2 hours ago
Hi!
I have decided to try out Voidlinux on my Pinetab2, replacing the factory Archlinux I had installed until now. When I finished, I found that the same Plasma 6 desktop is much more responsive, with a significantly lower memory footprint. Maybe this is due to musl vs glibc, but it also might be that I have missed some memory-intensive services. Also note that I am using my old Archlinux home folder on the new Voidlinux system, and everything works.
So, here is my experience with this migration. I hope it will help others that want to migrate or try Voidlinux, so you can avoid bricking the Pinetab2 in the process, like I did.
First, I followed the installation instructions on the Pinetab2 releases page, which wrongly state that the Voidlinux image there is suitable both for the SD card and for the eMMC. The SD card worked, but flashing the eMMC bricked the device, so I had to revive it using the UART debugger. Do not do that!
The resources I needed are as follows:
If you follow my steps, and skip step 2, you won't need this, but it was handy for me:
Below are the steps I took. If you follow this, SKIP STEP 2!
0. On the Pinetab2 I had the danctnix preinstalled factory image, which I used productively since I first received the device. At this step, I backed up my files using dd, and migrated my LVM home onto a separate HDD via USB.
1. I flashed Voidlinux as instructed in the Pinetab Software Releases page onto an SD card, and it booted just fine. I did not require the UART device.
2. DO NOT DO THIS STEP! It is here for informative purposes only: I flashed the same Voidlinux SD card image onto eMMC, as instructed by the Wiki page, which bricked the pinetab. So, again, DO NOT DO THIS.
- I recovered with the UART (https://pine64.org/documentation/PineTab...s_and_FAQ/ - Recovery from non-booting device) and installed a fresh danctnix Archlinux factory image.
- Note to maintainers: please remove the faulty instruction from the Wiki page, or, alternatively, clarify how to flash Voidlinux to the eMMC.
3. After the blunder above, I rebooted into the Voidlinux SD card install, and I left the eMMC mmcblk0p1 unchanged (the boot partition, with danctnix u-boot and the kernel), but recreated and formatted the root partition, mmcblk0p2, with an empty ext4 filesystem.
4. From the SD card I followed the instructions on chroot install from Voidlinux handbook (https://docs.voidlinux.org/installation/...hroot.html), with the following notes:
- mounted /dev/mmcblk0p2 as /mnt, next /dev/mmcblk0p1 as /mnt/boot. There is no need for an EFI partition.
- I used `ARCH=aarch64-musl` and the repo URL `REPO=https://repo-default.voidlinux.org/current/aarch64/`
- after copying the xbps keys and running the chroot install, remember to skip the rootfs tarball method, but continue with generating fstab and setting a root password
- also skip stuff related to GRUB and EFI
- as a side note, the section about Pinebook Pro does not apply at all to Pinetab2
5. I jumped to the Voidlinux-pinetab2 readme on github, and installed all the packages mentioned there. I did not have the files downloaded on SD card, so had to configure the network at this step, but one can prepare the files beforehand, after flashing the Voidlinux SD card.
- the imageramfs step did not work - out of disk space on boot partition, but the system boots and works fine without it
- the u-boot boot.scr needed to be regenerated. The xbps-install output provides necessary instructions on-screen
6. Unmounted /mnt/boot and /mnt, sync and next poweroff, remove SD card, power on from button, and Voidlinux booted from eMMC successfully into the text console.
7. As root, started following the Voidlinux handbook guide on how to configure the system (lvm, sddm, wayland, xdg portals, cron etc). Finally, I configured my non-root user, after installing and testing SDDM and KDE, I moved back the LVM home volume from the external HDD, and all worked out well. (Note that I still had the dd backup of the LVM volume, just in case)
At this stage I still have Voidlinux-related stuff to fix, but the base system and KDE/Plasma works.
I have decided to try out Voidlinux on my Pinetab2, replacing the factory Archlinux I had installed until now. When I finished, I found that the same Plasma 6 desktop is much more responsive, with a significantly lower memory footprint. Maybe this is due to musl vs glibc, but it also might be that I have missed some memory-intensive services. Also note that I am using my old Archlinux home folder on the new Voidlinux system, and everything works.
So, here is my experience with this migration. I hope it will help others that want to migrate or try Voidlinux, so you can avoid bricking the Pinetab2 in the process, like I did.
First, I followed the installation instructions on the Pinetab2 releases page, which wrongly state that the Voidlinux image there is suitable both for the SD card and for the eMMC. The SD card worked, but flashing the eMMC bricked the device, so I had to revive it using the UART debugger. Do not do that!
The resources I needed are as follows:
- Pinetab2 Software Installation instructions: https://pine64.org/documentation/PineTab...tructions/
- Pinetab2 Software Releases: https://pine64.org/documentation/PineTab.../Releases/
- Voidlinux-pinetab2 readme: https://github.com/sini6a/voidlinux-pinetab2
- Voidlinux handbook: https://docs.voidlinux.org/about/index.html
If you follow my steps, and skip step 2, you won't need this, but it was handy for me:
- Pinetab2 Tutorials and FAQ: https://pine64.org/documentation/PineTab...s_and_FAQ/ (mistakes)
Below are the steps I took. If you follow this, SKIP STEP 2!
0. On the Pinetab2 I had the danctnix preinstalled factory image, which I used productively since I first received the device. At this step, I backed up my files using dd, and migrated my LVM home onto a separate HDD via USB.
1. I flashed Voidlinux as instructed in the Pinetab Software Releases page onto an SD card, and it booted just fine. I did not require the UART device.
2. DO NOT DO THIS STEP! It is here for informative purposes only: I flashed the same Voidlinux SD card image onto eMMC, as instructed by the Wiki page, which bricked the pinetab. So, again, DO NOT DO THIS.
- I recovered with the UART (https://pine64.org/documentation/PineTab...s_and_FAQ/ - Recovery from non-booting device) and installed a fresh danctnix Archlinux factory image.
- Note to maintainers: please remove the faulty instruction from the Wiki page, or, alternatively, clarify how to flash Voidlinux to the eMMC.
3. After the blunder above, I rebooted into the Voidlinux SD card install, and I left the eMMC mmcblk0p1 unchanged (the boot partition, with danctnix u-boot and the kernel), but recreated and formatted the root partition, mmcblk0p2, with an empty ext4 filesystem.
4. From the SD card I followed the instructions on chroot install from Voidlinux handbook (https://docs.voidlinux.org/installation/...hroot.html), with the following notes:
- mounted /dev/mmcblk0p2 as /mnt, next /dev/mmcblk0p1 as /mnt/boot. There is no need for an EFI partition.
- I used `ARCH=aarch64-musl` and the repo URL `REPO=https://repo-default.voidlinux.org/current/aarch64/`
- after copying the xbps keys and running the chroot install, remember to skip the rootfs tarball method, but continue with generating fstab and setting a root password
- also skip stuff related to GRUB and EFI
- as a side note, the section about Pinebook Pro does not apply at all to Pinetab2
5. I jumped to the Voidlinux-pinetab2 readme on github, and installed all the packages mentioned there. I did not have the files downloaded on SD card, so had to configure the network at this step, but one can prepare the files beforehand, after flashing the Voidlinux SD card.
- the imageramfs step did not work - out of disk space on boot partition, but the system boots and works fine without it
- the u-boot boot.scr needed to be regenerated. The xbps-install output provides necessary instructions on-screen
6. Unmounted /mnt/boot and /mnt, sync and next poweroff, remove SD card, power on from button, and Voidlinux booted from eMMC successfully into the text console.
7. As root, started following the Voidlinux handbook guide on how to configure the system (lvm, sddm, wayland, xdg portals, cron etc). Finally, I configured my non-root user, after installing and testing SDDM and KDE, I moved back the LVM home volume from the external HDD, and all worked out well. (Note that I still had the dd backup of the LVM volume, just in case)
At this stage I still have Voidlinux-related stuff to fix, but the base system and KDE/Plasma works.