Os images, not only armbian/raspios?

uConsole
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Hi everyone ! / Hi clockwork team

As as current owner of a devterm(a04, but maybe, soon to be cm4), and future one of the uConsole (cm4),

I was wondering if there will be more os images for the CM4 based systems (devterms and uConsoles) than the armbian/raspios one ? I personally prefer manjaro, or arch distro, and I’m currently hesitating to get a cm4 module for my devterm if that could be done.

There is too many already installed packages on the current available armbian images for my personal tastes, (i would have preferred a minimal clean install)

Manjaro distro is great out of the box with xface desktop if you want to include it. but let us users choose and install which desktop environment we want.

Maybe a clean manjaro-arm or arch-arm base image would be nice for letting us tinker with it ?
Else, a minimal official image would also be nice, or updated docs on how to build one ourselves (i didn’t get the wiki ones to something i can use)

Thanks for your readings !

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I’m planning on (trying to, at least) porting Arch / Manjaro to the uConsole once I get my hands on it — or maybe I’ll just use Debian because I’m lazy. :P

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CM4 os image is not armbian , just edited rpi os image

and here is the guide of how I made A04 os image previous release

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i’m not familiar with the steps needed to patch and use the linux kernel, but i would love to follow every steps of the project.

I guess you’re talking about the CM4 image right ? (the already existing a06 manjaro image would be easy to port on the uconsole i guess. but there is no a04 one)

What would be the basic steps of porting the hardware to manjaro-arm? Applying same patches to the kernel? or using the clokworkpi patched one ?

Have a strong background in developpement but lack of basic knowledge on low level linux. Would love to learn.

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Thanks for the link!

I have already read this wiki page. but the problem is i can only make an armbian image for the devterm a04, but I would like to make a manjaro/arch one so i got manjaro on both my devterm and uConsole (and my rpi400, and my desktop :D)

(I know it’s difficult because of the deprecated support of arch-arm for the armv7 family)

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ok

Find a manjaro/arch os image that can run on A04’s chip( I dont remeber what chip of A04 is)
probably some aarch64 image will do

then chroot into the os image in Desktop Linux system( I use ubuntu 22.04)
some thing like

sudo losetup -f --show -P manjaro_aarch64.img #/dev/loop1

sudo mount /dev/loop1p1 /mnt/p1/
cd /mnt/p1
sudo mount --bind /dev dev/
sudo mount --bind /sys sys/
sudo mount --bind /proc proc/
sudo mount --bind /dev/pts dev/pts
sudo chroot .

this will allow you to config the existing os image, add or remove the packages

then replace the kernel and bootloader to this os image file ( it’s difficult when try to replace bootloader)

different chip different bootloader

then a New os image created

so Basicly the process is:

  • Use whatever tools to create an initial version os image that supports processor architectures
  • chroot to change package
  • replace kernel and bootloader

the difference between arm Linux distros, is package system ,kernel ,bootloader

once the kernel got booted by bootloader , you are ok now

correct me if I am wrong

and if you like to try, and not very familar with linux loop device, chroot stuff
it is better to do in a new workless computer
a lot sh*t will happen

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many thanks for your response ! the a04 is a Allwinner H6

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sorry, i bought an A06 (i might buy a CM4 module later)

so i prolly won’t be able to support CM4 without buying one

i’m not entirely sure what the steps would be yet, i’ll keep y’all updated tho lmfao

sorry about the hasty response, i gotta get back to work lol