Installing ubuntu or another linux on the android version of the nio 12l

#1

hello,

i ordered the ubuntu version of the nio 12l from arace and they sent me the android version instead (still in discussion with arace about that) - my question would be: is it possible to install ubuntu or some other regular linux on it?

  • documentation and files seem to still be quite rare
  • checking the strings in the boot blocks seem to bringup efi support in them, so it might be possible to boot some generic arm64 efi image with the installedboot blocks maybe?
  • i also found some ubuntu download for the genio 1200 evk, but i’m not sure if the nio 12l is close enough so that that can be flashed onto it as well and i would prefer to avoid roasting my 12l just because some power rails are different :slight_smile:

any pointers to documentation or downloads to get some linux booted on this device as well as kernel source repos etc. for it would be very welcome

a lot of thanks in advance and best wishes - hexdump

#2

as there seems to be no response from radxa, i’ll put my findings so far here in case someone else is looking into the same topic right now:

some interesting links i found (more links in followup posts due to new user link post restrictions) - important: they are mostly for the genio-1200-edk (and not the radxa nio 12l) and for ubuntu for the genio-1200-edk and as such most proabably/maybe not directly applying to the nio 12l, but they can be helpful to understand how the general genio bootflow etc. is:

some findings:

  • the latest edk bootloader (u-boot v22.10 = fip.bin) seems to be able to boot fit images (for the yocto image) and ebbr uefi aarch64 (then on via grub for the ubuntu image)
  • the nio 12l u-boot can boot fit images too (as it is the default for the yocto image) but maybe cannot boot ebbr uefi (much less efi strings in the fip-bin), booting fit images would not be perfect, but at least an option if nothing else works
  • the u-boot seems to have sysboot/extlinux.conf code in it, so maybe that might work as well, but it could also be broken in this legacy u-boot (might be worth a try anyway)
  • the edk seems to have emmc storage while the nio 12l has ufs, both can be flashed via download mode via the genio-tools

in theory so far i think it should be possible to bootstrap some debian (or similar) with the files provided by the nio 12l yocto image (bootloader files, dtb etc.) and the ubuntu edk image (maybe kernel for initial tests) but i’ll have to do some more research before actually trying it.

question to radxa: is there a plan to provide an ebbr ready bootloader for the nio 12l?

thats it so far - best wishes - hexdump

#3

links continued:

#4

links continued:

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#5

Thanks for the details.

Last night I was looking for some images to boot on the board to see if the board is working as I just recieved it.

Same I didn’t find any image which I can flash directly using dd or balena etcher.

I will try the uboot image provided on ubuntu page and see if that can power on the board.

#6

Here’s some resources:
Yocto builder for Nio12L: https://gitlab.com/mediatek-iot-yocto/docs/-/blob/main/README.md?ref_type=heads

The HW enablement kernel from Ubuntu: https://mediatek.gitlab.io/genio/doc/ubuntu/customization/customize-kernel.html

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#7

I found the download link: https://dl.radxa.com/nio12l/images/ubuntu/

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