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+++
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 = {
kernelParams = [ "console=tty0" ];
# 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;
};
};
};
# 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
|