+++ title = "Running NixOS on a NanoPi R5S" date = 2023-07-30T08:51:46Z [taxonomies] tags = ["NixOS", "home-networking", "infrastructure"] +++ I managed to get [NixOS](https://nixos.org) running on my [NanoPi R5S](https://www.friendlyelec.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=287) ([FriendlyElec Wiki](https://wiki.friendlyelec.com/wiki/index.php/NanoPi_R5S)). Firstly, I flashed a pre-built stock Debian image from [inindev](https://github.com/inindev/nanopi-r5) to an SD card. This can be used as a rescue system later on. From that SD card, I then flashed the same system onto the internal <abbr title="embedded MultiMediaCard">eMMC</abbr> Storage. I only really needed to this to ensure UBoot was correctly installed; I think there will be an easier way to do it. I had nix already installed on the <abbr title="Non-Volatile Memory Express">NVMe</abbr> <abbr title="Solid-State Drive">SSD</abbr> along with a home directory. I bind-mounted `/nix` and `/home` following the fstab I had previously set up: ```conf UUID=replaceme /mnt ext4 relatime,lazytime 0 2 /mnt/nix /nix none defaults,bind 0 0 /mnt/srv /srv none defaults,bind 0 0 /mnt/home /home none defaults,bind 0 0 ``` I then created a user for myself using that home directory, I had full access to nix in the new Debian environment. This meant I had access to `nixos-install`. I wanted to use the [extlinux support in UBoot](https://u-boot.readthedocs.io/en/latest/develop/distro.html#boot-configuration-files), so I made `/mnt/boot` point to `/boot` on the <abbr>eMMC</abbr>: ```sh mkdir /mnt/{emmc,boot} mount LABEL=rootfs /mnt/emmc mount --bind /mnt/emmc /mnt/boot ``` <aside> One could <em>probably</em> delete everything else on the <abbr>eMMC</abbr> and move the contents of <code>/mnt/emmc/boot</code> to <code>/mnt/emmc</code>, thus obviating the need to bind-mount <code>/boot</code> </aside> I ran `nixos-generate-config` as usual, which set up the mount points in `hardware-configuration.nix` correctly. `configuration.nix` needed a bit of tweaking. My first booting configuration was something like this, mostly borrowed from [Artem Boldariev's comment](https://github.com/inindev/nanopi-r5/issues/11#issue-1789308883): ```nix { config , pkgs , lib , ... }: let fsTypes = [ "f2fs" "ext" "exfat" "vfat" ]; in { imports = [ ./hardware-configuration.nix ]; boot = { kernelPackages = pkgs.linuxKernel.packages.linux_6_4; # partial Rockchip related changes from Debian 12 kernel version 6.1 # Also, see here: # https://discourse.nixos.org/t/how-to-provide-missing-headers-to-a-kernel-build/11422/3 kernelPatches = [ { name = "rockchip-config.patch"; patch = null; extraConfig = '' PHY_ROCKCHIP_PCIE Y PCIE_ROCKCHIP_EP y PCIE_ROCKCHIP_DW_HOST y ROCKCHIP_VOP2 y ''; } { name = "status-leds.patch"; patch = null; # old: # LEDS_TRIGGER_NETDEV y extraConfig = '' LED_TRIGGER_PHY y USB_LED_TRIG y LEDS_BRIGHTNESS_HW_CHANGED y LEDS_TRIGGER_MTD y ''; } ]; supportedFilesystems = fsTypes; initrd.supportedFilesystems = fsTypes; initrd.availableKernelModules = [ ## Rockchip ## Storage "sdhci_of_dwcmshc" "dw_mmc_rockchip" "analogix_dp" "io-domain" "rockchip_saradc" "rockchip_thermal" "rockchipdrm" "rockchip-rga" "pcie_rockchip_host" "phy-rockchip-pcie" "phy_rockchip_snps_pcie3" "phy_rockchip_naneng_combphy" "phy_rockchip_inno_usb2" "dwmac_rk" "dw_wdt" "dw_hdmi" "dw_hdmi_cec" "dw_hdmi_i2s_audio" "dw_mipi_dsi" ]; loader = { timeout = 3; grub.enable = false; generic-extlinux-compatible = { enable = true; useGenerationDeviceTree = true; }; }; }; # this file is from debian and should be in /boot/ hardware.deviceTree.name = "../../rk3568-nanopi-r5s.dtb"; # Most Rockchip CPUs (especially with hybrid cores) work best with "schedutil" powerManagement.cpuFreqGovernor = "schedutil"; boot.kernelParams = [ "console=tty1" "console=ttyS2,1500000" "earlycon=uart8250,mmio32,0xfe660000" ]; # Let's blacklist the Rockchips RTC module so that the # battery-powered HYM8563 (rtc_hym8563 kernel module) will be used # by default boot.blacklistedKernelModules = [ "rtc_rk808" ]; # ... typical config omitted for brevity } ``` Due to the custom kernel configuration, building takes a while. I set up a [distributed build](https://nixos.org/manual/nix/stable/advanced-topics/distributed-builds.html) to speed things up, using a [Hetzner Cloud](https://www.hetzner.com/cloud) CAX21 ARM64 instance (although I could have used an x86_64 system with one of the methods mentioned on the [NixOS on ARM NixOS wiki page](https://nixos.wiki/wiki/NixOS_on_ARM#Build_your_own_image_natively)). This made for a very long `nixos-install` command line: ```sh sudo env PATH=$PATH =nixos-install --root /mnt --no-channel-copy --channel https://nixos.org/channels/nixos-23.05 --option builders'ssh://my-host aarch64-linux /root/.ssh/id_pappel_nixpkgs 4 2 big-parallel' --option builders-use-substitutes true --max-jobs 0 ``` I added `setenv bootmeths "extlinux"` to `/boot/boot.txt` and ran `/boot/mkscr.sh` as root to ensure that UBoot would search for the `extlinux.conf` file