Below is the recipe of how I hacked to boot into a GNU Guix root on a Pinebook Pro, using the default kernel provided with the Debian image.
The new Pinebook Pro is a very lovable machine. For only $200 excluding shipping (and possibly taxes, I paid $68) the keyboard feels different but comparable to a flat Dell XPS 13 9350. The screen is beautiful and the machine is remarkably silent. So much that at times you can hear the display almost like in the old days.
I have been waiting for an affordable ARM with more than 2GiB of memory to help out with the ARM port of GNU Mes. Although the Qemu-service in Guix works neat, having the actual hardware helps a lot.
The default installation uses a GNOME-2 (Mate) desktop but that's
easily replaced by Exwm which works
nicely. Disabling the touchpad is straightforward using xinput.
It does feel slow---even although it has 6 cores---so it may take some time before we can really leave proprietary MEs and BIOSes behind. Also, the Hurd does not run on ARM/AArch64 yet. Bogomips are at 48 per CPU compared to 4400 for an i7, but it is certainly not two orders slower. Is it? Compiling seems to be about 4x slower than the i7.
I got some inspiration from the lovely post on Guix on an ARM board by Julien Lepiller and had lots of help from Danny Milosavljevic during the Guix Days at Fosdem20.
We start by infecting our beautiful Debian system with the Guix package manager
sudo apt install gpg
wget https://sv.gnu.org/people/viewgpg.php?user_id=15145 -qO - | gpg --import -
wget https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/plain/etc/guix-install.sh
sudo bash guix-install.shInstalling das U-Boot, or building a patched Linux-Libre kernel has not been succesfully attempted yet[0]. We start by piggybacking off the official image. Download it, and write it to the MMC (please verify the correctness of /dev/mmc* for your device)
wget https://github.com/mrfixit2001/debian_desktop/releases/download/191123/pinebookpro-debian-desktop-mrfixit-191123.img.xz
xz -dc pinebookpro-debian-desktop-mrfixit-191123.img.xz > debian.img
sudo dd if=debian.img of=/dev/mmcblk0 status=progressthis should output something like
5376238080 bytes (5.4 GB, 5.0 GiB) copied, 1055 s, 5.1 MB/s
10502144+0 records in
10502144+0 records out
5377097728 bytes (5.4 GB, 5.0 GiB) copied, 1066.63 s, 5.0 MB/sIf you haven't done so before then it's probably a good idea to try booting from that card, to see if it works for you.
Then, resize root and wipe it
sudo parted -- /dev/mmcblk0 resizepart 2 -1
sudo mkfs.ext4 -F /dev/mmcblk0p2We need to upgrade Guix to a more recent version. At the time of
writing we need to avoid bug #39352
and pull to c7dd15596ffd09ab40629c89e7014e51a4d7e95e
guix pull --commit=c7dd15596ffd09ab40629c89e7014e51a4d7e95e
After running that, it told me to do
export PATH="/home/janneke/.config/guix/current/bin${PATH:+:}$PATH"
hash guix
which I did, that may be a bit different for you.
I changed bare-bones.tmpl into arm-baar0.scm
;; This is an operating system configuration template
;; for a "bare bones" pinebook pro, with no X11 display server.
(use-modules (gnu) (gnu bootloader u-boot))
(use-service-modules networking ssh)
(use-package-modules admin bootloaders linux ssh)
(operating-system
(host-name "armzalig")
(timezone "Europe/Amsterdam")
(locale "en_US.utf8")
;; Your preference here
(keyboard-layout (keyboard-layout "us" "dvorak"
#:options '("ctrl:nocaps" "compose:menu")))
(bootloader (bootloader-configuration
(target "/dev/mmcblk0")
;; `u-boot-bootloader' is a dummy: no embedding will happen
(bootloader u-boot-bootloader)))
(kernel linux-libre-4.4)
(kernel-arguments '("ethaddr=${ethaddr}" "eth1addr=${eth1addr}" "serial=${serial#}"
"video=HDMI-A-1:1920x1080@60" "video=eDP-1:1920x1080@60"
"vga=current"))
(initrd-modules '())
(file-systems (cons* (file-system (device "/dev/mmcblk0p2")
(mount-point "/")
(type "ext4"))
%base-file-systems))
(users (cons* (user-account (name "guix")
(group "users")
(supplementary-groups '("wheel")))
%base-user-accounts))
(packages (cons* openssh wpa-supplicant-minimal %base-packages))
(services (cons* (service dhcp-client-service-type)
(service openssh-service-type
(openssh-configuration
(port-number 2222)))
%base-services)))We are using the dummy `u-boot-bootloader'; this will not attempt to install any bootloader. For now that's "great", we will just be using the one on the card that already works.
Save it as arm-baar0.scm, choose your hostname, timezone, locale and
keyboard layout. After mounting root and boot
sudo mount /dev/mmcblk0p2 /mnt
sudo mkdir /mnt/boot
sudo mount /dev/mmcblk0p1 /mnt/bootuse it to install Guix
sudo -E $(type -p guix) system init arm-baar0.scm /mntAnd now for the ugly hack. The mainline linux-libre-5.4 kernel does not build for me and the linux-libre-4.4 kernel build but does not boot[^1]. So, we mangle the U-Boot configuration file to use the stock kernel
sudo sed -i 's,KERNEL.*,KERNEL /Image,' /mnt/boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf
sudo sed -i 's,FDTDIR.*,FDT /rk3399-pinebookpro.dtb,' /mnt/boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf
sudo mkdir -p /mnt/boot/gnu/store/$(grep -o [^/]*-raw-initrd /mnt/boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf)
sudo cp /mnt/gnu/store/$(grep -o [^/]*-raw-initrd/initrd.cpio.gz /mnt/boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf) \
/mnt/boot/gnu/store/$(grep -o [^/]*-raw-initrd /mnt/boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf)which results in
# This file was generated from your Guix configuration. Any changes
# will be lost upon reconfiguration.
UI menu.c32
MENU TITLE GNU Guix Boot Options
PROMPT 1
TIMEOUT 50
LABEL GNU with Linux-Libre-Pinebook-Pro 5.5.0
MENU LABEL GNU with Linux-Libre-Pinebook-Pro 5.5.0
KERNEL /Image
FDT /rk3399-pinebookpro.dtb
INITRD /gnu/store/nz9agd7dhzmm81vqhymi4h36hvcb7qri-raw-initrd/initrd.cpio.gz
APPEND --root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 --system=/gnu/store/8s856m8cbgiw9yhmy20sqsvxza0c2w44-system --load=/gnu/store/8s856m8cbgiw9yhmy20sqsvxza0c2w44-system/boot ethaddr=${ethaddr} eth1addr=${eth1addr} serial=${serial#} video=HDMI-A-1:1920x1080@60 video=eDP-1:1920x1080@60 vga=currentAnd that's it, good luck!
sudo umount /mnt/boot
sudo umount /mnt
sudo rebootAnd there you have it
no wifi or X yet; but you gotta love This is the GNU system. Welcome.
I have been looking into building and deblobbing the Manjaro kernel, which seems to be where development of mainlining the Pinebook Pro kernel has moved. While it builds, it does not boot for me yet. I'm sure, in time it will. Once I get u-boot debugging to work, either over a serial line or by running qemu, I'll update this post.
Open. Friendly. Community driven.
About GNU Guix
GNU Guix is a transactional package manager and an advanced distribution of the GNU system that respects user freedom. Guix can be used on top of any system running the kernel Linux, or it can be used as a standalone operating system distribution for i686, x86_64, ARMv7, and AArch64 machines.
In addition to standard package management features, Guix supports transactional upgrades and roll-backs, unprivileged package management, per-user profiles, and garbage collection. When used as a standalone GNU/Linux distribution, Guix offers a declarative, stateless approach to operating system configuration management. Guix is highly customizable and hackable through Guile programming interfaces and extensions to the Scheme language.
About Pinebook Pro
A Powerful, Metal and Open Source ARM 64-Bit Laptop for Work, School or Fun The Pinebook Pro is meant to deliver solid day-to-day Linux or *BSD experience and to be a compelling alternative to mid-ranged Chromebooks that people convert into Linux laptops. In contrast to most mid-ranged Chromebooks however, the Pinebook Pro comes with an IPS 1080p 14″ LCD panel, a premium magnesium alloy shell, 64/128GB of eMMC storage, a 10,000 mAh capacity battery and the modularity / hackability that only an open source project can deliver – such as the unpopulated PCIe m.2 NVMe slot (an optional feature which requires an optional adapter). The USB-C port on the Pinebook Pro, apart from being able to transmit data and charge the unit, is also capable of digital video output up-to 4K at 60hz.
[0]: A difficulty here is that the Pinebook Pro currently does not want to show a U-Boot prompt, command line or debug output. If you consider to buy one, you may want to also order a serial cable that might help debugging the boot sequence.