Slarm64 on the Pinebook 1080 - help with kernel?
by shelldweller from LinuxQuestions.org on (#4YXTJ)
Hello folks,
I have been running a Frakenstein's version of Slarm64 on my Pinebook 1080 for about a year now, and I have ironed out just about all of the quirks.
Besides the blueman bug that still confounds me, the only missing piece now is the kernel+modules.
I have been using a kernel version 4.20.0 from anarsoul's ArchLinux image, as it works better with the Slarm64 rootfs than any other starting image, and I have tried every image I can get my hands on.
However, I do not want to run this kernel forever, as it is not an LTS kernel, and everyone else has moved on to 5.4.x by now, at least in -current. I would like to build my own kernel from Slackware sources for the Pinebook 1080. I have been trying this in various forms for the last year. Everything from cross-compiling to native SlackBuilds on the machine itself, all of my usual tricks have not been working.
I am usually a whiz at compiling kernels for x86 architecture. I have done that so many times, I have it down to a fine science by this point, no real surprises anymore. However, ARM has proved to be a completely different beast for me. I have followed building guides from the vendor wikis, any anything else I could find. Usually, my kernels do not boot at all, or if they do I am not getting any screen output whatsoever.
Anyway, what I am trying to say is that I would like to do something similar to mara's slackare-arm-build-kit and add support for the Pinebook 1080. I see other Pine boards on the support list already, and I see other Allwinner boards there too. So I am sure it is possible, I just do not know where to start.
Can anyone just point me in the right direction? I am willing to do all of the dirty work myself, but any pointers that others could provide would be extremely appreciated.
On a related note, you can see the results of my efforts so far here:
https://3space.xyz/pineslarm/
There you will find an lzipped image that, when decompressed, can be dd'd onto a 16GB SD card that I know the Pinebook 1080 will boot from, resulting in a full GUI desktop and all package sets already installed. I realize this is not really the Slackware-way, and a true Slacker would just start from the rootfs and build up their own machine. And I also know that this image works smoother on this machine than any of the other images you can find on the Pine Wiki, so I felt like it was worth sharing.
Maybe of more importance, I have also uploaded all of my SlackBuilds.org packages to the same repository. Not all of those work (like Electrum, for example, something is wrong with python3-sip), and eventually I will just remove the non-working packages.
I have not attempted to document dependencies at all. If a package needs dependencies beyond the base Slackware installation, then the dependency is present, but not listed anywhere specifically except over at slackbuilds.org.
On the other hand, some packages that used to be dependencies for other packages are also present, and I will eventually get around to removing those, one day. For example, there are many dependencies for LibreOffice present, but the build of LibreOffice that I have uploaded most recently only has a single dependency: libfreehand. Everything else has been built into the LibreOffice package itself. I find that approach minimizes breakage when other things start updating.
That is all for now. I get busy with work and real life, as we all do, so I only tinker with this when I have the spare time. It is really just a fun project for me, nothing more. If I could just get a working kernel+modules built, that would be the final nail in the coffin, so to speak.
Thanks for reading, and mega-thanks to everyone that has made Slackware-ARM, Slarm64, and Slackware itself such an amazing operating system. Hopefully I can start giving back more in some way beyond my current level of participation and support.
- shelldweller
I have been running a Frakenstein's version of Slarm64 on my Pinebook 1080 for about a year now, and I have ironed out just about all of the quirks.
Besides the blueman bug that still confounds me, the only missing piece now is the kernel+modules.
I have been using a kernel version 4.20.0 from anarsoul's ArchLinux image, as it works better with the Slarm64 rootfs than any other starting image, and I have tried every image I can get my hands on.
However, I do not want to run this kernel forever, as it is not an LTS kernel, and everyone else has moved on to 5.4.x by now, at least in -current. I would like to build my own kernel from Slackware sources for the Pinebook 1080. I have been trying this in various forms for the last year. Everything from cross-compiling to native SlackBuilds on the machine itself, all of my usual tricks have not been working.
I am usually a whiz at compiling kernels for x86 architecture. I have done that so many times, I have it down to a fine science by this point, no real surprises anymore. However, ARM has proved to be a completely different beast for me. I have followed building guides from the vendor wikis, any anything else I could find. Usually, my kernels do not boot at all, or if they do I am not getting any screen output whatsoever.
Anyway, what I am trying to say is that I would like to do something similar to mara's slackare-arm-build-kit and add support for the Pinebook 1080. I see other Pine boards on the support list already, and I see other Allwinner boards there too. So I am sure it is possible, I just do not know where to start.
Can anyone just point me in the right direction? I am willing to do all of the dirty work myself, but any pointers that others could provide would be extremely appreciated.
On a related note, you can see the results of my efforts so far here:
https://3space.xyz/pineslarm/
There you will find an lzipped image that, when decompressed, can be dd'd onto a 16GB SD card that I know the Pinebook 1080 will boot from, resulting in a full GUI desktop and all package sets already installed. I realize this is not really the Slackware-way, and a true Slacker would just start from the rootfs and build up their own machine. And I also know that this image works smoother on this machine than any of the other images you can find on the Pine Wiki, so I felt like it was worth sharing.
Maybe of more importance, I have also uploaded all of my SlackBuilds.org packages to the same repository. Not all of those work (like Electrum, for example, something is wrong with python3-sip), and eventually I will just remove the non-working packages.
I have not attempted to document dependencies at all. If a package needs dependencies beyond the base Slackware installation, then the dependency is present, but not listed anywhere specifically except over at slackbuilds.org.
On the other hand, some packages that used to be dependencies for other packages are also present, and I will eventually get around to removing those, one day. For example, there are many dependencies for LibreOffice present, but the build of LibreOffice that I have uploaded most recently only has a single dependency: libfreehand. Everything else has been built into the LibreOffice package itself. I find that approach minimizes breakage when other things start updating.
That is all for now. I get busy with work and real life, as we all do, so I only tinker with this when I have the spare time. It is really just a fun project for me, nothing more. If I could just get a working kernel+modules built, that would be the final nail in the coffin, so to speak.
Thanks for reading, and mega-thanks to everyone that has made Slackware-ARM, Slarm64, and Slackware itself such an amazing operating system. Hopefully I can start giving back more in some way beyond my current level of participation and support.
- shelldweller