NixOS on ARM/PINE A64-LTS

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Revision as of 16:19, 16 April 2018 by Samueldr (talk | contribs) (Adds disambiguation for A64 (non-LTS) and SOPINE)
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PINE A64-LTS
A PINE A64-LTS with eMMC.
Manufacturer PINE64 (Pine Microsystems Inc.)
Architecture AArch64
Bootloader Upstream u-boot[1]
Maintainer samueldr
Note: While made by the same manufacturer and using an Allwinner SOC, the PINE A64 (non LTS) does not use the same bootloader.

The PINE A64-LTS is an affordable "Long Time Supply" single board computer built around the Allwinner R18 SOC.

It can boot from SD or from an eMMC.

The SOPINE board from the same manufacturer, using the Baseboard "Model A" should be 100% compatible with the A64-LTS; the A64-LTS support is built using the device tree of the Baseboard "Model A". Though untested, this should mean that the Baseboard "Model A" will work with NixOS[testing needed].

Status

Upstream NixOS AArch64 image will boot on the PINE A64-LTS, using the proper upstream u-boot.

U-boot support has been added 2018-03-18. The bootloader with SPL can be downloaded from this location:

Note: The location will be updated once it has been built through the usual automation by Dezgeg.

Board-specific installation notes

First follow the generic installation steps to get the installer image on an SD card or the eMMC. A compatible eMMC to SD may be required to flash the eMMC. If you do not have one available, it is possible to boot another operating system on the A64-LTS and from there dd to the eMMC.

U-Boot needs to be copied to specific sectors on the microSD card with dd. Download u-boot for the board (sopine-u-boot-sunxi-with-spl.bin), and copy it to the correct location with (again, replace /dev/sdX with the correct path to the SD card device):

sudo dd if=sopine-u-boot-sunxi-with-spl.bin of=/dev/sdX bs=1024 seek=8

Then, install using the installation and configuration steps.

Serial console

Compatibility notes

  • Using the upstream kernel at 4.15, neither ethernet seems to have troubles. The interface is detected but seems to not work right.
  • HDMI support is untested.

Resources