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NixOS on ARM/Radxa ROCK 5 ITX

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Radxa ROCK 5 ITX
Radxa R SBC
Manufacturer Radxa
Architecture AArch64
Bootloader Vendor BSP
Boot order SPI NOR Flash, eMMC, SD

The Radxa ROCK 5 ITX is a Single-Board Computer with a Rockchip RK3588 SoC.

  • CPU: ARM Cortex-A76 and Cortex-A55
  • GPU: Mali-G610MC4
  • RAM: 4GB/8GB/16GB/32GB LPDDR5
  • MMC: eMMC Connector
  • Storage: 4x SATA Ports with Power Header
  • NET: 2x 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet
  • USB: 1x USB3.0 Type-C, 4x USB 3.0 Type-A, 2x USB 2.0 Type-A, 2x USB 2.0 Interface via Front USB header
  • PCIe: M.2 Key M connector with PCIe 3.0 x2

Status

Support of this system is YMMV (your mileage may vary), and depends on vendor-provided BSP (Board Support Package) based components.

Two kinds of bootloaders are available in different variants:

The official hardware documentation can be found on the Radxa website.

Hardware status

  • Video output is not supported by mainline kernel 6.12 or older when the device tree is loaded. USB to TTL serial cable is recommended for debugging purposes.

Bootloader Firmware

Community UEFI Firmware

The best available bootloader is EDK2 UEFI firmware for Rockchip RK3588 platforms. The v0.11.2 release is confirmed working.

In order to flash this bootloader we'll need to download two files:

Then use the rkdeveloptool tool in as described in SPI flashing documentation:

 > nix-shell -p rkdeveloptool

[nix-shell:~/rk3588]$ sudo rkdeveloptool db rk3588_spl_loader_v1.15.113.bin
Downloading bootloader succeeded.

[nix-shell:~/rk3588]$ sudo rkdeveloptool wl 0 rock-5itx_UEFI_Release_v0.11.2.img
Write LBA from file (100%)

[nix-shell:~/rk3588]$ sudo rkdeveloptool rd

Now the device has a graphical bootloader available when pressing Escape at boot time:

System configuration

Installer ISO

A custom installer ISO is required to get video output for installation.

configuration.nix on x86 system:

boot.binfmt.emulatedSystems = [ "aarch64-linux" ];

iso.nix:

{ pkgs, modulesPath, lib, ... }: {
  imports = [
    "${modulesPath}/installer/cd-dvd/installation-cd-minimal.nix"
  ];

  # use the latest Linux kernel
  boot.kernelPackages = pkgs.linuxPackages_latest;

  boot.initrd.kernelModules = [
    # Rockchip modules
    "rockchip_rga"
    "rockchip_saradc"
    "rockchip_thermal"
    "rockchipdrm"

    # GPU/Display modules
    "analogix_dp"
    "cec"
    "drm"
    "drm_kms_helper"
    "dw_hdmi"
    "dw_mipi_dsi"
    "gpu_sched"
    "panel_edp"
    "panel_simple"
    "panfrost"
    "pwm_bl"

    # USB / Type-C related modules
    "fusb302"
    "tcpm"
    "typec"

    # Misc. modules
    "cw2015_battery"
    "gpio_charger"
    "rtc_rk808"
  ];

  # kernelParams copy from Armbian's /boot/armbianEnv.txt & /boot/boot.cmd
  boot.kernelParams = [
    "rootwait"

    "earlycon" # enable early console, so we can see the boot messages via serial port / HDMI
    "consoleblank=0" # disable console blanking(screen saver)
    "console=ttyS2,1500000" # serial port
    "console=tty1" # HDMI
  ];

  # Needed for https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/58959
  boot.supportedFilesystems = lib.mkForce [ "btrfs" "reiserfs" "vfat" "f2fs" "xfs" "ntfs" "cifs" ];
}

Generate ISO:

nix-shell -p nixos-generators --run "nixos-generate --format iso --system aarch64-linux --configuration ./iso.nix -o result"

EDK2 settings

Enable Custom Device Tree mode by going to the configuration menu -> ACPI / Device Tree and setting Support DTB override & overlays to Enabled.

configuration.nix

# Rock 5 ITX requires 6.12 or newer kernel
boot.kernelPackages = pkgs.linuxPackages_latest;
# Generate device tree into EFI partition
boot.loader.systemd-boot.extraFiles.${config.hardware.deviceTree.name} = "${config.hardware.deviceTree.package}/${config.hardware.deviceTree.name}";
hardware.deviceTree.enable = true;
hardware.deviceTree.name = "rockchip/rk3588-rock-5-itx.dtb";
hardware.deviceTree.filter = "*-rock-5-itx*.dtb";
boot.kernelParams = [ "dtb=/${config.hardware.deviceTree.name}" ];
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