Re: Pinebook pro build

[Vincent Legoll <vincent.legoll@gmail.com>]

Hello,

I did try to get guix running on the pbp earlier, with the images, first
trying to cross-build them myself, then with the cuirass built ones.
I'm not sure I got anything working at all (no console output, serial
console problem).

I now got some time to try again, and chose a different path, seeing
that Janneke go it to work, I tried to replicate what he's done, and it
worked, I've now got guixrunning on my pbp, yay !

Some of the steps were different in my attempt, but that's not really
important, I could have done the whole thing on the pbp itself too. I
chose that because the pbp is slower (CPU and storage-wise) than
the Odroid N2.

So, what I did is the following: on an Odroid N2 with the guix binary
tarball installed over Armbian on the eMMC with the help from
guix-install.sh script.

I put /gnu on an external USB3 SSD that is way bigger and also faster
than the eMMC.

I had to make the guix-daemon use a TMPDIR in there, as the system
one was too small (2GB tmpfs):

  sudo mkdir /gnu/tmp
  sudo chmod 1777 /gnu/tmp
  sudo chmod 644 /etc/systemd/system/guix-daemon.service
  sudo vi /etc/systemd/system/guix-daemon.service
  # Add to "[Service]" section:
  # Environment=TMPDIR=/gnu/tmp
  sudo systemctl daemon-reload
  sudo systemctl restart guix-daemon

then plugged an sdcard and did:

  SDCARD=/dev/mmcblk1

  sudo parted -- ${SDCARD} mkpart p 0% -1
  sudo parted -- ${SDCARD} set 1 boot on
  sudo mkfs.ext4 -F ${SDCARD}p1
  sudo e2label ${SDCARD}p1 GUIXROOT
  blkid

  sudo mkdir /mnt/tmp
  sudo mount ${SDCARD}p1 /mnt/tmp

  git clone git://git.savannah.gnu.org/guix.git
  cd guix
  git checkout wip-pinebook-pro

  guix environment guix
  ./bootstrap
  ./configure --localstatedir=/var
  make -j 7
  cp gnu/system/examples/pinebook-pro.tmpl ./config-pbp.scm
  vi config-pbp.scm
  # Set bootloader target to ${SDCARD}
  # Set filesystem / to uuid you got by the above blkid, or to label GUIXROOT
  sudo -E ./pre-inst-env guix system init config-pbp.scm /mnt/tmp --fallback

I checked that he final section from Janneke's blog post was not
needed anymore

  grep DEFAULT_FDT /gnu/store/*u-boot*pinebook*/libexec/.config
  grep FDT /mnt/tmp/boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf
  find /mnt/tmp/gnu/store/z1kmpmyvm3shh59fsnw5v7s41bdi2fs1-linux-libre-pinebook-pro-5.10.29/lib/dtbs/
-name rk3399-pinebook-pro.dtb
  cat /mnt/tmp/boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf

  sudo umount /mnt/tmp

unplug the sdcard from the N2 and put it in the pinebook pro, turn it
on, enjoy.

Hope that report is helpful.

Many thanks to Janneke, his blog post is very nice and simple to follow.
And to the guix community for all the good work done !

Regards

-- 
Vincent Legoll