Pinebook Pro Installing Void Linux ARM

Warning: This guide is a Work In Progress; no warranty is implied.

This installation method is not officially recommended (or discouraged) by the Void Linux project.

This guide is for experienced Linux users.

This will not be a complete guide, as it borrows heavily on Installing Arch Linux ARM On The Pinebook Pro, so read it first then come back here.

Only the steps that are different are listed here. Be careful, the numbering of the sections is not the same.

Downloading and verifying the rootfs tarball

You can go to the Void linux download page, select the "arm" tab, and choose one of the aarch64 rootfs tarballs, either glibc or musl. How to check integrity of the downloaded file is explained on the same page.

Or use the following instructions (on debian):

$ wget https://repo-default.voidlinux.org/live/current/void-aarch64-musl-ROOTFS-20221001.tar.xz
$ wget https://repo-default.voidlinux.org/live/current/sha256sum.{txt,sig}
$ wget https://github.com/void-linux/void-packages/raw/master/srcpkgs/void-release-keys/files/void-release-20221001.pub
$ signify-openbsd -V -p void-release-20221001.pub -x sha256sum.sig -m sha256sum.txt
Signature Verified
$ sha256sum -c --ignore-missing sha256sum.txt
void-aarch64-musl-ROOTFS-20221001.tar.xz: OK

Extracting and configuring the root filesystem

Extracting the root filesystem

# tar -xpf void-aarch64-musl-ROOTFS-20221001.tar.xz -C /mnt

Configuring a login agent on the serial console

# cp -R /mnt/etc/sv/agetty-ttyS0 /mnt/etc/sv/agetty-ttyS2
# ln -sf /etc/sv/agetty-ttyS2 /mnt/etc/runit/runsvdir/default

Kernel

The Void linux rootfs tarball does not contain a kernel, however the pinebookpro-kernel package can be installed the Void Linux repos. Alternatively, one can (cross) build a kernel themselves.

Cross-compiling a mainline kernel suitable for the Pinebook Pro

We'll use the PostmarketOS kernel configuration and boot parameters, because they are working properly, and are sufficiently up-to-date. This is done from an x86_64 computer.

This has been tested with PMOS configuration for 6.0.2 and kernel 6.1.0-rc5+. No initramfs was needed to boot the OS.

$ git clone https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git
$ cd linux
$ wget -O .config https://gitlab.com/postmarketOS/pmaports/-/blob/master/device/community/linux-postmarketos-rockchip/config-postmarketos-rockchip.aarch64
$ make ARCH=arm64 CROSS_COMPILE=aarch64-linux-gnu- -j1 oldconfig
$ make ARCH=arm64 CROSS_COMPILE=aarch64-linux-gnu- -j$(grep -c '^processor' /proc/cpuinfo)

Installing the newly built kernel, modules & DTB files

$ KVER="$(make ARCH=arm64 CROSS_COMPILE=aarch64-linux-gnu- -j1 kernelrelease)"
$ sudo make ARCH=arm64 CROSS_COMPILE=aarch64-linux-gnu- -j1 modules_install dtbs_install \
		INSTALL_MOD_STRIP=1 \
		INSTALL_MOD_PATH=/mnt \
		INSTALL_DTBS_PATH=/mnt/boot/dtbs
$ sudo cp arch/arm64/boot/Image "/mnt/boot/Image-${KVER}"

Configuring tow-boot with extlinux.conf

The following borrows from PostmarketOS u-boot configuration for the kernel command-line parameters.

We force the serial console to 115200 bauds (from the default 1.5M bauds), so that it is the same as tow-boot's.

# mkdir -p /mnt/boot/extlinux
# cat <<EOF > /mnt/boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf
default l0
menu title Pinebook Pro Boot Menu
prompt 0
timeout 50

label l0
menu label Boot Kernel on SD
linux /Image-${KVER}
fdt /dtbs/rockchip/rk3399-pinebook-pro.dtb
append console=tty0 console=ttyS2,115200n8 coherent_pool=1M pcie_aspm.policy=performance video=HDMI-A-1:1920x1080@60 video=eDP-1:1920x1080@60 rw rootwait root=/dev/mmcblk1p3
EOF

Finalizing

Now you can umount the partition(s) and boot the Pinebook Pro with Void Linux.