Guide on how to install Arch Linux ARM on SD card for your Orange Pi PC board

Orange Pi PC and Arch Linux ARM.md

Orange Pi PC & Arch Linux ARM: installation guide

This guide is based on multiple guides as well as official instructions for the other boards found on the Internet:

1. https://github.com/RoEdAl/alarm-uboot-sunxi-armv7
2. https://uthings.uniud.it/building-mainline-u-boot-and-linux-kernel-for-orange-pi-boards
3. https://archlinuxarm.org/platforms/armv7/allwinner/pcduino3

I have gone through all these steps recently and got a working board with my favorite Arch Linux ARM. I hope it will be helpful for someone else.

SD card

Replace sdX with the device name for your SD card. Zero the beginning of the SD card:

sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdX bs=1M count=8

Run fdisk to partition the SD card:

sudo fdisk /dev/sdX

At the fdisk prompt, delete old partitions and create a new one:

1. Type o. This will clear out any partitions on the drive.
2. Type p to list partitions. There should be no partitions left.
3. Now type n, then p for primary, 1 for the first partition on the drive, 2048 for the first sector, and then press ENTER to accept the default last sector.
4. Write the partition table and exit by typing w.

Create the ext4 filesystem:

sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdX1

Mount the filesystem:

sudo mount /dev/sdX1 /mnt

Root filesystem

Download and extract the root filesystem:

wget http://os.archlinuxarm.org/os/ArchLinuxARM-armv7-latest.tar.gz
sudo bsdtar -xpf ArchLinuxARM-armv7-latest.tar.gz -C /mnt
sync

Boot script

Install uboot-tools. In ArchLinux:

sudo pacman -S uboot-tools

Create boot.txt file in /boot dir.

cd /mnt/boot
nano boot.txt

Paste the following contents into it:

if test -n ${distro_bootpart}; then setenv bootpart ${distro_bootpart}; else setenv bootpart 1; fi
part uuid ${devtype} ${devnum}:${bootpart} uuid
setenv bootargs console=${console} root=PARTUUID=${uuid} rw rootwait

if load ${devtype} ${devnum}:${bootpart} ${kernel_addr_r} /boot/zImage; then
  if load ${devtype} ${devnum}:${bootpart} ${fdt_addr_r} /boot/dtbs/${fdtfile}; then
    if load ${devtype} ${devnum}:${bootpart} ${ramdisk_addr_r} /boot/initramfs-linux.img; then
      bootz ${kernel_addr_r} ${ramdisk_addr_r}:${filesize} ${fdt_addr_r};
    else
      bootz ${kernel_addr_r} - ${fdt_addr_r};
    fi;
  fi;
fi

Now create the boot script boot.scr:

sudo mkimage -A arm -O linux -T script -C none -n "U-Boot boot script" -d boot.txt boot.scr

Unmount your SD card:

sudo umount /mnt
cd /tmp

U-Boot

Clone U-Boot repo and checkout the latest tag (or the one you need):

git clone --depth 1 --branch v2023.04  https://github.com/u-boot/u-boot
cd u-boot

Install the cross compiler for ARM EABI (in Arch Linux):

sudo pacman -S arm-none-eabi-gcc

Compile bootloader (you need to have setuptools Python package to be installed):

export CROSS_COMPILE=arm-none-eabi-
export ARCH=arm
make distclean
make orangepi_pc_defconfig
make

Flash it to the device:

sudo dd if=u-boot-sunxi-with-spl.bin of=/dev/sdX bs=1024 seek=8

Booting

Insert the micro SD card into Orange Pi PC, connect Ethernet, and apply 5V power. Use the serial console or SSH to the IP address given to the board by your router. Login as the default user alarm with the password alarm. The default root password is root. Initialize the pacman keyring and populate the Arch Linux ARM package signing keys:

su
# Type in the password: root (by default)
pacman-key --init
pacman-key --populate archlinuxarm

And so on and so forth:

pacman -S sudo
visudo

Its work!!! How write this on EMMC ?

Try to decipher this official migration script nand-sata-install. The functions you're interested in are format_emmc and create_orangepi.
Or just do dd if=/dev/mmcblk1 of=/dev/mmcblk2 bs=512 count=12582912 to dump the whole SD card to EMMC. Just don't forget to use your drive size in count. I just did it and it works. Forget about official Orange manuals.

UPD: I just found out out that this guide is for Orange Pi PC, not PC Plus! The title confused me (it has "+"), and I believe you were confused too! The thing is, the only difference between PC and PC Plus is the existence of onboard EMMC. Here we compile u-boot specifically for PC version. All you need to do is to compile it for PC Plus instead:
make orangepi_pc_plus_defconfig
Fun note is that if you compare configs for PC and PC Plus, it will only have one new line - the one that mentions EMMC!

it is not needed to compile a kernel? or exists in arch linux already a working kernel for orange pi pc?

@insanie Removed "+" from the title. Thank you for pointing this out.

@BlackMage2 No, you do not need to compile a kernel. Just follow the steps of this guide.