Debian installer for Novena? (Page 1 of 2)

I think that'd be a great idea.

I'm currently in the process of Debianizing my support packages, which definitely should go into the repo.  I set up a preseed at one point, which I documented here: http://www.kosagi.com/w/index.php?title … _installer

It's grown some cruft to be sure.  It's for Wheezy, and we're shipping Jessie.  But it was designed so you'd put it on a full-sized SD card, short out "P_EXT" on the mainboard, and install Debian that way.  The version of U-Boot I'm working with ought to even be smart enough to be able to boot from USB, but that's a thing I haven't tested yet.

Note that the U-Boot we're using will be smart enough to redirect output.  If you have an HDMI monitor or LVDS display plugged in, the console will go out to video, otherwise it'll set root=/dev/ttymxc1,115200.  So no worries there!

In short, it seems like a great idea.

That'd be much appreciated.

One thing I never figured out how to do was to specify a bootloader.  For Wheezy, it seems like there are about five hardcoded bootloader platforms.  I ended up just ignoring it and specifying no bootloader in the preflight script, but maybe it can be solved in the "proper" manner.

I've got about a half dozen packages.  Some (like novena-firstrun) might not be so interesting if you're running the installer, but others (such as pulseaudio-novena) bring real functionality enhancements.  I'll put together a wiki article on the install process and custom packages we're adding.

Thanks picmaster. I think I used the effika image as the basis when I hacked together the GK802 installer as well.

I guess the difference is one of definition - is the installer done when it produces a valid rootfs, or is it done when it produces an immediately bootable system? The critical differences for that was boot process as you say - having a bootloader package that's correct, also the right kernel package and having a correct initrd generated by the debian update-initramfs system. Probably also for GUI stuff there's a need to choose and install the right graphics drivers.

Given for Novena these items are now all packaged, it might be almost as simple as injecting a preseed.cfg into an effika/other initrd with a secondary package repo (novena.io) and a list of additional packages - then you'd have an installer that produces an immediately bootable target.

Just to check: am I right in thinking that there is no Debian installer image yet for Jessie, and that the recommended way to install this is via the recovery image and manually bootstrapping etc?

I had no trouble loading the armhf installer initrd for Jessie and doing a full install with it.

Chuck http://linux.citylink.co.nz/debian/dist … /initrd.gz on to the SD card boot partition as "uInitrd" and configure u-boot to boot it with a uEnv.txt like this:

initrd_addr_r=0x12800000
fh_initramfs_try=fatload \${bootsrc} \${bootdev} \${initrd_addr_r} uInitrd\${rec}
fh_initramfs_ok=echo initramfs uInitrd\${rec} loaded; setenv bootargs rootwait ro; setenv rootdev UUID=fa7f372b-d890-4a8c-877e-7e201e997682
fh_initramfs_no=echo initramfs uInitrd\${rec} not found; setenv initrd_addr_r -; setenv bootargs rootwait rw
finalhook=if run fh_initramfs_try; then run fh_initramfs_ok; else run fh_initramfs_no; fi; setenv bootargs \${bootargs} root=\${rootdev} console=\${consdev}

With thanks to russm on IRC for the uEnv recipe With this I was able to do a fully encrypted install, and with some tweaking to put the modules in the right place and build a new initrd, can unlock it during the boot process no trouble.

In order to generate an initrd you need the modules for the kernel available. I actually just grabbed these from my recovery filesystem, but you could jump out of the installer in to a shell at the end and make them available by installing the package, or bundle it in the install.

You can also boot in to recovery when you're done, chroot in to the new install and set things up from there.

Edit: Went to work halfway through posting and forgot to mention - you don't need any of the packages or modules to just boot the system and have it work. They only enable extra functionality or performance.

Looks like there's been some success with full-disk encryption on Novena. Is there a step-by-step guide for doing this under Debian Jessie? If not, I'll volunteer to put one together if I others can point me in the right direction.

I completed the installer now, it can install both normal and LUKS-encrypted now, and it handles update-initramfs correctly, so kernel updates should work properly now:

https://github.com/thesourcerer8/novena … -installer

I am also offering a out-of-the-box MicroSD card image that can be copied to the MicroSD card, which directly boots the installer.

So an update for a few notes I had to do:

I used the MicroSD Card image. Just do the guided setup for encryption. it will not let you use a FAT partition for the /boot. Ironically it won't care when you modify /etc/fstab

xorg would not work for me. The only way I got it to work is my copying this from an old image to /etc/X11/xorg.conf:

Section "Device"
    Identifier "novena"
    Driver "modesetting"
    Option "kmsdev" "/dev/dri/card0"
    Option "SWcursor" "true"
    BusID "platform:sys/devices/soc0/imx-drm.20/drm/card0"
EndSection

I also installed xorg-novena, xserver-xorg-video-armada, xserver-xorg-video-armada-etanviv

I installed kosagi-repo and then removed the reference of the repo from /etc/apt/sources.list

I also had to modify /etc/fstab in the following manner:
comment out the current /boot and add:

/dev/disk/by-path/platform-2198000.usdhc-part1        /boot        vfat    defaults        2    2

This way the normal boot will be there and the novena can update the linux. Updating to a new linux does not destroy the cryptsetup, as I happily found out.
EDIT 2015/12/16: I just updated to a newer kernel, and I got a missing "dm_mod" error.

However, right now I am not confident that 2d acceleration works, and I am not sure how to make it work.
EDIT: I just checked, and 2D acceleration does work.

My installer currently does not mount the partition from the MicroSD card to /boot, so there is no problem with FAT16/32. What my installer does is that it installs a tool into /etc/kernel/postinst.d/zzz-novena-... which is called after the /boot is readyly populated, and it mounts the MicroSD card to /sd and copies the kernel and initramdisk over to the MicroSD card. An advantage of this is that it should also work with smaller sized partitions on the MicroSD card, since it does not need space for the intermediate files that are generated by Debian in /boot

Oh, I am sorry about that. I bought a new SSD to continue development on the installer and I want to publish a new version of the installer soon now.

Hey Sourcerer,

I made a bunch of upgrades to the installer, and make a new image for it! I made a pull request to merge it with your installer.

What would be the easiest way for me to send the image to you?

Or could we host is on the novena repo?