Installing Debian Linux arm64 on a RaspberryPi 3 Model B+

Release date: 2019-01-05

As of December 2018 it is possible to install a 64bit Debian Linux arm64 with a Debian or Vanilla Kernel on the RaspberryPi 3 Model B+ without the need to use a super-specialised distribution. You will need exactly three closed source files from the RaspberryPi Foundation, the rest of the system can be a regular Debian Linux arm64. Booting a system like this with u-boot is not straight forward but possible once you understood the syntax. In the following lines I will try to give you some additional information concerning this issue.

You will need a 16 GB SD-card, a host system with a recent Debian Linux and a working SD-card reader to perform the installation. I recommend two-partition installation, using vfat for the first partition and ext4 for the second. All data on the sd-card will be erased!

Theoretically it would also be possible to use the "stable" distribution of Debian Linux if you do not want to use "testing", but you should use at least "buster" which 12/2018 is "testing". To change, switch testing to stable in the qemu-debootstrap and sources.list entries.

You use all of this information at your own risk!!! There is absolutely no warranry!!!

RaspberryPi 3 B+ BOOT Archive
I collected some files which proved to be very helpful for setting up a RaspberryPi 3 B+ and packaged them in this archive. Please feel free to use them. It is absolutely possible that the contents may be outdated by the time you are planning to use them.
Nota bene: As of 12/2018 blacklisting of the vc4-module (see boot.cmd) is necessary to boot and the internal wifi is not working. Most probably both things are going to change.

Released:	31 Dec 2018 by Bodo Giannone (http://www.giannone.ch)
Download:	rpi-3b_plus_boot_2018_12_31.tgz
SHA1-SUM:	129ec3e721477b73ba40af61c6b14f9f7cb7a8d4
Contents:

File	Description
boot.cmd	recommended boot script (raw file)
bootcode.bin	firmware (from https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware/blob/master/boot/bootcode.bin)
boot.scr	recommended boot script (image file)
brcmfmac43455-sdio.tgz	firmware needed for internal wifi (from Raspbian Linux)
config.txt	configuration file for firmware
fixup.dat	firmware (https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware/blob/master/boot/fixup.dat)
gen_boot.scr	script to create the boot script image file
start.elf	firmware (https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware/blob/master/boot/start.elf)

Prepare the host-system

• The following packages need to be installed on the host-system: u-boot-tools, qemu-user-static, debootstrap
  On a recent Debian/Linux they can be installed with:

  aptitude install u-boot-tools qemu-user-static debootstrap

Prepare the client-system

• First identify the sd-card using dmesg to get its device (eg /dev/sdX) and substitute this value for ${card}. Please be absolutely sure of the device name.
  
  
• Please be absolutely sure that ${card} points to the right device! Severe data-loss could be caused if wrong!!!
  
  
• IF YOU ARE NOT ABSOLUTELY SURE OF THE DEVICE NAME, ABORT NOW ! ! !
  
  
• Do NOT FORGET to substitute the right device name for ${card} EVERY TIME
  
  
• All data on the device (hopefully your new empty sd-card) will be erased if you continue!
  
  
• To be on safe side erase the first part of your SD Card (also clears the partition table)

  dd if=/dev/zero of=${card} bs=1M count=10

  
  
• Partition the harddisk using fdisk
  (use 128 MB for the first partition and reserve all availabe space for the second partition)

  /sbin/sfdisk --label dos ${card} <<\EndOfFile

  ,128m,c

  ,

  EndOfFile

  
  
• Create an ext4-filesystem on the newly created second partition and mount it unter /mnt
  (may be "${card}p2" instead of "${card}2" on some systems)

  /sbin/mkfs.ext4 "${card}2"

  /sbin/tune2fs -c0 -i0 "${card}2"

  mount "${card}2" /mnt -o rw

  
  
• Create a vfat-filesystem on the newly first partition and mount it unter /mnt/boot/fat
  (may be "${card}p1" instead of "${card}1" on some systems)

  /sbin/mkfs.vfat "${card}1"

  /sbin/mkdir -p /mnt/boot/fat

  mount "${card}1" /mnt/boot/fat -o rw

Install Debian Linux on the client-system

• Install Debian Linux testing arm64 for example with the following command:

  /usr/sbin/qemu-debootstrap --include=net-tools,wpasupplicant,aptitude,joe,linux-image-arm64,locales,console-data,tzdata,console-setup,keyboard-configuration,aptitude,dbus,u-boot-rpi,u-boot-tools,u-boot-menu,firmware-linux,sudo --arch arm64 --components=main,contrib,non-free testing /mnt http://ftp.debian.org/debian

  An error message concerning creation of the initrd-image can safely be ignored. The system will start anyway and the error will be corrected on the first boot.
  
  
• Install the firmware
  (after extracting the files from the archive)

  cp bootcode.bin fixup.dat start.elf /mnt/boot/fat

  cp /mnt/usr/lib/u-boot/rpi_3/u-boot.bin /mnt/boot/fat

  mkdir -p /mnt/lib/firmware/brcm

  zcat brcmfmac43455-sdio.tgz | (cd /mnt/lib/firmware/brcm && tar -x )

Configure the client-system
(You need to create the following files)

• /boot/fat/config.txt
  (see config.txt in the archive)

  cat <<\EndOfFile > /mnt/boot/fat/config.txt

  arm_64bit=1

  kernel=u-boot.bin

  enable_uart=1

  EndOfFile

  
  
• /boot/fat/boot.cmd
  (adapt the root entry if necessary)
  (see boot.cmd, boot.scr and gen_boot.scr in the archive)

  cat <<\EndOfFile > /mnt/boot/fat/boot.cmd

  sysboot mmc 0:2 any ${loadaddr} /boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf

  EndOfFile

  mkimage -A arm -O linux -T script -C none -n boot_script -d /mnt/boot/fat/boot.cmd /mnt/boot/fat/boot.scr

  
  
• /etc/default/u-boot
  

  cat <<\EndOfFile > /mnt/etc/default/u-boot

  U_BOOT_PARAMETERS="console=tty1 rootwait panic=10 net.ifnames=0 dwc_otg.lpm_enable=0 fsck.repair=yes plymouth.ignore-serial-consoles elevator=deadline cma=32M modprobe.blacklist=vc4"

  EndOfFile

  
  
• /boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf
  (adapt the root entry if necessary)
  

  mkdir -p /mnt/boot/extlinux/

  cat <<EndOfFile > /mnt/boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf

  label linux

  linux /vmlinuz

  initrd /initrd.img

  fdtdir $(realpath /mnt/usr/lib/linux-image-*-arm64 | sed 's|'/mnt'||')/

  append root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 console=tty1 rootwait panic=10 net.ifnames=0 dwc_otg.lpm_enable=0 fsck.repair=yes plymouth.ignore-serial-consoles elevator=deadline cma=32M modprobe.blacklist=vc4

  EndOfFile

  
  
• /etc/fstab
  (adapt the root entry if necessary)

  cat <<\EndOfFile > /mnt/etc/fstab

  # /etc/fstab: static file system information.

  #

  #<file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>

  /dev/mmcblk0p2 / ext4 errors=remount-ro,relatime 0 1

  /dev/mmcblk0p1 /boot/fat vfat errors=remount-ro,relatime 0 2

  tmpfs /tmp tmpfs defaults,auto 0 0

  EndOfFile

  
  
• /etc/network/interfaces

  cat <<\EndOfFile >> /mnt/etc/network/interfaces

  auto lo

  iface lo inet loopback

  allow-hotplug eth0

  iface eth0 inet dhcp

  allow-hotplug wlan0

  allow-hotplug wlan1

  iface wlan0 inet dhcp

  wpa-conf /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

  iface wlan1 inet dhcp

  wpa-conf /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

  EndOfFile

  
  
• /etc/apt/sources.list

  cat <<\EndOfFile > /mnt/etc/apt/sources.list

  deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian testing main contrib non-free

  deb http://security.debian.org/ testing/updates main contrib non-free

  EndOfFile

  
  
• /etc/hostname

  cat <<\EndOfFile > /mnt/etc/hostname

  raspberrypi

  EndOfFile

  
  
• /etc/rc.local

  cat <<\EndOfFile > /mnt/etc/rc.local

  #!/bin/sh

  passwd --quiet --delete root &&

  yes | aptitude install &&

  ( rm -r /debootstrap > /dev/null 2>&1; exit 0; ) &&

  /usr/sbin/u-boot-update &&

  cp /etc/profile /etc/profile.SIC &&

  /bin/echo -e 'dpkg-reconfigure locales keyboard-configuration tzdata console-setup &&\n\nmv /etc/profile.SIC /etc/profile\n' >> /etc/profile &&

  /bin/echo -e '#!/bin/sh\n\nexit 0' > /etc/rc.local

  exit 0

  EndOfFile

  chmod 755 /mnt/etc/rc.local

Completing the installation

• OPTIONAL: Create aliases for "dir"
  This somewhat dirty hack can be used to change the behaviour of the dir command if wanted

  for i in etc/bash.bashrc etc/profile etc/skel/.bashrc etc/skel/.profile root/.bashrc root/.profile; do /bin/echo -e "\nalias dir='ls -ahl --color'\n" >> /mnt/$i; done

  
  
• Unmount the sd-card

  umount /mnt/boot/fat

  umount /mnt

  
  
• Insert the sd-card into the RaspberryPi 3 B+, power it up and hope for the best...
  
  
• After successful booting and logging in as root set the root password and create a regular user account

  passwd root

  adduser pi

  adduser pi sudo

  
  
• Setup your wifi account
  Substitute ${ssid} and ${passphrase} for the real values in your network

  wpa_passphrase ${ssid} ${passphrase} > /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

  
  
• After everything including network is working, consider to install a graphical desktop...

  aptitude update

  aptitude full-upgrade

  aptitude install task-lxde-desktop

References

https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware/tree/master/boot

https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/74896/u-boot-for-raspberry-pi-3

https://elinux.org/RPi_U-Boot#Copy_U-Boot_to_your_SD_card

https://blog.christophersmart.com/2016/10/27/building-and-booting-upstream-linux-and-u-boot-for-raspberry-pi-23-arm-boards/

https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/configuration/config-txt/README.md

https://wiki.debian.org/Arm64Port#Unofficial_Debian-ports_bootstrap

https://github.com/Debian/raspi3-image-spec/issues/12

https://code.overdrivenetworks.com/blog/2018/07/debian-buster-on-a-raspberry-pi-3-model-b-plus/

http://sunxi.org/Bootable_SD_card#Cleaning

https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Allwinner

http://wiki.lemaker.org/BananaPro/Pi:Setting_up_the_Linux_distribution_root_file_system

http://linux-sunxi.org/Mainline_Debian_HowTo#Setting_up_the_SD-card

http://linux-sunxi.org/Mainline_U-Boot