The title says it, this is all about installing ArchLinuxARM on Le Potato, a Single Board Computer by Libre Computer. Well… what can I say. I’ve got ArchLinux booting, but I’m not happy with the results yet. The thing is, I wanted to build my own U-Boot and create a package of it, and that’s the part still failing…
So, for what I’ve got now, I’ve downloaded an image of theirs (A Debian image), and replaced the partitions with my own. That way, I’ve got their U-boot build, booting the kernel I provided. It boots, so that’s fine. However… I want to be able to create an U-Boot build of my own, and be able to install it as a package. No luck with that.
First, I guess, I’ll note down the steps to create a bootable TF (aka micro SD) card for the thing. I have the bootloader fail using a 2 GB TF card, but with two different 8 GB cards these instructions create a bootable card.
Requirements: wget, uboot-tools
Create a file boot.txt with the following contant:
setenv fdtfile amlogic/meson-gxl-s905x-libretech-cc.dtb
setenv distro_bootpart 2
setenv devtype mmc
test -n "${distro_bootpart}" || setenv distro_bootpart 1
part uuid ${devtype} ${devnum}:${distro_bootpart} uuid
setenv bootargs "console=ttyAML0,115200n8 root=PARTUUID=${uuid} rw rootwait earlycon"
if load ${devtype} ${devnum}:${distro_bootpart} ${kernel_addr_r} /boot/Image; then
if load ${devtype} ${devnum}:${distro_bootpart} ${fdt_addr_r} /boot/dtbs/${fdtfile}; then
if load ${devtype} ${devnum}:${distro_bootpart} ${ramdisk_addr_r} /boot/initramfs-linux.img; then
booti ${kernel_addr_r} ${ramdisk_addr_r}:${filesize} ${fdt_addr_r};
else
booti ${kernel_addr_r} - ${fdt_addr_r};
fi;
fi;
fi
mkimage -A arm -O linux -T script -C none -n "U-Boot boot script" -d boot.txt boot.scr wget http://share.loverpi.com/board/libre-computer-project/libre-computer-board-aml-s905x-cc/image/debian/libre-computer-aml-s905x-cc-debian-stretch-headless-4.19.55%2B-2019-06-24.zip unzip libre-computer-aml-s905x-cc-debian-stretch-headless-4.19.55%2B-2019-06-24.zip wget http://os.archlinuxarm.org/os/ArchLinuxARM-aarch64-latest.tar.gz su dd if=libre-computer-aml-s905x-cc-debian-stretch-headless-4.19.55+-2019-06-24.img of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=1M count=2 fdisk /dev/mmcblk0
Type “o” to create a new MSDOS partition table
Type “n” to create a new partiton
Type “p” for primary
Type “1” for number 1
Press “Enter” for the default start
Type “+100M” for a 100 MiB partition size
— If you are prompted to delete a signature, say yes
Type “t” to change the type
Type “C” to set the type to FAT32
Type “n” to create a new parition
Press “Enter” a couple of times to accept the defaults
— If you are prompted to delete a signature, say yes
Type “w” to write the changes
mkfs.fat /dev/mmcblk0p1 mkfs.ext4 -O ^metadata_csum,^64bit /dev/mmcblk0p2 mkdir /tmp/boot mkdir /tmp/root mount /dev/mmcblk0p1 /tmp/boot mount /dev/mmcblk0p2 /tmp/root bsdtar -xpf ArchLinuxARM-aarch64-latest.tar.gz -C /tmp/root cp boot.* /tmp/boot umount /tmp/root umount /tmp/boot sync exit
Connect a USB-TTL-UART to the TTL pins (next to the UART connector) and open it using for example PuTTY at 115200 bps
Apply power to the board using the micro USB connector.
The board should boot into ArchLinuxARM.
Now… although this works… I still wish to be able to build my own u-boot.
Since this board is Amlogic based, I’d figure I’d start at an Amlogic board already supported, the Odroid C2.
I have not succeeded in this. I will write about my attempts another time.