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.
On Sat, May 13, 2017 at 01:13:39AM -0400, John Luke Gibson wrote:
On 5/12/17, Louis Pearson desttinghimgame@gmail.com wrote:
I don't know if you know about this or not, but there is a community wiki at http://www.chip-community.org/index.php/Main_Page It has examples on using buildroot to flash images to chip http://www.chip-community.org/index.php/Flashing_Buildroot_Image_from_Ubuntu
I knew about the community wiki. In my opinion Chip has a great, friendly and helpful community. I am not going to blame the community - especially because I have not yet found the time to contribute to the community wiki. My critique was directed at the manufacturer NextThing Co.
John mentioned that he will have a look at the kernel first and later at U-boot. I have found some additional documents. To replace the existing kernel there is no need to reflash. A very good tutorial can be found here: http://www.raspibo.org/wiki/index.php/Compile_the_Linux_kernel_for_Chip:_my_...
...and also a way to test a new kernel in a save way. Keep your USB-to-serial-cable ready in case things go wrong: http://www.raspibo.org/wiki/index.php/Chip9%24_U-Boot:_how_to_test_a_new_ker...
Found the wiki up there through some searching. This is my first foray into working with embedded linux devices as well.
I knew about the wiki, then again I believe someone else was asking about one earlier.
Yes, it was me.
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.
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. I had some problems to boot the rootfs after completing installation and solved it with help from the debian-arm mailing list (see this thread for additional information: https://lists.debian.org/debian-arm/2017/06/msg00027.html) I am only using Debians main repos and connect to the Internet via USB-OTG with the g_ether kernel module and a network bridge on my desktop. This is libre enough for me. I am running Chip headless via ssh and have not tested video and sound yet. There may be some hidden quirks I am not yet aware of but so far it looks good.
kind regards Pablo