[Arm-netbook] Side-Topic: Liberating PocketCHIP

[David Niklas]

On Thu, 6 Jul 2017 13:21:56 +0200
pablo at parobalth.org wrote:

> This is a quite late reply to some Emails on this list from May. I took
> some time to research and test. 
> John, do you still work on liberating Pocketchip?
> 
> Good news is that I managed to install Debian
> Stretch (current stable) with Debian Installer on a USB-stick. The CHIP
> OS based on Debian by NextThing is completely left alone.
> I plan to write a tutorial to document my approach and will put it on
> the Debian Wiki.

Please pass us a link when you do so.

<snip>
> On Sat, May 13, 2017 at 01:13:39AM -0400, John Luke Gibson wrote:
> > I'm still wrapping my head around these make scripts to make sure
> > nothing proprietary is hidden anywhere they don't theoretically need
> > to be.
> > Probably a good idea to use mainline libre-linux, but first want to
> > make a diff file comparing their fork with libre to make sure their
> > aren't any drivers which are libre that we might need (or any
> > bug-fixes). 
> 
> There is a deblob script used by Parabola Linux to liberate a mainline
> kernel. It is used to create a libre-linux kernel from mainline.
> 

Actually, my PC has a kernel fault (It's a long story of ntc's evil
doing), and the Linux kernel claims that it is not tainted.
I don't know if that covers firmware, but at least there are no modules
that are non-free.

> > Best bet is to use libre-linux mainline and besides that just attempt
> > to deblob ntc's components by hand, which shouldn't be a problem long
> > term cause it doesn't look like they maintain any of this stuff at all
> > anyway and it's very likely the only blobs are in the kernel anyway
> > however not a sure one.
> 
> I ditched all the custom NTC stuff and went for vanilla Debian. I have
> managed to install Debian Stretch (current Stable) on a USB stick using
> Debian Installer. I am using a self-compiled mainline U-Boot via
> sunxi-fel to circumvent the U-Boot version on NAND provided by the
> manufacturer which can not boot from USB.
<snip>

I've found two faults that cannot be traced without a postmortem and I'm
really sick of accidentally causing this thing to manifest said problems
and then loosing all the work that I did in between my backup periods.
I'm in need of a way to boot PC without flashing the NAND I there a way
to do this? So far my search results have been unsuccessful.

Thanks,
David