PinePhone Pro/Create a multi-distribution image using rk2aw

Rk2Aw BootLoader & Multi-Distro on SD Card for PinePhonePro

References: https://xff.cz/kernels/rk2aw/rk2aw-rk3399-pinephone-pro/INSTALL and https://xnux.eu/rk2aw/

Requirements: SSH connection from linux machine to PinePhonePro, internet connection.

Note: Preloader and userspace utility to flash it are non-free.

Thanks: Megi at https://xnux.eu/log/

Flash Rk2Aw BootLoader to SPI

Connect PinePhonePro to linux machine

ssh <user>@<phoneip> # start ssh connection

cd ~/Downloads # enter to directory

curl -O https://xff.cz/kernels/bootloaders/ppp.tar.gz # download installer

tar -xvzf ppp.tar.gz -C ~/Downloads # extract

# scp -r ~/Downloads/ppp <user>@<phoneip>:~/Downloads # copy to phone, non needed

sudo ./spinor-flash-initial-setup.sh # flash SPI

Flash Multi-Distro SD Card

Get distro compressed images and decompress them. (i.e. Manjaro.phosh.beta34, Mobian.6.1, ArchLinux)
Mount distro images both partitions "/boot", "/root" for each distro

lsblk # show /loop, /sd references

blkid show UUID for the partition

 ├─loop0p1	/media/xxx/BOOT_MNJRO
 └─loop0p2	/media/xxx/ROOT_MNJRO
 ├─loop1p1	/media/xxx/boot
 └─loop1p2	/media/xxx/rootfs
 ├─loop2p1 /media/xxx/52CA-6165  
 └─loop2p2	/media/xxx/3d99072c-9fd6-4316-8526-9192e192c441
 └─sdb	disk  (after each dd command you'll see the partition id name to adjust into scripts.)

sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb count=945728 bs=32768 status=progress # quick erase sd card. i.e. # 32GB SDcard (30989615104bytes/32768dim=945728volte)

or sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb count=1 bs=32768 status=progress # slow erase sd card. i.e. # 32GB SDcard (30989615104bytes/32768dim=1volta)

Partition sd card (min 6432GB)

sudo sfdisk /dev/sdb/ <<EOF
label: gpt
first-lba: 64
table-length: 8
start=64, size=32704, type=D7B1F817-AA75-2F4F-830D-84818A145370, name="loader", attrs=RequiredPartition
size=10G, name="ALARM", attrs="RequiredPartition,LegacyBIOSBootable"
size=10G, name="MANJARO", attrs="RequiredPartition,LegacyBIOSBootable"
size=+, name="MOBIAN", attrs="RequiredPartition,LegacyBIOSBootable"
EOF

lsblk # list partitions on sd and mounted distro images

 Device        Start      End        Sectors    Size	 Type
 /dev/sdb1     64         32767      32704      16M     unknown
 /dev/sdb2     32768      16809983   16777216   8G      Linux filesystem
 /dev/sdb3     16809984   33587199   16777216   8G      Linux filesystem
 /dev/sdb4     33587200   60524543   26937344   12.8G   Linux filesystem

Copy files for Arch Linux ARM

sudo su # login with your psw

dd if=/dev/loop2p2 of=/dev/sdb2 bs=1M status=progress conv=fsync # copy rootfs to sd part2

mount /dev/sdb2 /media/xxx/3d99072c-9fd6-4316-8526-9192e192c441

scp -r /media/xxx/52CA-6165/* /media/xxx/3d99072c-9fd6-4316-8526-9192e192c4411/boot # copy bootfs to to part2/boot

mv /media/xxx/3d99072c-9fd6-4316-8526-9192e192c4411/boot/boot.scr /media/xxx/3d99072c-9fd6-4316-8526-9192e192c4411/boot/boot.scrORIG # hide auto-menu item

nano /media/xxx/3d99072c-9fd6-4316-8526-9192e192c4411/etc/fstab # add PARTLABEL=ALARM and delete UUID=xxx from second line, delete /boot entry

mkdir /media/xxx/3d99072c-9fd6-4316-8526-9192e192c4411/boot/extlinux # add directory

nano /media/xxx/3d99072c-9fd6-4316-8526-9192e192c4411/boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf # add file

  #/boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf
  MENU TITLE Pinephone Pro Boot Menu
  LABEL l0
  MENU LABEL ALarm
  FDT /boot/dtbs/rockchip/rk3399-pinephone-pro.dtb
  KERNEL /boot/Image
  INITRD /boot/initramfs-linux.img
  APPEND root=PARTLABEL=ALARM console=ttyS2,115200 console=tty0 loglevel=4 rw rootwait fbcon=rotate:0 pinephone_keyboard.disable_input

Copy files for ManJaro

dd if=/dev/loop0p2 of=/dev/sdb3 bs=1M status=progress conv=fsync # copy rootfs to sd part3

mount /dev/sdb3 /media/xxx/ROOT_MNJRO1/

scp -r /media/xxx/BOOT_MNJRO/* /media/xxx/ROOT_MNJRO1/boot # copy bootfs to to part3/boot

nano /media/xxx/ROOT_MNJRO1/etc/fstab # change UUID=xxx to PARTLABEL=MANJARO, delete /boot line

mv /media/xxx/ROOT_MNJRO1/boot/boot.scr /media/xxx/ROOT_MNJRO1/boot/boot.scrORIG # hide auto-menu item

mkdir /media/xxx/ROOT_MNJRO1/boot/extlinux # add directory

nano /media/xxx/ROOT_MNJRO1/boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf # add file
  #/boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf
  MENU TITLE Pinephone Pro Boot Menu
  LABEL l0
  MENU LABEL ManJaro
  FDT /boot/dtbs/rockchip/rk3399-pinephone-pro.dtb
  KERNEL /boot/Image
  INITRD /boot/initramfs-linux.img
  APPEND root=PARTLABEL=MANJARO console=ttyS2,115200 console=tty0 loglevel=4 rw rootwait fbcon=rotate:0 pinephone_keyboard.disable_input

Copy files for MObian

dd if=/dev/loop1p2 of=/dev/sdb4 bs=1M status=progress conv=fsync # copy rootfs to sd part4

mount /dev/sdb4 /media/xxx/rootfs1/

scp -r /media/xxx/boot/* /media/xxx/rootfs1/boot # copy bootfs to to part4/boot

nano /media/xxx/rootfs1/etc/fstab # replace UUID=xxx with PARTLABEL=MOBIAN and delete UUID=xxx from second line. Delete /boot line

nano /media/xxx/rootfs1/boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf  # edit path from /bootfs to /part4/boot

  >linux /boot/vmlinuz-6.1-rockchip
  >initrd /boot/initrd.img-6.1-rockchip
  >fdtdir /boot/dtb-6.1-rockchip/
  APPEND root=PARTLABEL=MOBIAN console=ttyS2,115200 console=tty0 loglevel=4 rw rootwait fbcon=rotate:0 pinephone_keyboard.disable_input

Rk2Aw BootLoader & Multi-Distro on eMMC for PinePhonePro

Make sure you boot from the SDcard in your PPP as we are going to be building the eMMC. Note that below, arch is booted from the SDcard and the SDcard shows as /dev/mmcblk1

Flash Rk2Aw BootLoader to SPI

Same as above. Note this installs rk2aw and a bootloader to SPI NOR flash. Resulting SPI status is as follows:

# ./rk2aw-spi-flasher 
Machine: Pine64 PinePhonePro (pine64,pinephone-pro)
SPI NOR Flash:
- Total size: 16384 KiB
- Erase block size: 4 KiB
- Write size: 1
- Manufacturer: gigadevice
- Part name: gd25lq128e
- JEDEC ID: 257018

Bootable images currently present in SPI NOR flash:
Idx Header     Off 1      Size 1     Off 2      Size 2     Notes/content
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
0   0          2048       6144       0          0          (padded) 0='rk2aw'
5   131072     133120     67584      200704     124928     0='U-Boot TPL' 1='U-Boot SPL'
7   524288     526336     147456     673792     124928     0='ddrbin' 1='U-Boot SPL'

Auto-calculated layout for rk2aw dual bootloader scheme:
Area                 Offset     Size      
---------------------------------------------------
rk2aw primary        0          65536     
rk2aw backup         65536      65536     
spl fallback         131072     393216    
spl primary          524288     389120    
itb fallback         913408     2097152   
itb primary          3010560    2097152

Build multi-distro eMMC

In this example we are going to build 2 partitions on the eMMC, the first with Arch/phosh and the second with Arch/sxmo. We have already downloaded the images from Danct12 and decompressed them.

Mount the images

cd ~/Downloads # enter to directory

sudo su # login with your psw

losetup -P /dev/loop0 archlinux-pinephone-pro-phosh-20230203.img 

losetup -P /dev/loop1 archlinux-pinephone-pro-sxmo-20230203.img 

ls -l /mnt/

mkdir /mnt/phosh

mkdir /mnt/sxmo

mkdir /mnt/phosh/boot

mkdir /mnt/phosh/root

mkdir /mnt/sxmo/boot

mkdir /mnt/sxmo/root

mkdir /mnt/ephosh # e for the partition on the eMMC

mkdir /mnt/esxmo  # e for the partition on the eMMC

mount /dev/loop0p1 /mnt/phosh/boot/

mount /dev/loop0p2 /mnt/phosh/root/

mount /dev/loop1p1 /mnt/sxmo/boot/

mount /dev/loop1p2 /mnt/sxmo/root/

lsblk
NAME         MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
loop0          7:0    0     5G  0 loop 
├─loop0p1    259:0    0   122M  0 part /mnt/phosh/boot
└─loop0p2    259:1    0   4.9G  0 part /mnt/phosh/root
loop1          7:1    0   3.5G  0 loop 
├─loop1p1    259:2    0   122M  0 part /mnt/sxmo/boot
└─loop1p2    259:3    0   3.4G  0 part /mnt/sxmo/root
mmcblk2      179:0    0 115.2G  0 disk 
├─mmcblk2p1  179:1    0   122M  0 part 
└─mmcblk2p2  179:2    0 115.1G  0 part 
mmcblk2boot0 179:32   0     4M  1 disk 
mmcblk2boot1 179:64   0     4M  1 disk 
mmcblk1      179:96   0  59.6G  0 disk 
├─mmcblk1p1  179:97   0   122M  0 part /boot
└─mmcblk1p2  179:98   0  59.5G  0 part /
zram0        254:0    0   1.5G  0 disk [SWAP]

Prepare eMMC

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/mmcblk2 count=32768 bs=32768 status=progress # overwrite the front to clear any bootloaders

sfdisk /dev/mmcblk2 << EOF
label: gpt
first-lba: 64
table-length: 8
size=32G, name="PHOSH", attrs="RequiredPartition,LegacyBIOSBootable"
size=+, name="SXMO", attrs="RequiredPartition,LegacyBIOSBootable"
EOF

Checking that no-one is using this disk right now ... OK
Disk /dev/mmcblk2: 115.23 GiB, 123731968000 bytes, 241664000 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
>>> Script header accepted.
>>> Created a new GPT disklabel (GUID: 7EB4B1E0-5F49-4F30-9F1E-E9E1F305D461).
The maximal number of partitions is 8 (default is 128).
/dev/mmcblk2p1: Created a new partition 1 of type 'Linux filesystem' and of size 32 GiB.
/dev/mmcblk2p2: Created a new partition 2 of type 'Linux filesystem' and of size 83.2 GiB.
/dev/mmcblk2p3: Done.

New situation:
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 7EB4B1E0-5F49-4F30-9F1E-E9E1F305D461
Device            Start       End   Sectors  Size Type
/dev/mmcblk2p1     2048  67110911  67108864   32G Linux filesystem
/dev/mmcblk2p2 67110912 241661951 174551040 83.2G Linux filesystem
The partition table has been altered.
Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.
Syncing disks.

lsblk
 NAME         MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
 loop0          7:0    0     5G  0 loop 
 ├─loop0p1    259:0    0   122M  0 part /mnt/phosh/boot
 └─loop0p2    259:1    0   4.9G  0 part /mnt/phosh/root
 loop1          7:1    0   3.5G  0 loop 
 ├─loop1p1    259:2    0   122M  0 part /mnt/sxmo/boot
 └─loop1p2    259:3    0   3.4G  0 part /mnt/sxmo/root
 mmcblk2      179:0    0 115.2G  0 disk 
 ├─mmcblk2p1  179:1    0    32G  0 part 
 └─mmcblk2p2  179:2    0  83.2G  0 part 
 mmcblk2boot0 179:32   0     4M  1 disk 
 mmcblk2boot1 179:64   0     4M  1 disk 
 mmcblk1      179:96   0  59.6G  0 disk 
 ├─mmcblk1p1  179:97   0   122M  0 part /boot
 └─mmcblk1p2  179:98   0  59.5G  0 part /
 zram0        254:0    0   1.5G  0 disk [SWAP]

Build phosh partition

dd if=/dev/loop0p2 of=/dev/mmcblk2p1 bs=1M status=progress conv=fsync

mount /dev/mmcblk2p1 /mnt/ephosh/

scp -r /mnt/phosh/boot/* /mnt/ephosh/boot

mv /mnt/ephosh/boot/boot.scr /mnt/ephosh/boot/boot.scrORIG

nano /mnt/ephosh/etc/fstab # set PARTLABEL for / and comment /boot

cat /mnt/ephosh/etc/fstab

 # Static information about the filesystems.
 # See fstab(5) for details.
 # <file system> <dir> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
 PARTLABEL=PHOSH 	/   ext4   rw,relatime	0 1
 # UUID=52CA-6165  /boot vf rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=ascii,shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro	0 2

mkdir /mnt/ephosh/boot/extlinux

nano /mnt/ephosh/boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf

cat /mnt/ephosh/boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf

  #/boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf
  MENU TITLE Pinephone Pro Boot Menu
  LABEL l0
  MENU LABEL phosh
  FDT /boot/dtbs/rockchip/rk3399-pinephone-pro.dtb
  KERNEL /boot/Image
  INITRD /boot/initramfs-linux.img
  APPEND root=PARTLABEL=PHOSH console=ttyS2,115200 console=tty0 loglevel=4 rw rootwait fbcon=rotate:0 pinephone_keyboard.disable_input

Build sxmo partition

We have unmounted all the phosh devices, so

lsblk
NAME         MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
loop0          7:0    0     5G  0 loop 
├─loop0p1    259:0    0   122M  0 part 
└─loop0p2    259:1    0   4.9G  0 part 
loop1          7:1    0   3.5G  0 loop 
├─loop1p1    259:2    0   122M  0 part /mnt/sxmo/boot
└─loop1p2    259:3    0   3.4G  0 part /mnt/sxmo/root
mmcblk2      179:0    0 115.2G  0 disk 
├─mmcblk2p1  179:1    0    32G  0 part 
└─mmcblk2p2  179:2    0  83.2G  0 part 
mmcblk2boot0 179:32   0     4M  1 disk 
mmcblk2boot1 179:64   0     4M  1 disk 
mmcblk1      179:96   0  59.6G  0 disk 
├─mmcblk1p1  179:97   0   122M  0 part /boot
└─mmcblk1p2  179:98   0  59.5G  0 part /
zram0        254:0    0   1.5G  0 disk [SWAP]

dd if=/dev/loop1p2 of=/dev/mmcblk2p2 bs=1M status=progress conv=fsync

mount /dev/mmcblk2p2 /mnt/esxmo/

scp -r /mnt/sxmo/boot/* /mnt/esxmo/boot

mv /mnt/esxmo/boot/boot.scr /mnt/esxmo/boot/boot.scrORIG

nano /mnt/esxmo/etc/fstab # set PARTLABEL for / and comment /boot

cat /mnt/esxmo/etc/fstab

 # Static information about the filesystems.
 # See fstab(5) for details.
 # <file system> <dir> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
 PARTLABEL=SXMO /     ext4      	rw,relatime	0 1
 # UUID=841C-F9DD      	/boot     	vfat      	rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=ascii,shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro	0 2

mkdir /mnt/esxmo/boot/extlinux

nano /mnt/esxmo/boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf

cat /mnt/esxmo/boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf
 #/boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf
 MENU TITLE Pinephone Pro Boot Menu
 LABEL l0
 MENU LABEL sxmo
 FDT /boot/dtbs/rockchip/rk3399-pinephone-pro.dtb
 KERNEL /boot/Image
 INITRD /boot/initramfs-linux.img
 APPEND root=PARTLABEL=SXMO console=ttyS2,115200 console=tty0 loglevel=4 rw rootwait fbcon=rotate:0 pinephone_keyboard.disable_input

Follow-up comments

1. On first boot neither phosh nor sxmo resized their partition - sudo resize2fs sorted that.
2. Any time an update rebuilds the initramfs it is necessary to delete /boot/boot.scr again to keep the rk2aw menu clean.
3. The end result is a boot screen as follows:

Options to boot phosh or sxmo