PINE64 RockPro64, Installing

Page 1: ...e unboxing and setup videos which you may find useful Help Support Please post questions to the Slackware ARM forum Installation Lifecycle The Installation consists of a number of distinct stages Acquiring all required hardware 1 Setting up local environment to support the installation over the network 2 Downloading and verifying the Slackware assets 3 Writing the Initialisation Bootware to the Mic...

Page 2: ... debug the boot process Jumper or Dupont cable See images below This is to bridge the pins required for initial firmware deployment and or Hardware Model recovery USB to SATA adapter Many models will work but this one has been tested For a simple installation you require either storage attached to a USB interface or using the SATA PCI card see below PCIe to dual SATA 3 0 Interface Card PINE64 s own...

Page 3: ...an existing Linux distribution Preferably a full installation of Slackware x86 64 but any distribution that can provide the required Python environment and HTTP server module The Host Computer needs approximately 5GB free storage to download the required software assets You must be able to obtain root access to this Host computer This will be used to download the Slackware distribution from the In...

Page 4: ...at the eMMC module has been removed bottom right left hand side of Head phones jack See the note above for the reasons behind this Gently prize the eMMC module from the board and store it some place safe as you may wish to experiment with it in the future If you are planning on using the RockPro64 as an embedded device the eMMC may be sufficient However for a regular OS upon which you will be readin...

Page 5: ...on 1 Downloading the Slackware Linux AArch64 Distribution and Installation Assets The prefixes in the commands indicates the shell prompt it s not to be typed copied Open a shell on the Linux Host Computer Prepare a directory to hold and serve the Slackware Distribution We ll download the Slackware Linux distribution into a directory named slackware The contents of this directory will be served via...

Page 6: ...e AArch64 to download At the time of writing the only version available is current SLKVER current Set the distribution server If you are using a mirror server rather than the master Slackware ARM server set it here The format is hostname rsync module name SLKSRV ftp arm slackware com slackwarearm Download the Bootware Note the period full stop after the rsync commands this instructs rsync to downl...

Page 7: ...are included within Slackware rsync exclude source delete Prlvv SLKSRV slackwareaarch64 SLKVER The Slackware distribution is approximately 4 5GBytes in size Verify the assets Verify the digital signature of the verification tool gpg verify files scripts slacksigchk sh asc The output will be similar to this You are looking for Good signature from Slackware ARM gpg assuming signed data in scripts sla...

Page 8: ...equently the Slackware OS boot partition If you have multiple Micro SD cards available you may prefer to use separate SD cards but this document assumes the availability of a single Micro SD card Elevate yourself to root On your Host Computer obtain root The prefix indicates that you re using the root user it s not to be typed in su Note the hyphen it s required Check what block devices are present...

Page 9: ...rite the Bootware Initialisation Image to the device identified as our Micro SD card You ll then exit the root shell returning to your usual standard user environment All data on this Micro SD Card will be erased Ensure you have inserted the correct card dd if dev zero of dev sdc count 10 bs 1M Replace dev sdc with the correct block device presented above by the lsblk tool on your Host Computer xzc...

Page 10: ...rd into the RockPro64 s Micro SD slot 2 Connect the power to the RockPro64 3 Power on the RockPro64 hold down the Power button for 2 seconds it may also auto power on 4 Do NOT connect any USB peripherals yet as these tend to cause the flashing process to hang After a few seconds you should see a message appearing on the screen instructing you that the process will begin in 10 seconds time Now remov...

Page 11: ...n the previous section to determine which block device name it occupies Typically the block device will remain the same in this tutorial it s dev sdc but you should verify each time using lsblk The prefix indicates that you re using the root user it s not to be typed in Enter the directory into which the Slackware assets were downloaded previously cd home mozes slackware xzcat rk3399_generic sdimg_...

Page 12: ...r normal not root user on your Linux Host Computer we ll enter the Slackware AArch64 directory and start the HTTP web server cd slackware slackwareaarch64 python3 m http server The HTTP server will remain in the foreground you may now leave it We will return to close it post installation Installing Slackware To proceed you must have Connected the storage to the RockPro64 Connected the HDMI monitor...

Page 13: ...s the you will see the following on screen It takes several seconds to load and boot the installer and it may take several seconds more for any further output to appear on the HDMI monitor The process of obtaining an IP address via DHCP can also delay the ability to interact with the Installer Once an IP address has been obtained you will be presented with a prompt Press ENTER Set the keymap ...

Page 14: ...ate time Even if you have a battery pack for the RTC Real Time Clock the date on your system may be incorrect We will sync the date from a highly available NTP server ntpdate clock akamai com hwclock w Setup disk partitions For this installation a basic partitioning scheme will be created Partition Partition number Device name Size Purpose 1 dev sda1 4GB Swap 2 dev sda2 Rest of storage OS root par...

Page 15: ... guide is the SSD connected to the USB adapter fdisk dev sda Clear an existing partition table Press o to clear the partition table Create the Swap partition Type n for new partition Type p for primary partition type Press ENTER for the First sector Type 4G for the Last Sector size Change the partition type to Swap Type t then hex code 82 Create the partition for the root filesystem Type n for new ...

Page 16: ...m inst_sa64_rk3399_rockpro64 https docs slackware com Printed on 2022 07 05 14 37 UTC Type a to mark the root partition number 2 as bootable Type 2 to select partition 2 Type p to print to view the partition table Type w to write the partition table fdisk will now exit Load the Setup menu Setup Swap partition ...

Page 17: ...2022 07 05 14 37 UTC 17 36 Installing Slackware on the RockPro64 SlackDocs https docs slackware com Select and format the partition for the OS root file system ...

Page 18: ...2 07 04 07 53 UTC slackwarearm inst_sa64_rk3399_rockpro64 https docs slackware com slackwarearm inst_sa64_rk3399_rockpro64 https docs slackware com Printed on 2022 07 05 14 37 UTC Resize boot partition to full extent ...

Page 19: ...ize the partition to its full capacity to avoid wasting storage If you plan on manually adding partions to this later you will want to choose No here It s important that the Micro SD card is not used for heavy read writes as it ll damage it and will cause your system not to boot This option exists simply to avoid wasting space on the MicroSD card Boot Loader Configuration The Installer will configur...

Page 20: ...em is typically on a storage bus SCSI SATA ATA where the physical configuration which port the storage is connected to of the storage rarely changes This can be the case on ARM but it s generally to a lesser extent and the root file system may be connected to a hot plug bus such as USB This lends itself to the risk of device re ordering across boot cycles e g dev sda becomes dev sdb causing boot fai...

Page 21: ...ware on the RockPro64 SlackDocs https docs slackware com The IP address here is the one you determine earlier within these instructions The port should always be 8000 Pick option 5 Install from FTP HTTP server URL http 192 168 1 1 8000 Directory ...

Page 22: ...ckpro64 https docs slackware com Printed on 2022 07 05 14 37 UTC Package Series Selection You can now choose the package sets to install The recommendation is to install everything A full Slackware installation will occupy approximately 15GB If you do not plan to use the graphical window manager such as KDE you should de select it ...

Page 23: ...ckware on the RockPro64 SlackDocs https docs slackware com Pick the terse option The packages will begin installing Configure the Console Settings If you plan on using the UART Serial console you should select No here If you plan on exclusively ...

Page 24: ...can be reset to the default by editing boot extlinux extlinux conf and removing the console setting once the OS has booted Install the Boot Loader to SPI flash If this is the first time you have installed Slackware you must flash the Boot Loader The initial Boot Loader flash performed earlier in these instructions typically contains an older version of the Boot Loader where as the version packaged wit...

Page 25: ...er into the Slackware OS s boot partition At this stage if the installation has worked for you at certain points in the Slackware installer you are past the point of no return you can delete the Installer However if something has gone wrong you can reset the RockPro64 and reboot the installer without having to re deploy the Slackware Installer image from your Linux Host Computer Generally you shou...

Page 26: ...ginally shipped with This means that as soon as you upgrade the Slackware Kernel package the Installer will fail to boot The option to retain the Installer is present purely because on a number of occasions this author only realised that the installation was incorrectly performed upon completion and needed to reinstall Retaining the Installer avoids the requirement to re deploy the image to the SD...

Page 27: ...2022 07 05 14 37 UTC 27 36 Installing Slackware on the RockPro64 SlackDocs https docs slackware com ...

Page 28: ...64_rk3399_rockpro64 https docs slackware com slackwarearm inst_sa64_rk3399_rockpro64 https docs slackware com Printed on 2022 07 05 14 37 UTC Select a Console Font It s recommended for the RockPro64 and Pinebook Pro that a larger console font is configured ...

Page 29: ...5 14 37 UTC 29 36 Installing Slackware on the RockPro64 SlackDocs https docs slackware com The recommended font is ter 732b psf This is the font used within the Installer Continue Post Installation Configuration ...

Page 30: ...rockpro64 https docs slackware com slackwarearm inst_sa64_rk3399_rockpro64 https docs slackware com Printed on 2022 07 05 14 37 UTC Configure GUI Window Manager This author recommends using XFCE as it s light weight versus KDE Continue Post Installation Configuration ...

Page 31: ...re Setup Complete Generally you ll want to reboot into the OS However if you are planning on setting up RAID or need to customise the Operating System Initial RAM Disk you should select Shell The Slackware OS will be found within mnt You can use the os initrd mgr tool Video tutorial Booting the Slackware OS ...

Page 32: ...ux Host Computer you can return to the HTTP server that we started earlier on In the terminal window in which you started it you will see the access logs from the Slackware Installer downloading the packages Press CONTROL c to quit it You may now delete the slackwareaarch64 tree or perhaps keep it around to subsequently update it Post Installation Configuration There are a few post installation con...

Page 33: ...he Slackware OS up to date One of the preferred tools to keep your system up to date is slackpkg Upgrading the Kernel in Slackware x86 64 manual steps are required after upgrading the Kernel packages In Slackware ARM you simply upgrade the Kernel packages and reboot Use a graphical login manager If you prefer to use a graphical login manager you can configure the default runlevel as 4 su sed i s id...

Page 34: ...des this is handled for you This option isn t the default but you can make it so by following the instructions within etc os initrd mgr conf sample This way when you upgrade the Kernel packages in the order described above it ll automatically synchronize the modules os initrd mgr has a safety check to only proceed when the running Kernel and incoming Kernel are at the same major version and patch ...

Page 35: ...ease check out the documentation explaining how to get involved Using the Serial UART adapter This documentation discusses using the RockPro64 without the UART Serial console If you d like to use one there are two that have been tested USB Serial Device converter Prolific Technology Inc PL2303 This image below shows the PL2302 the Serial adapter listed in the Hardware table at the head of this docu...

Page 36: ...onnect the USB end of the adapter into your Linux Host Computer and use the following command This assumes that there are no other similar adapters occupying dev ttyUSB0 If so you will need to adjust the device name accordingly e g perhaps dev ttyUSB1 screen T screen 256color dev ttyUSB0 1500000 Known bugs and limitations From https docs slackware com SlackDocs Permanent link https docs slackware ...