My Debian journey on the Pinebook Pro

[schwarzwieweiss]

Here's the guide so far:

https://www.kulesz.me/post/150_devuan_pinebookpro/

However, one last big challenge remains: I am unable to enter the disk encryption password on the console (not even blindly) but have to use the serial console for that. It seems like the screen gets enabled in init instead of initramfs.

Any ideas how this can be fixed? Do you have the same issue @as400 ?

Thanks for the guide.

Try adding console=tty0 to your APPEND line in extlinux.conf

In my experience, it works like this for the prompt to decrypt /:

• no "console=" -> password prompt on serial console
  
• "console=tty0" -> password prompt on display
  
• "console=tty0 console=ttyS2,1500000" -> password prompt on serial console
  
• "console=ttyS2,1500000 console=tty0" -> password prompt on display
  

So it seems that the last "console=" specifies where the password prompt goes and without any such parameter, the prompt goes to the serial console.

[kuleszdl]

@schwarzwieweiss Thank you, this helped partially. I was able to enter the password "blindly" on the device's keyboard, however, the display did not turn on until I entered it.

I will try analyzing the dependencies and adding more modules to initramfs. I suspect that some modules that are automatically loaded as dependencies are missing in initramfs, and these dependencies can't be resolved automatically there since the modules are missing init the initrd.img.

[schwarzwieweiss]

@schwarzwieweiss Thank you, this helped partially. I was able to enter the password "blindly" on the device's keyboard, however, the display did not turn on until I entered it.

I will try analyzing the dependencies and adding more modules to initramfs. I suspect that some modules that are automatically loaded as dependencies are missing in initramfs, and these dependencies can't be resolved automatically there since the modules are missing init the initrd.img.

Strange. I get a visible prompt with kernel 5.10.4, i.e. the display turns on before I have to enter the password.

I have MODULES=most in /etc/initramfs-tools/initramfs.conf and no modules specified in /etc/initramfs-tools/modules. The modules as given by as400 are included in the initramfs (or baked in in the case of drm and drm_kms_helper). I also just removed dptx.bin from the initramfs, just to make sure that this does not influence the behaviour: display turns on and shows the password prompt for decrypting /.

Don't really know what other information could help you, let me know if you want a kernel config or a listing of initramfs content or any other information.

[kuleszdl]

@schwarzwieweiss I have modules=most in the initramfs.conf as well and the listed modules in /etc/initramfs-tools/modules.

How did you get the modules listed by as400 into your initramfs? Did this happen automatically just with the "modules=most" parameter although you did not specify them anywhere else, not even in /etc/modules?

Btw: I am also running without dptx.bin at all.

[schwarzwieweiss]

@schwarzwieweiss I have modules=most in the initramfs.conf as well and the listed modules in /etc/initramfs-tools/modules.

How did you get the modules listed by as400 into your initramfs? Did this happen automatically just with the "modules=most" parameter although you did not specify them anywhere else, not even in /etc/modules?

Btw: I am also running without dptx.bin at all.

The modules are automatically included. Neither /etc/initramfs-tools/modules nor /etc/modules list any modules.

[kuleszdl]

Okay, interesting. But did you load the modules manually once before running update-initramfs or did everything happen automagically?

[schwarzwieweiss]

Okay, interesting. But did you load the modules manually once before running update-initramfs or did everything happen automagically?

Everything happened automatically. I did not load any modules manually, the modules were included right after installation of the kernel package and the automatic post-installation run of update-initramfs (this is true for all kernel packages that I have installed on the Pinebook Pro, be they official Debian packages or locally built).

[as400]

@schwarzwieweiss has a good point. Completely forgot about it.

Try this: "console=ttyS2,1500000 console=tty1"

Last console parameter always becomes the DEFAULT console for the Linux kernel.

[kuleszdl]

@as400 @schwarzwieweiss Thank you both, I tried setting the ttyS2 console in the APPEND line. While this gets me the boot messages on the serial console, I can't enter the encryption password there but am forced to do so using the local keyboard.

Regarding the modules I still haven't found something that works for me. However, I assume you guys test on Debian and I am running Devuan, maybe this makes a difference how loading modules in initramfs is handled?

[as400]

@as400 @schwarzwieweiss Thank you both, I tried setting the ttyS2 console in the APPEND line. While this gets me the boot messages on the serial console, I can't enter the encryption password there but am forced to do so using the local keyboard.

Regarding the modules I still haven't found something that works for me. However, I assume you guys test on Debian and I am running Devuan, maybe this makes a difference how loading modules in initramfs is handled?

You need "console=ttyS2,1500000 console=tty1" in the append line if you want to have both consoles available. This way you will have default console on screen (as tty1 is mentioned as second parameter which becomes default for Linux). But for the screen to work, modules have to be loaded.

I am testing on Debian. If you have Devuan then you have sysvinit instead of systemd. It is different in most imaginable ways