the installation using a GPT scheme and install the bootloader later on manually in order to finally boot up the installed system.