This HOWTO describes a procedure for installing void linux to the NanoPi R6C.
My setup comprises:
- A laptop running ubuntu
- The R6C with debian installed to the eMMC
We will prepare a microSD card which runs void in a live environment. We start with the stock debian installer, overwrite the root filesystem with void, and then copy in the drivers from the debian environment.
We need to grab the drivers from the installed debian system. I prefer to copy them from a system which is not running, so I boot the machine from the microSD and copy the drivers from the installed eMMC system.
mkdir mnt
sudo mount /dev/mmcblk2p8 mnt
cd mnt/lib/modules
tar czvf drivers.tgz 6.1.57
And copy the tarball to the laptop.
Download the void rootfs arm aarch64 glibc tarball void-aarch64-ROOTFS-YYYYMMDD.tar.xz from https://voidlinux.org/download/#arm.
Extract it on the laptop:
mkdir rootfs
tar xf void-aarch64-ROOTFS-YYYYMMDD.tar.xz -C rootfs
Get the ip address of the laptop's nameserver (e.g. 127.0.0.53), we will need that below in order to establish a network connection from within chroot.
cat /etc/resolv.conf
Now we chroot into the void filesystem and enter the nameserver of the laptop:
sudo chroot rootfs /bin/bash
echo 'nameserver 127.0.0.53' | tee -a /etc/resolv.conf
Now proceed with the setup as documented here: https://docs.voidlinux.org/installation/guides/chroot.html
xbps-install -Su xbps
xbps-install -u
xbps-install base-system
xbps-remove base-container-full
xbps-install inetutils
vi /etc/hostname
vi /etc/rc.conf
vi /etc/default/libc-locales
xbps-reconfigure -f glibc-locales
passwd
ln -s /etc/sv/dhcpcd /etc/runit/runsvdir/default/
ln -s /etc/sv/sshd /etc/runit/runsvdir/default/
xbps-reconfigure -fa
From the laptop, copy the tarball containing the drivers into the filesystem. From within the chroot session, extract the drivers:
cd /lib
mkdir modules
cd modules
tar xf /path/to/drivers.tgz
Exit chroot:
exit
From the
FriendlyElec downloads page,
download the debian bullseye SD card image e.g.
rk3588-sd-debian-bullseye-minimal-6.1-arm64-YYYMMDD0.img
Get the offset (Start) of partition 8 (e.g. 286720):
fdisk -l rk3588-sd-debian-bullseye-minimal-6.1-arm64-20240620.img
Use that value in the formula below to mount partition 8:
mkdir mnt
sudo mount -o loop,offset=$((512*286720)) rk3588-sd-debian-bullseye-minimal-6.1-arm64-YYYMMDD0.img mnt
Zap the old root partition:
sudo rm -rf mnt/*
Copy in the void root filesystem from above:
sudo cp -r /path/to/rootfs/* mnt
Unmount:
sudo umount mnt
Now burn the image to the microSD card. Power down the nanopi, insert the SD card, power the device back up, and if all goes well you should be greeted with a login prompt.
Here is an example of a quick setup of the device.
On your first login as root:
Set up the network as documented here:
vi /etc/rc.local
Continue with the setup:
date -s "DD MMM YYYY HH:MM:SS"
xbps-install xorg
xbps-install xfce4
xbps-install lightdm
useradd username
passwd username
Add line username ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL:
visudo
Chmod the sudo file and reboot:
chmod 4755 /usr/bin/sudo
reboot
Now login as username and start the desktop environment:
exec startxfce4
This build is connected to the upstream repos for void linux and receives updates from there. The kernel and drivers are taken from FriendlyElec and will not get updated. I need to find a solution for that.
To install to EMMc, repeat the procedure, replacing the "SD card image" debian from FriendlyElec with the "SD-to-eMMC" image.
The nanopi is not capable of booting from NVMe, but you can copy the root filesystem to NVMe and boot that from EMMc. The basic procedure would be:
- Build an EMMc image with OverlayFS disabled
- Install to EMMc
- Boot from the microSD card and clone the root partition from EMMc (
/dev/mmcblk2p8) to NVMe (/dev/nvme0n1p1) - Install to EMMc a customized uBoot which loads root from NVMe
Here is a procedure which does something similar: Load Root Partition From SSD But it is for ubuntu, and it neglects to disable OverlayFS, I need to update it.