Hey there,
I modified the latest Raspbian Lite 64bit image to be used on any CM4-based DevTerm. This might be useful for those who want a minimal setup with no desktop environments and don’t want to/don’t know how to modify the original image to make it work.
Link here: 2023-10-10-raspios-bookworm-arm64-lite.img.xz - pCloud
The DevTerm CM4 distro scene is quite lackluster, since I can only find the official images. I’ve been trying to make ArchLinuxARM work to no avail - if I ever make it work I’ll upload it too.
Edit: Changed link because previous one was deleted for some reason
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Thanks for this, it’s great!
don’t want to/don’t know how to modify the original image to make it work
Impossible to solve “don’t want to” but “don’t know how to” is easy to fix with some links, I suspect. I didn’t know that anything needed to be done, I thought most images should work out of the box with a few tweaks for screen orientation, etc. (Though I have had no luck getting the 9pi image to run, and have been using the DevTerm too much to spend much time hacking the device itself; R01 core arrived and I have started playing with building a CRUX system inside a Slackware chroot, but it is slow going.)
I can only find the official images
I think there’s an Arch image kicking around, and a Manjaro one.
I’m glad you find it useful!
Yes that’s what I thought in the beginning - however most distros don’t work as-is on the DevTerm as the machine needs a bunch of kernel modifications that are alien to most users. As you can see in this official guide most of these modifications and other services (CUPS printing, fan daemon, keyboard firmware) are packaged for Debian-based distros. This makes porting them to Arch-based distros pretty difficult, at least for me.
Probably the Arch and Manjaro images you mention are the ones made for A0406 DevTerms. My struggles lie on making Arch work on CM4 DevTerms, which in theory shouldn’t feel so difficult but for me it is 
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I’m glad you find it useful!
Definitely.
CUPS printing, fan daemon, keyboard firmware) are packaged for Debian-based distros.
Yeah, I know about those; the Debian-centric part is somewhat painful.
Probably the Arch and Manjaro images you mention are the ones made for A0406 DevTerms
Oh, yeah, you are right. Apologies. It was for the A06 and from yatli, he’s around the forum a lot: GitHub - yatli/arch-linux-arm-clockworkpi-a06: Arch Linux ARM for the ClockworkPi DevTerm A06 . (Most of the time someone has done something like that, either yatli or emutyworks will be somewhere in the thread, often the person that did it. emutyworks is trying to get FreeBSD running on the R01: Home · emutyworks/DevTerm-R01 Wiki · GitHub .)
which in theory shouldn’t feel so difficult but for me it is
Haha, I feel exactly the same way, that’s why I was asking: it looks like it shouldn’t be difficult and it seems like most people think it’s relatively obvious stuff, but I feel like I’m missing something (especially around booting), so I ask around a little. Fan and printer support aside, I’ll be happy if I can get it to boot and turn on the screen, at least at that point it’s easier to debug without clipping resistors off the Ext board ( DevTerm R-01 Ext Board UART is read only? - #2 by smaeul ).
Edit: I did manage to get Slackware on the R01 to work properly and have been running it since: Slackware image for DevTerm R01 - #5 by 1337p337
I’m testing your image out now and it’s quite nice! It looks like you’re using the 5.10 kernel that the official DevTerm 0.1 image comes with and combining it with Raspberry Pi OS Bookworm. I tried to do this, but I ran into a problem where it wouldn’t boot after I installed Gnome. I haven’t yet figured out what the problem was. (Edit: I’m pretty sure a kernel upgrade snuck in at the same time, which would regenerate the kernel image, initramfs, and device trees. The new kernel wouldn’t have the DevTerm display and keyboard patches.) For what it’s worth, I was using the 5.15 kernel from the DevTerm 0.2 image. It would be nice to upgrade to the kernel, but for now I’m enjoying all the userspace upgrades. Thanks!
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A tip for anyone trying this image: I recommend removing the Raspberry Pi kernel image packages:
linux-image-6.1.0-rpi4-rpi-2712
linux-image-6.1.0-rpi4-rpi-v8
linux-image-6.1.0-rpi6-rpi-2712
linux-image-6.1.0-rpi6-rpi-v8
and leaving only the devterm-kernel-cm4-rpi kernel package. This prevents an update to one of the rpi kernels from messing up your boot partition.
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@skalimoi While producing the CRUX image ( CRUX for DevTerm A06, dev notes ), I had to write a small build script for all of those files. I did it as one large package instead of several small ones: git.debu.gs Git - cpi-ports/blob - devterm-a06/Pkgfile .
It is technically for the A06, but it should be almost the same for the CM4. You’ll have to change a few pieces (you can skip the wiringPi section, which is huge, because the CM4 has that upstream and the gearbox) and tweak the fan part. I think, though, that this is basically all the pieces you need, and CRUX and Arch are closely related enough that it might translate almost directly into an AUR PKGBUILD file.