PINE64 RockPro64 Mode d’emploi

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ARM installation guides

Installing Slackware on the RockPro64

Target

Platform AArch64/ARM64

Hardware Model Rock Pro64

Document Version 1.00, Dec 2021

Author Stuart Winter <mozes@slackware>

Contributors Brenton Earl <el0226@slackware> (R&D for the RK3399 Hardware Models)

Video Tutorial

This tutorial is also available in video form.

Pine64 also provide 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 hardware1.

Setting up local environment to support the installation over the network2.

Downloading and verifying the Slackware assets3.

Writing the Initialisation Bootware to the Micro SD card4.

Setup of the RockPro64 hardware5.

Initialising the RockPro64 with the Bootware6.

Writing the Slackware Installer to the Micro SD card7.

Booting the Slackware Installer8.

Installing Slackware9.

Completing the installation10.

Booting the Slackware OS11.

Post installation conﬁguration and tweaks12.

Requirements

Hardware

Last update: 2022/07/04

07:53 (UTC) slackwarearm:inst_sa64_rk3399_rockpro64 https://docs.slackware.com/slackwarearm:inst_sa64_rk3399_rockpro64

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Item Speciﬁcation Notes

RockPro64 4GB version The RockPro64 (2GB version may work but

hasn't been tested)

RockPro64

Power Supply

('PSU')

Pine64's own

There is a cheaper alternative, but this

version is recommended. Note that the link

here is for the EU version - a US version is

also available in the Pine64 store

Micro SD Card 8GB minimum capacity, Class 10

(fast speed), good quality make Used as Slackware's /boot partition

USB Multi-Card

Reader Must accept Micro SD cards

Used to write the Bootware on your host Linux

computer. This isn't required if your host

computer has a Micro SD card reader.

USB to Serial

adapter

PL2303 chip. Other models may

work, but this one has been tested.

If your model has the option to set

voltages, ensure 3volts is set!

Optional: This document covers installing

using an HDMI monitor (you can ﬁnd

information about the Serial/UART adapter at

the foot of this document), but a USB to

Serial/UART adapter is recommended if you

want to access the Boot Loader and Linux tty

(serial line) remotely. The serial adapter is

also required for developers needing to 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 You can use this or the USB to SATA adapter

(see row above)

PCIe to quad

SATA 3.0

Interface Card

MZHOU / Marvell chipset If you would like to use SATA storage, this is

the recommended interface card

SATA storage /

SSD

The Kingston-SA400S37-240G has

thoroughly proved itself in the

Slackware ARM build infrastructure -

most build machines use these, but

any SSD or spinning hard disk

should work

Will contain the Operating System. You can

install to other storage, but this

documentation covers this particular

conﬁguration only.

Wiﬁ and

Bluetooth

module

Pine64's own Optional

Heat sink and

CPU fan Pine64's own

Either a heat sink or fan are required. Some of

the cases have built-in heat sinks, so check

the options

SATA power

cable Pine64's own

Optional - depends if you use the SATA PCI

card and choose to power the drives from the

board (see notes below around stability)

Real Time Clock

('RTC') battery

holder

Pine64's own

An RTC is used to keep the time when the

Hardware Model is powered down. This is

recommended but optional. Time can also be

set via NTP once the OS has booted.

2022/07/05 14:37 (UTC) 3/36 Installing Slackware on the RockPro64

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Notes on storage setup

The setup documented here (2.5“ SSD connected to a USB-to-Serial adapter for power and data) has

proven stable for this author.

However, powering spinning 3.5” SATA drives from the RockPro64 directly have resulted in instability

of the hardware. This was resolved by powering the drives and CPU fan from an external power

supply. The Slackware AArch64 primary build machines run with this power conﬁguration and have

proven stable over time.

eMMC

From the factory, your RockPro64 may contain an eMMC storage module. During the development of

Slackware AArch64, it was found that the life span of these storage modules is short which makes

them inappropriate for housing an Operating System. Whilst it's possible to use eMMC with Slackware,

this documented installation process does not provide a supported path and the eMMC should be

removed.

Computing / Network Environment

Item Speciﬁcation Notes

Host Computer: an

Internet-connected

computer running 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

Internet, and serve the RockPro64

client to install Slackware over the LAN

(Local Area Network).

Network DHCP server

Provide an IP address and routing

information for the RockPro64 to be

able to contact the Linux Host

Computer (to download the

Slackware tree) and the Internet (to

set date via NTP)

This document expects the RockPro64

to be able to obtain an IP address via

DHCP over the LAN. However, you can

also manually conﬁgure an IP address

once the Slackware Installer has

booted (note that a lack of DHCP

server will stall the Installer by several

seconds). You could also copy the

Slackware media to a USB stick and

install from there. This is outside of the

scope of this document, however this

document describes how to set up a

simple DHCP service on Slackware.

Most home routers equipped with Ethernet ports provide a DHCP server which should

suﬃce for this setup

Last update: 2022/07/04

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)

Hardware Setup

In this section we'll prepare the physical aspects of the RockPro64 to receive Slackware Linux.

1. Place the computer onto a non-conductive surface ready for setup

If you have a case, install the board into it. If you do not, it should be placed onto a non-conductive

surface such as plastic, wood or rubber.

Remove eMMC storage module

In the image above you will see that 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

reading/writing/updating, it has insuﬃcient longevity for this author to recommend its

use for Slackware

2. Connect the peripherals

Connect the CPU fan or heat sink

Connect the Wiﬁ & Bluetooth module (optional)

Connect the storage (the image shows the USB-to-SATA adapter, but you may use the PCI card).

If using the USB adapter, connect it to the blue USB3.0 port.

Connect the Ethernet cable

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Connect the HDMI cable

Connect the USB keyboard and mouse

The basic hardware setup is complete.

Software and Network Environment Setup

In this section, we'll prepare the Linux Host Computer to receive and download the Slackware assets

required for the installation.

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 an HTTP server to the LAN (Local Area

Network), so only place the Slackware assets here.

$ cd ## returns to the root of your home directory

$ mkdir slackware

$ cd slackware

Last update: 2022/07/04

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Determine where you are within the Host Computer's Filesystem

$ pwd

/home/mozes/slackware

Note the directory location returned - you'll need this later

Installing the Slackware ARM GPG key

The Slackware ARM GPG key will be used to verify the Bootware and Slackware Installation images.

$ curl -sSL https://www.slackware.com/infra/keys/arm/GPG-KEY | gpg --import

Set the version of Slackware 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 download

to the current directory (it's not punctuation!)

The U-Boot Boot Loader that will be installed onto the SPI ﬂash:

rsync -PavL $SLKSRV/platform/aarch64/bootware/recovery/rk3399/flash-spi-

rockpro64.img.xz .

rsync -PavL $SLKSRV/platform/aarch64/bootware/recovery/rk3399/flash-spi-

rockpro64.img.xz.asc .

The Bootware (recovery/initialisation) images are approximately 400KBytes in size.

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Download the Slackware Linux installer for the RK3399 AArch64 platform

rsync -PavL $SLKSRV/platform/aarch64/bootware/installer/slackwareaarch64-

${SLKVER}/rk3399_generic.sdimg_latest.img.xz .

rsync -PavL $SLKSRV/platform/aarch64/bootware/installer/slackwareaarch64-

${SLKVER}/rk3399_generic.sdimg_latest.img.xz.asc .

The Slackware Installer images are approximately 300MBytes in size.

Download the Slackware tree veriﬁcation tool

rsync -PavL $SLKSRV/platform/all/scripts .

Download the Slackware AArch64 tree

You will now download the Slackware distribution. This contains all of the software 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/slacksigchk.sh'

gpg: Signature made Wed 24 Nov 2021 06:07:44 PM BST

gpg: using RSA key F7ABB8691623FC33

gpg: Good signature from "Slackware ARM (Slackware ARM Linux Project)

<[email protected]>" [unknown]

gpg: WARNING: This key is not certified with a trusted signature!

gpg: There is no indication that the signature belongs to the

owner.

Primary key fingerprint: 36D3 7609 2F12 9B6B 3D59 A517 F7AB B869 1623 FC33

Verify the Bootware and Slackware tree:

chmod 755 scripts/slacksigchk.sh

Last update: 2022/07/04

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./scripts/slacksigchk.sh slackwareaarch64-${SLKVER}

If you see 'BAD signature' you should re-download as it may have become corrupt. If

this doesn't help, drop a note to the Slackware ARM forum

Write the Initialisation Bootware to the SD Card

Slackware stores the U-Boot Boot Loader ﬁrmware within the SPI ﬂash of the Hardware Models that

use the RK3399 SoC (including the Pinebook Pro, RockPro64 et al).

In this step, we'll write the Boot Loader ﬁrmware to the same Micro SD card that will later be used to

contain the Slackware Installer, and subsequently 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

Prior to inserting the Micro SD Card into the USB adapter, we need to see what's already present

within the OS so that we can easily locate our Micro SD card:

# lsblk -d

NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS

sda 8:0 0 465.8G 0 disk

As you can see, this Host Computer there is a single storage device - sda.

Now insert the Micro SD card into your USB Card Reader and connect the adapter to a free USB port

on the Host Computer.

Run lsblk again:

# lsblk -d

NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS

sda 8:0 0 465.8G 0 disk

sdc 8:32 1 58G 0 disk

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sdd 8:48 1 0B 0 disk

As you can see, sdc is 58GBytes in size. This is the Micro SD card (in this example, it's labeled as

'64GB' on the exterior of Micro SD card).

If your Micro SD card has existing partitions, you will not see them surfaced in this list - use lsblk -b to

view them.

You'll also observe the presence of sdd - often the USB adapter itself obtains a block

device. You can ignore this as it's 0Bytes.

Write the Bootware Initialisation Image to the Micro SD Card

Still as the root user, we'll switch to the directory to which the the Slackware assets have been

downloaded (see earlier steps):

# cd /home/mozes/slackware/

Write 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

# xzcat flash-spi-rockpro64.img.xz > /dev/sdc ## Replace /dev/sdc with the

correct block device (presented above by the lsblk tool) on your Host

Computer

# sync

Logout of the root user:

# logout

The Bootware Initialisation image is now ready to boot on the RockPro64.

Installing the Boot Loader to SPI ﬂash

You need to perform this one-time step to ﬂash a Slackware version of the U-Boot Boot Loader to the

SPI ﬂash of the RockPro64.

This is required if your RockPro64 is brand new out of the box, or has previously had another Linux

Last update: 2022/07/04

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distribution running on it.

If you reinstall Slackware you do not need to repeat this step, as long as the

Slackware version of U-Boot remains within the SPI ﬂash.

Position the jumper/Dupont cable so that it links pin 23 (SPI_CLK_M2) and pin 25 (GND)1.

Insert the Micro SD card into the RockPro64's Micro SD slot2.

Connect the power to the RockPro643.

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 remove the jumper/Dupont cable

The ﬂashing process will begin and takes approximately 1 minute to complete.

Once the process completes, hold the power button for approximately 8 seconds. The RockPro64 will

power oﬀ.

Write the Slackware Installer image onto the MicroSD card

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