[Arm-netbook] Side-Topic: Liberating PocketCHIP

[Pablo Rath]

On Fri, Jul 07, 2017 at 06:19:29PM -0400, David Niklas wrote:
> On Thu, 6 Jul 2017 13:21:56 +0200
> 
> Actually, my PC has a kernel fault 

It took me a moment to guess that you abbreviate PocketChip as "PC". My
mind went like: "What? Why is he talking about his Personal Computer
now?" :)

> (It's a long story of ntc's evil
> doing), 

Why do you believe that ntc is evil?

> 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.

I don't understand the paragraph above. Do you talk about mainline linux
kernel, ntc's kernel fork for Chip, ... Can you please clarify?

> > > 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.

How can you be sure it is a kernel bug and not another problem? Can you
give us some details. Did you ask on ntc's user forum or did you file a bug report
Can't you improve you backup strategy - for example commit to an
external git repo; or synchronize with another stable working computer?

> 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.

1. Well, you can take your Chip out of the housing and install the distro
of you choice on a USB-stick and use it as a regular Chip.

2. Can you get PocketChip into fel-mode without taking it out of the
enclosure? Ntc's documentation claims it is not possible but there is a
forum thread about a reboot option into fel-mode. I have no PoketChip
and leave it up to you to research the answers to this questions.

Another point is if the distro of you choice on a USB-stick will support
PocketChips hardware (e.g. Keyboard, LCD-Screen) out of the box. Do you
have a serial-to-usb-cable to interact with PocketChip?

kind regards
Pablo