Pine64 A64 LTS

This material is work-in-progress ... It doesn't boot yet (Last edited by Craftyguy on 7 May 2021.)

Since the 3.10.0 release, Alpine Linux includes u-boot support for the Pine64 A64LTS. Since the 3.11.0 release, Alpine Linux includes a kernel that is new enough to boot it. This page describes how to install the system.

The generic (u-boot) ARM image should be used. Make sure your sdcard is empty before you install Alpine Linux, as all it's contents will be removed!

1. download the "Generic ARM" aarch64 image and unpack it somewhere
2. write u-boot to the sdcard cd <unpacked folder>/u-boot/pine64-lts && dd if=u-boot-sunxi-with-spl.bin of=/path/to/sdcard bs=1024 seek=8
3. create a new partition on the sdcard starting from sector 2048, set it as bootable
4. format it to ext4 (or any other filesystem that u-boot supports booting from)
5. decompress (gunzip)the kernel image (boot/vmlinuz-lts) as the device's u-boot can't boot from a compressed kernel
6. copy over the apks, boot and extlinux folders from the extracted archive to the new partition

Alpine Linux should now boot on your device.