testament (NanoPi R2C)

The dependencies of u-boot weren't all available on arm64 (powerpc cross-compiler) so I had to manually install the other dependencies. Use the rules-target (-T) option to only build arch specific packages, and -d to ignore build deps.

Modify debian/targets.mk to add a new target. I copied a similar rk3328 target, renamed it, and modified it to use the r2s device tree. It looks like:

u-boot-rockchip_platforms += nanopi-r2s-rk3328
nanopi-r2s-rk3328_assigns := BL31=/usr/lib/arm-trusted-firmware/rk3328/bl31.elf
nanopi-r2s-rk3328_targets := arch/arm/dts/rk3328-nanopi-r2s.dtb idbloader.img \
  spl/u-boot-spl.bin tpl/u-boot-tpl.bin u-boot-nodtb.bin u-boot.bin \
  u-boot.img u-boot.itb uboot.elf

Build and install:

apt-get source u-boot
cd u-boot<TAB>
export $(dpkg-architecture)
dpkg-buildpackage -T binary-arch -d
dpkg -i ../u-boot-rockchip*.deb

Save the u-boot-rockchip and maybe u-boot-tools packages for later to install on the target machine. I just put them on a FAT usb stick, but you can probably scp from within the chroot.

Mostly follow the wiki guide: https://wiki.debian.org/DebianInstaller/Build

Basic rundown:

• Clone the repo, checkout all the sub-repos
• Prep the build (which release/udebs are you using)
• Add the new targets for nanopi-r2s-rk3328
• Build the u-boot and netboot targets
• Concatenate your images and write to SD card

For adding the new targets when you've changed to the installer/build directory you need to modify two files. config/arm64/u-boot.cfg and config/arm64/netboot.cfg Find the line with "rock64-rk3328" target and add a "nanopi-r2s-rk3328" target.

Now from the build directory you can run:

fakeroot make build_u-boot build_netboot
zcat dest/netboot/SD-card-images/firmware.nanopi-r2s-rk3328.img.gz \
    dest/netboot/SD-card-images/partition.img.gz > ./nanopi-r2s-sd-card.img
dd if=nanopi-r2s-sd-card.img of=/dev/disk/by-id/...

Write your image to the SD card device (not a partition of it):

dd if=nanopi-r2s-sd-card.img of=/dev/disk/by-id/...

I plugged the SD card in, hooked up a 3.3V FTDI adapter to the debug serial port. Be sure to attach a network cable. I forget which port works so you may have to swap around during install. Apply power to boot.

Attach to the serial console:

screen /dev/ttyUSB0 1500000

The text install goes pretty smooth until it gets to the bootloader. Go back to the install menu and open a shell.

Get those u-boot packages you made earlier onto the machine and copy them somewhere in /target. I just throw them in root's directory. This ensures you have the device tree for installing u-boot.

for i in /dev /dev/pts /proc /sys /sys/firmware/efi/efivars /run; do sudo mount --rbind $i /target$i; done
chroot /target
dpkg -i /root/u-boot...deb
exit

Install u-boot to the SD card:

TARGET=/target/usr/lib/u-boot/nanopi-r2s-rk3328 /target/usr/bin/u-boot-install-rockchip /dev/mmcblk0

This is where I'm stuck. u-boot loads and fails to boot. I try loading the kernel as below, but it always fails with "zimage: Bad magic!".

load mmc 1:1 0x12000000 /vmlinuz
load mmc 1:1 0x13000000 /initrd.img
load mmc 1:2 0x18000000 /usr/lib/u-boot/nanopi-r2s-rk3328/rk3328-nanopi-r2s.dtb
bootz 0x12000000 0x13000000 0x18000000

I tried without the initrd and device tree to prevent clobbering vmlinuz, but it has no effect. I'm out of ideas. I've tried inspecting the kernel image that gets loaded into memory and it appears to match the arm64 kernel I have on the raspberry pi 4. I don't understand how my u-boot can be bad since it was capable of booting the intstaller netboot image. The last idea I have is the kernel is broken on this platform, but the installer kernel worked because it was different.

I recompleted the install process, but now I leave the install partition intact with the possibility of using it as an EFI partition. So during install I chose to partition using the largest free space, then mount the installer partition at /boot/efi.

This still requires chroot after the install to set up bootloader things. Now I go to install some slightly different things to try (chroot as before):

for i in /dev /dev/pts /proc /sys /sys/firmware/efi/efivars /run; do sudo mount --rbind $i /target$i; done
chroot /target
dpkg -i /root/u-boot...deb
apt install grub-efi-arm64 u-boot-menu syslinux-efi
update-grub
grub-install --dtb=/usr/lib/u-boot/nanopi-r2s-rk3328/rk3328-nanopi-r2s.dtb \
    --efi-directory=/boot/efi --target=arm64-efi
u-boot-update
TARGET=/target/usr/lib/u-boot/nanopi-r2s-rk3328 /target/usr/bin/u-boot-install-rockchip /dev/mmcblk0

Now we have a menu on boot, but it fails with a message from u-boot that we are lacking some compile-time feature (despite fdt commands working at the u-boot prompt):

mmc1 is current device
Scanning mmc 1:2...
Found /extlinux/extlinux.conf
Retrieving file: /extlinux/extlinux.conf
U-Boot menu
1:      Debian GNU/Linux bookworm/sid 5.15.0-3-arm64
2:      Debian GNU/Linux bookworm/sid 5.15.0-3-arm64 (rescue target)
Enter choice: 1
1:      Debian GNU/Linux bookworm/sid 5.15.0-3-arm64
Retrieving file: /initrd.img-5.15.0-3-arm64
Retrieving file: /vmlinuz-5.15.0-3-arm64
append: root=UUID=11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111 ro quiet
Moving Image from 0x2080000 to 0x2200000, end=3ee0000
   Loading Ramdisk to 3bf32000, end 3df2db38 ... OK
FDT and ATAGS support not compiled in
resetting ...

Lets try booting grub efi. Interrupt the boot loop by pressing a key before u-boot's autoboot. Load a kernel and fdt much like before, but now our kernel is the grub efi.

load mmc 1:1 ${fdt_addr_r} dtbs/rockchip/rk3328-nanopi-r2s.dtb
load mmc 1:1 ${kernel_addr_r} EFI/grub/grubaa64.efi
bootefi ${kernel_addr_r} ${fdt_addr_r}

After a DMA reset timeout we have gotten to a grub prompt. Seems like update-grub was ineffective or other mistakes were made. Load the kernel anyway.

Point grub's root to our /boot partition. Tell linux that root is partition 3.

root=(hd0,msdos2)
linux /vmlinuz root=/dev/mmcblk0p3
initrd /initrd.img
boot

Note: If root partition isn't found, you may have skipped loading the device tree. Then the kernel puts the SD card at mmcblk1 instead.

Finally we have booted into the system.