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alpine on LicheeRV Nano

System Version

Not specified

Status

basic

Last Update

2024-12-14

Alpine Linux LicheeRV Nano Test Report

Test Environment

Operating System Information

Hardware Information

  • LicheeRV Nano
  • A USB-A to C or USB-C to C cable
  • A microSD card
  • A microSD card reader
  • A USB to UART debugger (e.g., CH340, CH341, FT2232, etc.)

Installation Steps

Download Alpine minirootfs and Buildroot image

wget https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.20/releases/riscv64/alpine-minirootfs-3.20.3-riscv64.tar.gz
tar -xvf alpine-minirootfs-3.20.3-riscv64.tar.gz --one-top-level
wget https://github.com/sipeed/LicheeRV-Nano-Build/releases/download/20241129/2024-11-29-11-46-540e94.img.xz
xz -d 2024-11-29-11-46-540e94.img.xz

Prepare rootfs

Note that the obtained Alpine system is only a “minirootfs” without system packages such as OpenRC. We need to install Alpine’s base packages using apk inside the rootfs in order to make it bootable.

Install Alpine’s package manager apk

Skip this step if using Alpine-based distributions on host. Otherwise install apk-tools on your distribution (e.g. on Arch Linux: sudo pacman -S apk-tools).

run apk --help to verify installation.

Install Alpine’s base package alpine-base inside minirootfs

(chroot is NOT required)

cd alpine-minirootfs-3.20.3-riscv64
sudo apk add -p . --initdb -U --arch riscv64 --allow-untrusted alpine-base

Extra setups

  1. Edit ./etc/inittab and add the following line (or uncomment) to enable serial access on /dev/ttyS0:

    ttyS0::respawn:/sbin/getty -L 115200 ttyS0 vt100

    And comment out the six lines starting with tty1 - tty6.

  2. Edit ./etc/passwd:

    Remove the x in root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/sh.

    (Alternatively, edit /etc/shadow and remove the * in root:*::0:::::).

  3. Enable the OpenRC hostname service (for setting up the hostname correctly)：

    ln -s ./etc/init.d/hostname ./etc/runlevels/boot

    You may enable other OpenRC system services of interest likewise.

Flash Buildroot image

cd ..
sudo dd if=2024-11-29-11-46-540e94.img of=/dev/your/device bs=4M status=progress

Your device should now be able to detect the rootfs and boot partitions on the SD card. Mount only the rootfs partition.

Replace root on SD card with Alpine rootfs

rm -rf /path/to/your/mnt/root/*
cp -r /path/to/your/alpine-minirootfs-3.20.3-riscv64/* /path/to/your/mnt/root/

Booting and Logging into the System

Insert SD card onto the board and boot. Login into the system via serial port at /dev/ttyUSB0, baudrate 115200.

Default username: root Default password: none

Optional post-installation setups

Setup the password and hostname with passwd and hostname after login.

Setup the system time with date -s, then install cronyd:

apk add cronyd
rc-update add chronyd default

It is recommended to enable the following system OpenRC services (though test results show that the system will still be able to boot nevertheless):

rc-update add bootmisc boot
rc-update add networking boot # make sure /etc/network/interfaces is present
rc-update add devfs sysinit
rc-update add mdev sysinit
rc-update add acpid default
rc-update add killprocs shutdown
rc-update add mount-ro shutdown
rc-update add savecache shutdown

Expected Results

The system should boot normally and allow login through the onboard serial port.

Actual Results

The system booted successfully, and login through the onboard serial port was also successful.

Boot Log

   OpenRC 0.54 is starting up Linux 5.10.4-tag- (riscv64)

 * /proc is already mounted
 * Mounting /run ... [ ok ]
 * /run/openrc: creating directory
 * /run/lock: creating directory
 * /run/lock: correcting owner
 * Caching service dependencies ... [ ok ]
 * Clock skew detected with `/etc/init.d'
 * Adjusting mtime of `/run/openrc/deptree' to Fri Dec 13 15:13:15 2024

 * WARNING: clock skew detected!
 * WARNING: clock skew detected!
 * Setting hostname ... [ ok ]
 * WARNING: clock skew detected!

Welcome to Alpine Linux 3.20
Kernel 5.10.4-tag- on an riscv64 (/dev/ttyS0)

localhost login: root
Welcome to Alpine!

The Alpine Wiki contains a large amount of how-to guides and general
information about administrating Alpine systems.
See <https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/>.

You can setup the system with the command: setup-alpine

You may change this message by editing /etc/motd.

login[287]: root login on 'ttyS0'
localhost:~# uname -a
Linux localhost 5.10.4-tag- #14 PREEMPT Fri Nov 29 11:40:35 CST 2024 riscv64 Linux
localhost:~# cat /etc/os-release
NAME="Alpine Linux"
ID=alpine
VERSION_ID=3.20.3
PRETTY_NAME="Alpine Linux v3.20"
HOME_URL="https://alpinelinux.org/"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://gitlab.alpinelinux.org/alpine/aports/-/issues"
localhost:~# free -h
              total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:         128.0M       10.2M      112.4M       32.0K        5.3M      113.0M
Swap:             0           0           0
localhost:~#

Test Criteria

Successful: The actual result matches the expected result.

Failed: The actual result does not match the expected result.

Test Conclusion

Test successful.

Source: Support Matrix