On Thu, 6 Jul 2017 13:21:56 +0200 pablo@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.
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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.
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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