linux-aarch64-flippy-cross-bin

A middle ground between linux-aarch64-flippy and linux-aarch64-flippy-bin, different from non-bin where you have to build the kernel and package it on an AArch64 host, and different from -bin where you have no freedom on deciding the kernel configs

You'll need to build the kernel and package the built binaries to archives on a powerful x86 host, and re-pack them to AArch64 packages on a normal AArch64 host.

Preparation on x86-64

1. Install cross-compile tools

   sudo pacman -Syu base-devel aarch64-linux-gnu-gcc
   

2. Create a folder and populate with build script and config file. Only files in the builder folder in the repo is useful for x86-64.
   • Just clone the project and get into linux-aarch64-flippy-cross-bin/builder if you don't need a clean folder structure. Otherwise, clean it up a little bit as how you like it.

     PROJECT=linux-aarch64-flippy-cross-bin
     git clone https://github.com/7Ji/${PROJECT}
     cd ${PROJECT}/builder
     unset PROJECT
     

3. Download flippy's kernel source
   • Either the latest source

     wget https://github.com/unifreq/linux-6.0.y/archive/refs/heads/main.tar.gz -O source.tar.gz
     

     Replace linux-6.0.y with other repos if you want to use older kernels instead
   • Or if you want a specific commit

     wget https://github.com/unifreq/linux-6.0.y/archive/ffada480851de173cb57188cee9447596051e014.tar.gz -O source.tar.gz
     

     Replace linux-6.0.y and commit with other repos and corresponding commit if you want to use older kernel/commit instead
   • Or if you want to use a kernel source from kernel.org

     wget https://git.kernel.org/torvalds/t/linux-6.2-rc1.tar.gz -O source.tar.gz
     

One-command build on x86-64

You could just run the script to unpack, build and re-pack in one go:

./builder.sh all

After this, you will get kernel.tar.gz, dtbs.tar.gz and headers.tar.gz in the current folder, download & upload them to your AArch64 device

Exact build on x86-64

The build could also be done in a few splitted steps if you want to go deep, so you could adjust some settings here and there, especially useful when debugging things

1. Unpack the source archive

   ./builder.sh unpack
   

2. Setting up the cross-compile environment

   . builder.sh setup
   

   (note it's ., not ./, the script must be included as part of the current Bash session so the environment could be effective)
3. Prepare the configuration and version info

   ./builder.sh prepare
   

4. Optionally, if you want to adjust the kernel settings, do it now

   cd builddir
   make nconfig
   cd ..
   

   (If you prefer menuconfig, you could always do it that way)
5. Actually build the kernel

   ./builder.sh build
   

6. Pack stuffs into archives

   ./builder.sh package
   

After this, you will get kernel.tar.gz, dtbs.tar.gz and headers.tar.gz in the current folder, download & upload them to your AArch64 device

Preparation on AArch64

1. Install the base development tools

   sudo pacman -Syu base-devel
   

2. Create a folder and populate with essential package metainfos. Only files in the packager folder in the repo is useful for AArch64.
   • Just clone the project and get into linux-aarch64-flippy-cross-bin/packager if you don't need a clean folder structure. Otherwise, clean it up a little bit as how you like it.

     PROJECT=linux-aarch64-flippy-cross-bin
     git clone https://github.com/7Ji/${PROJECT}
     cd ${PROJECT}/packager
     unset PROJECT
     

Re-pack on AArch64

1. Make sure you've transferred kernel.tar.gz, dtbs.tar.gz and headers.tar.gz from the x86-64 build host to the packager, the current work folder should contain the following files:
   • dtbs.tar.gz
   • headers.tar.gz
   • kernel.tar.gz
   • PKGBUILD
2. Just re-pack

   makepkg
   

3. Optionally install the packages and test them

   sudo pacman -U linux-aarch64-flippy-cross-bin-6.0.15-1-aarch64.pkg.tar.xz linux-aarch64-flippy-cross-bin-dtb-amlogic-6.0.15-1-aarch64.pkg.tar.xz linux-aarch64-flippy-headers-6.0.15-1-aarch64.pkg.tar.xz