NanoPC-T4 Arch Linux Install Guide

Introduction

This guide provides a relatively easy method for bootstrapping Arch Linux on the NanoPC-T4's integrated eMMC storage.

The NanoPC-T4 is a fun piece of kit sporting an integrated Rockchip RK3399 CPU. Recent updates to u-boot to officially support the T4 in its mainline branch (nanopc-t4-rk3399_defconfig) remove a lot of friction regarding a previous requirement to build custom idbloader.bin, trust.bin, uboot.img image files from offshoot repos.

Install Armbian onto you SD card.

Download an image from here (Focal recommended).

https://www.armbian.com/nanopc-t4/

Flash the image to your SD card.

Using dd utility on Linux:

dd if=Armbian_xx.xx.x_Nanopct4_focal_current_x.x.xx_desktop.img of=/dev/diskN bs=1M

Here's a video more comprehensive flash instructions:

https://docs.armbian.com/User-Guide_Getting-Started/

Boot into Armbian using SD:

Press BOOT key to prevent the board from eMMC booting, making the board enter MASKROM mode.

Connect to your network inside of Armbian (network widget in top-right corner).

Prepare the eMMC flash for Arch install (eMMC is /dev/mmcblk2).

Zero the beginning of the eMMC to wipe any existing boot images.

# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdX bs=1M count=32

Partition the eMMC device.

# fdisk /dev/mmcblk2
Command (m for help): g
Created a new GPT disklabel (GUID: 2E750097-829F-614C-AD9E-271DA3413E3E).
Command (m for help): n
Partition number (1-128, default 1):
First sector (2048-30535646, default 2048): 32768
Last sector, +/-sectors or +/-size{K,M,G,T,P} (32768-30535646, default 30535646):
Created a new partition 1 of type 'Linux filesystem' and of size 14.6 GiB.
Command (m for help): w

Make the filesystem.

# mkfs.ext4 /dev/mmcblk2p1

Mount the filesystem.

# mkdir root
# mount /dev/mmcblk2p1 root

Download Arch and extract the root filesystem (as root).

# wget http://os.archlinuxarm.org/os/ArchLinuxARM-aarch64-latest.tar.gz
# bsdtar -xpf ArchLinuxARM-aarch64-latest.tar.gz -C root

Create the following boot.txt file.

# After modifying, run ./mkscr

part uuid ${devtype} ${devnum}:${bootpart} uuid
setenv bootargs console=ttyS2,1500000 root=PARTUUID=${uuid} rw rootwait earlycon=uart8250,mmio32,0xff1a0000
setenv fdtfile rockchip/rk3399-nanopc-t4.dtb

if load ${devtype} ${devnum}:${bootpart} ${kernel_addr_r} /boot/Image; then
  if load ${devtype} ${devnum}:${bootpart} ${fdt_addr_r} /boot/dtbs/${fdtfile}; then
    fdt addr ${fdt_addr_r}
    fdt resize
    if load ${devtype} ${devnum}:${bootpart} ${ramdisk_addr_r} /boot/initramfs-linux.img; then
      booti ${kernel_addr_r} ${ramdisk_addr_r}:${filesize} ${fdt_addr_r};
    else
      booti ${kernel_addr_r} - ${fdt_addr_r};
    fi;
  fi;
fi

Note: boot.txt is available boot/boot.txt for your convenience.

Optional: host root filesystem on NVMe storage.

If you want to move the root filesystem to NVMe storage at a later time, you can modify boot.txt and add the appropriate UUID for your root partition. The full process for migrating to NVMe is beyond the scope of this guide.

Get the UUID for the NVMe partition.

# blkid | grep nvme
/dev/nvme0n1p1: UUID="a56421bd-4e0d-48cc-b7a9-ee4fbc48aef8" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="8a5c1dfe-01"

Add the NVMe partition UUID to boot.txt.

rootdev=UUID=a56421bd-4e0d-48cc-b7a9-ee4fbc48aef8

Convert the boot.txt into a boot.scr.

# mkimage -A arm -O linux -T script -C none -n "U-Boot boot script" -d boot.txt boot.scr

Copy the boot.scr and boot.txt to /boot in the Arch root filesystem.

# cp boot.scr root/boot
# cp boot.txt root/boot

Mount host devices into root filesystem for chroot.

# mount --bind /proc root/proc
# mount --bind /sys root/sys
# mount --bind /dev root/dev
# mount --bind /dev/pts root/dev/pts

Chroot into the Arch filesystem to install packages required for wifi setup.

# chroot root
# echo "nameserver 1.1.1.1" > /etc/resolv.conf
# pacman-key --init
# pacman-key --populate archlinuxarm
# pacman -Syu
# pacman -S dialog wpa_supplicant
# exit

Unmount the root Arch root filesystem.

# umount root

The u-boot files for the NanoPC-T4 are included with the official u-boot.

# dpkg -L linux-u-boot-nanopct4-current
...
/usr/lib/linux-u-boot-current-nanopct4_20.11.6_arm64/idbloader.bin
/usr/lib/linux-u-boot-current-nanopct4_20.11.6_arm64/trust.bin
/usr/lib/linux-u-boot-current-nanopct4_20.11.6_arm64/uboot.img
...

Note: images are available images for your convenience.

Flash the boot loader to the eMMC.

# cd /usr/lib/linux-u-boot-current-nanopct4_20.11.6_arm64
# dd if=idbloader.bin of=/dev/mmcblk2 seek=64 conv=notrunc
# dd if=uboot.img of=/dev/mmcblk2 seek=16384 conv=notrunc
# dd if=trust.bin of=/dev/mmcblk2 seek=24576 conv=notrunc

Power off, remove the SD card, and power up the machine.