Quartz64 Installing Arch Linux ARM

This page is a work in progress. It's not a tutorial you can follow yet. Wait for the 5.16 kernel release.

Commands to be run as a normal user are prefixed with $, commands to be run as root are prefixed with #. We assume your target device is /dev/sdb, adjust accordingly.

Partitioning The Block Device

Here we assume your block device is /dev/sdb, adjust as needed.

Create a new partition table:

# parted -s /dev/sdb mklabel gpt

Create the partitions for loader and u-boot:

# parted -s /dev/sdb unit s mkpart loader 64 8MiB
# parted -s /dev/sdb unit s mkpart uboot 8MiB 16MiB

Create the partition for u-boot's environment:

# parted -s /dev/sdb unit s mkpart env 16MiB 32MiB

Create the "efi" boot partition and mark it as bootable:

# parted -s /dev/sdb unit s mkpart efi fat32 32MiB 544MiB
# parted -s /dev/sdb set 4 boot on

Create the root partition:

# parted -s /dev/sdb unit s mkpart root ext4 544MiB 100%

Creating The File Systems

Now create the file systems for boot and root:

# mkfs.vfat -n "efi" /dev/sdb4
# mkfs.ext4 -L "rootfs" /dev/sdb5

Fetching and Flashing U-Boot

For this we'll use the precompiled idblock and u-boot from pgwipeout's CI.

Go to https://gitlab.com/pgwipeout/quartz64_ci/-/pipelines and click the three dots, download the merge-job artifacts.

Unzip them:

$ unzip artifacts.zip

Flash idblock.bin and uboot.img:

# dd if=artifacts/idblock.bin of=/dev/sdb1
# dd if=artifacts/uboot.img of=/dev/sdb2

Fetching The Root File System Tarball

Fetch the root filesystem tarball and the PGP signature

$ wget -N http://os.archlinuxarm.org/os/ArchLinuxARM-aarch64-latest.tar.gz{,.sig}

Fetch the gpg keys:

$ curl 'https://keyserver.ubuntu.com/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x68b3537f39a313b3e574d06777193f152bdbe6a6' | gpg --import=-

Compare the key ID provided in the above command with the one listed here: https://archlinuxarm.org/about/package-signing (Take good note of the domain and HTTPS)

Verify the tarball's authenticity

$ gpg --verify ArchLinuxARM-aarch64-latest.tar.gz.sig

Do not skip verifying the authenticity. This is important. It also protects you from prematurely aborted transfers giving you a corrupt archive.

Installing The Root File System

Don't prefix the bsdtar command with sudo, run it from an interactive root shell as done here with sudo -i. At least the ALARM instructions claim this matters

$ sudo -i
# mount /dev/sdb5 /mnt/alarm-root
# mkdir /mnt/alarm-root/boot
# mount /dev/sdb4 /mnt/alarm-root/boot
# bsdtar -xpf ArchLinuxARM-aarch64-latest.tar.gz -C /mnt/alarm-root

Editing fstab

Find your partition UUIDs for both partitions using lsblk:

$ lsblk -o NAME,SIZE,MOUNTPOINTS,PARTUUID

In /mnt/alarm-root/etc/fstab, put the lines

PARTUUID=root-uuid-here  /       ext4    defaults        0       0
PARTUUID=boot-uuid-here  /boot   vfat    defaults        0       1

with your UUIDs in place of the placeholder.

Writing extlinux.conf

Create a /mnt/alarm-root/boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf with these contents:

default l0
menu title Quartz64 Boot Menu
prompt 0
timeout 50

label l0
menu label Boot Arch Kernel SDMMC
linux /Image
fdt /dtbs/rockchip/rk3566-quartz64-a.dtb
append initrd=/initramfs-linux.img earlycon=uart8250,mmio32,0xfe660000 console=ttyS2,1500000n8 root=/dev/mmcblk0p5 rw rootwait

For eMMC instead of SD, replace /dev/mmcblk0p5 with /dev/mmcblk1p5.

For a different type of Quartz64 device (e.g. Model B) replace the fdt line with the appropriate /boot-relative path to the device tree.

Once done, unmount the partitions:

# umount /mnt/alarm-root/boot
# umount /mnt/alarm-root