Deviceinfo reference
Most of the variables in deviceinfo
have self-explanatory names and are used both when you are building postmarketOS (edit at .local/var/pmbootstrap/cache_git/pmaports/device/your_device_name/deviceinfo
before flashing, and during runtime it is available at /etc/deviceinfo
). if edited before flashing, be sure to rebuild the file with pmbootstrap install
All variables start with deviceinfo_
in the file - this is omitted here to save space.
Case sensitivity
The values of the deviceinfo variables are case sensitive. Most values are lowercase, but there are exceptions such as flash_heimdall_partition_kernel
. See the "possible values" column for the right casing. For example, if it says true
then using True
or TRUE
or tRuE
is not valid.
device
Variable | Description | Possibles values |
---|---|---|
format_version
|
Used to distinguish between different versions of this file. | 0
|
name
|
Device model | e.g. Nokia N900
|
manufacturer
|
Device manufacturer | e.g. Nokia
|
codename
|
Device codename | e.g. nokia-n900
|
uboot_boardname
|
Files for each u-boot board are placed under (/usr/share/u-boot/$uboot_boardname in alpine) directory, if u-boot port for device exists. Maybe obtained from board_configs var after : delimiter. A defconfig file exists for each board in u-boot repository in configs/${uboot_boardname}_defconfig file
|
e.g. pine64-lts
|
year
|
Release year of the device | e.g. 2012
|
chassis
|
The computer case of your device ( | e.g. handset for phones, watch (all values)
|
dtb
|
Name of the device tree blob file (only used on mainline kernels or devices with a header version of 2). See the option append_dtb on how this is used.
|
e.g. allwinner/sun50i-a64-pine64-lts or qcom-msm8974-lge-nexus5-hammerhead
|
append_dtb
|
Set to true if the dtb should be appended to the Linux kernel image, if set to false the dtb will be copied to the /boot partition instead. (
|
true , false
|
external_storage
|
Does the device have an sdcard or other external storage medium? | true , false
|
flash_method
|
Method used to flash the device (more info) | |
arch
|
Device architecture, must be supported by Alpine Linux | armhf , armv7 , aarch64 , x86 , x86_64
|
dev_internal_storage
|
Path to the internal storage (eMMC) (currently only used by the on-device installer). Only set this if you will use it. ( | e.g. /dev/vdb
|
dev_internal_storage_repartition
|
Allow the internal storage to be repartitioned by postmarketOS in the on-device installer. This makes it possible to install from SD card to eMMC (
This is dangerous and should not be enabled for Android devices! For Android devices, we never change the partition table, because the bootloader expects the boot.img to be at a specific partition and changing the partition scheme would likely result in the original OS not being usable anymore. |
true , false
|
dev_touchscreen
|
Path to the touchscreen device (only necessary if not automatically detected, more info) | e.g. /dev/input/event3
|
dev_touchscreen_calibration
|
Touchscreen calibration values (only necessary for devices with resistive touchscreen, more info) | e.g. 1.094563 -0.020949 -34.586121 0.009427 -1.148506 503.816956
|
keymaps
|
Lists keymap options that are available for this device, this will be shown as options in the pmbootstrap init command, this will be passed to Alpine's setup-keymap command | us/rx51_us ch/rx51_ch it/rx51_it
|
swap_size_recommended
|
Set recommended swap file size for device. If unset, no swap file will be created for the device. | Integer, in MB. |
zram_swap_pct
|
The size of the ZRAM swap is based on a percentage of the device's RAM, this allows overriding the default percentage to use in the calculation. If set to 0, ZRAM swap is disabled for the device. | Integer, between 0 and 100. See /etc/conf.d/zram-init from postmarketos-base for default values.
|
tmp_as_tmpfs_size
|
The size at which /tmp will be mounted from memory as tmpfs. If set to 0, no mounting will happen.
|
This value is passed directly to the tmpfs size= param, e.g., 50% and 2g . See man tmpfs for more information.
|
disable_dhcpd
|
Do not set the static ip to the network interface and do not run the DHCP daemon on it. This makes sense for devices with an ethernet port, like the Raspberry Pi (
!1580). |
true , false
|
no_framebuffer
|
Do not wait up to 10 seconds until a framebuffer device shows up and do not try to configure it ( | true , false
|
initfs_compression
|
Format and compression level to use when compressing the initramfs. The format for this is: FORMAT:LEVEL , for example zstd:fast . Supported formats are zstd , lz4 , lzma , gzip , none . Supported compression levels are: default , fast , best . This option does not impact the initramfs-extra archive, it is generated without any compression. (see
postmarketos-mkinitfs!25). If this option is not specified, or cannot be parsed, gzip with the default compression settings are used. postmarketos-mkinitfs 2.0 is the first version with support for this option, previous versions of mkinitfs either did not use this option or expected different values for it. |
default: gzip:default
|
create_initfs_extra
|
Instructs mkinitfs to generate an initramfs archive, and an initramfs-extra archive. The initramfs is a minimal/lightweight archive designed for devices with small boot partitions. | default: false
|
getty
|
Configure a getty on boot. Creates an entry in /etc/inittab
|
<port>;<baudrate> e.g. ttyS0;115200 default: not set |
gpu_accelerated
|
Defines if the device has GPU acceleration support. This property is used by pmbootstrap init to hide UIs which require GPU acceleration if the device lacks such support.
|
default: false
|
super_partitions
|
For Androids with dynamic partitions, set the super partition(s) here. See Android dynamic partitions for details. | e.g. /dev/mmcblk0p68 /dev/mmcblk0p69
|
flash
These are used for flashing and booting the device, and most of them are fastboot specific. Here is a guide on how to get these values for a specific Android device (by extracting the boot.img
)
Variable | Description | Possible values |
---|---|---|
flash_offset_base
|
Used for flashing | default: 0x10000000
|
flash_offset_dtb
|
Used for flashing on header_version 2, see
|
|
flash_offset_kernel
|
Kernel offset used for flashing | |
flash_offset_ramdisk
|
Ramdisk offset used for flashing | |
flash_offset_second
|
Used for flashing | |
flash_offset_tags
|
Used for flashing | |
flash_pagesize
|
Page size | usually 2048
|
flash_sparse
|
Set this to true if your device expects a sparse system image flashed | |
flash_sparse_samsung_format
|
Generate a sparse image according to Samsung's own format. Currently the only allowed value is "1". See solutions for postmarketOS for more informations. In order to work flash_sparse must be set to true in conjuction to this option
|
|
flash_kernel_on_update
|
Android devices need the kernel and initramfs to be flashed to a dedicated partition. Set this variable to true to automatically do this with the postmarketos-update-kernel script. Your device package also needs to depend on postmarketos-update-kernel .
This is dangerous and should only be enabled after reading the script and verifying that it works for a given device! Double-check that it will not flash to a wrong partition, otherwise you might render a device unbootable. Related: pmaports!2215 |
|
kernel_cmdline
|
Kernel command line (When modifying /etc/deviceinfo : Use kernel_cmdline_append instead. Unless you really want to override the whole kernel command-line, which is usually a bad idea.)
|
|
kernel_cmdline_append
|
Additional kernel command line. Anything in this variable gets automatically added after kernel_cmdline . This is aimed to customize kernel_cmdline by users without having to modify the package shipped by the device package.
|
|
bootimg_amazon_omap_header_size
|
Prepend a certificate exploit header to boot.img , required by the exploit chain used for most OMAP based Amazon Kindles.
|
Typically 1024 , 848 for soho.
|
bootimg_blobpack
|
Create a flashable blob for the ASUS Transformers from boot.img using BlobTools
|
true, sign, false
|
bootimg_qcdt
|
Append dtb file to boot.img (more info)
|
true, false
|
bootimg_qcdt_type
|
Define the format of dt.img
|
exynos, sprd, qcom
|
bootimg_mtk_label_kernel
|
Prepend a MediaTek boot header to the kernel before adding it to boot.img; needed on a select few MediaTek devices. | The LABEL portion of the kernel header, usually KERNEL .
|
bootimg_mtk_label_ramdisk
|
Prepend a MediaTek boot header to the initramfs before adding it to boot.img; needed on a select few MediaTek devices. | The LABEL portion of the ramdisk header, usually ROOTFS .
|
bootimg_override_payload
|
File name in mkinitfs working dir to be used
instead of linux kernel file in android boot image |
filename, i.e.u-boot.bin
|
bootimg_override_initramfs
|
File name in mkinitfs working dir to be used
instead of initramfs file in android boot image. See also boot-deploy!10 |
filename, i.e.boot_image.itb
|
bootimg_override_payload_compression
|
Compression method, used to compress override_payload file.Stock bootloader usually expect gzip payload, and fail, if it's not. |
Compression method, i.e. gzip
|
deviceinfo_bootimg_prepend_dhtb
|
Some Samsung devices need 512-byte header prepend to the boot.img before it will even attempt to boot. If is "true" prepends "DHTB" and 508 NULL bytes to boot.img .
|
e.g. true , false
|
bootimg_override_payload_append_dtb
|
File name in mkinitfs working dir to be appended to the payload.
Stock bootloader usually expect dtb
appended to the payload, and fail, if it's not. |
filename, i.e. dumb.dtb
|
bootimg_dtb_second
|
Place the dtb in the "second" area of the Android boot image. See
pmaports!700 for details. |
true, false
|
bootimg_append_seandroidenforce
|
Append SEANDROIDENFORCE file to boot.img See
pmaports!1000 for details. |
true, false
|
bootimg_pxa
|
Set this to true if the device is based on the Marvell PXA1088/1908 chipset, which has header layout differences. Makes mkinitfs generate the boot image with a different mkbootimg. pxa-mkbootimg should be added as a dependency to your device package.
|
true, false
|
bootimg_custom_args
|
Additional custom arguments to pass to mkbootimg . Caution: adding contents to this variable removes the --header-version and --dtb arguments, which need to be added manually in that case
|
e.g. --vendor_cmdline ...
|
header_version
|
Header version of boot image as defined by Android documentation | Number in range 0..4
|
generate_bootimg
|
Set this to true for fastboot device, so the mkinitfs command will generate a boot.img file after creating the initfs . Add mkbootimg as dependency to your device's APKBUILD!
|
true, false
|
generate_extlinux_config
|
Set this to true for U-Boot device, so the mkinitfs command will generate a /boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf file after creating the initfs .
|
true, false
|
generate_grub_config
|
Set this to true for EFI device, so the mkinitfs command will generate a /boot/grub/grub.cfg file after creating the initfs .
|
true, false
|
generate_systemd_boot
|
Generate the configuration for systemd-boot or gummiboot, and install it on the system. | true, false
|
generate_uboot_fit_images
|
Set "true" to generate U-boot FIT images,
one image per *.its file in board's u-boot directory |
true, false
|
generate_legacy_uboot_initfs
|
For the Nokia N900, we use a legacy version of the uboot bootloader right now. When setting this variable to true, the initramfs will generate an uboot legacy compatible initramfs file. Modern versions of uboot can load regular initramfs files. | true, false
|
legacy_uboot_load_address
|
Set a custom load address for the legacy uboot initfs (see
pmaports!578, only makes sense in combination with |
default: 80008000
|
legacy_uboot_image_name
|
Set a custom uboot image name, required by some device bootloaders that expect a specific image name. ( | default: postmarketos
|
flash_fastboot_partition_kernel
|
Only relevant for fastboot flash methods, the partition where the kernel or boot.img will be stored (
!1741). |
default: "boot"
|
flash_fastboot_partition_system
|
Only relevant for fastboot flash methods, the partition where the system image will be stored (see also: partition-layout). | default: "userdata"
|
flash_fastboot_partition_vbmeta
|
For AVB devices: set vbmeta partition to be flashed with a custom vbmeta.img which has verity flag disabled (
!1885). |
partition name, e.g. vbmeta
|
flash_fastboot_partition_dtbo
|
For devices that require dtbo populated: set dtbo partition to be flashed with a custom dtbo.img that's generated by the linux package (
!2099). |
partition name, e.g. dtbo
|
flash_fastboot_max_size
|
Set this if the fastboot required by your device has an upper limit to the size of system images it will flash. | Size, in MB |
flash_heimdall_partition_kernel
|
Only relevant for heimdall flash methods, the partition where the kernel or boot.img will be stored. | default: "KERNEL"
|
flash_heimdall_partition_initfs
|
Only relevant for the heimdall-isorec flash method, the partition where the initramfs will be stored. | default: "RECOVERY"
|
flash_heimdall_partition_system
|
Only relevant for heimdall flash methods, the partition where the system image will be stored (see also: partition-layout). | default: "SYSTEM"
|
flash_heimdall_partition_vbmeta
|
For AVB devices: set vbmeta partition to be flashed with a custom vbmeta.img which has verity flag disabled ( | partition name, e.g. VBMETA
|
flash_rk_partition_kernel
|
Only relevant for rk flash method, the partition where the kernel will be stored. | e.g. cache
|
flash_rk_partition_system
|
Only relevant for rk flash method, the partition where the system image will be stored (see also: partition-layout). | e.g. userdata
|
flash_mtkclient_partition_kernel
|
Only relevant for MTKClient flash methods, the partition where the kernel or boot.img will be stored. | default: "boot"
|
flash_mtkclient_partition_rootfs
|
Only relevant for MTKClient flash methods, the partition where the system image will be stored (see also: partition-layout). | default: "system"
|
flash_mtkclient_partition_vbmeta
|
For AVB devices: set vbmeta partition to be flashed with a custom vbmeta.img which has verity flag disabled. | partition name, e.g. vbmeta
|
flash_mtkclient_partition_dtbo
|
For devices that require dtbo populated: set dtbo partition to be flashed with a custom dtbo.img that's generated by the linux package. | partition name, e.g. dtbo
|
boot_filesystem
|
Sets the filesystem used for the /boot partition containing initramfs-extra | default: "ext4" , "fat16" , "fat32"
|
root_filesystem
|
Sets the filesystem used for the / partition ( | default: "ext4"
|
rootfs_image_sector_size
|
Some devices made after 2016 with UFS storage use 4096 byte sectors and therefore need this option to boot. Read
!1725 for details. |
default: 512
|
sd_embed_firmware
|
A comma-separated list of binary:offset (where binary is under /usr/share) ( | e.g. firmware/librem5dev/u-boot.bin:33,firmware/librem5dev/m4.bin:2
|
sd_embed_firmware_step_size
|
The number of bytes for each increment of the offset specified in the sd_embed_firmware
|
default: 1024
|
partition_blacklist
|
A comma-separated list of partitions that should not be flashed, because they brick the device. There are only very few devices where it is necessary (e.g. Ouya). | e.g. boot,recovery
|
boot_part_start
|
Number of sectors from the start of the drive to place the boot partition. Some devices may need this increased, if their bootloader takes up more space (like the Librem 5). ( | default: 2048
|
partition_type
|
Type of partition table to be generated ( | default: msdos
|
mkinitfs_postprocess
|
Define a script to run after generating the initramfs, historically used to append headers/footers to boot.img . Prefer adding this functionality to boot-deploy instead.
|
e.g. previous implementation for amazon-soho |
multiboot involving Android
See U-Boot porting for more information.
Variable | Description | Possibles values |
---|---|---|
bootimg_vendor_dependent
|
a list of source files for generating boot images, dependent on vendor boot image file presence on a device | space separated bootloader payload source filenames |
bootimg_vendor_android_boot_image
|
Filename. Place your android boot image in a /boot directory with that name. It also may be copied by pmbootstrap during installation. See also: | filename. |
bootimg_vendor_device_tree_identifiers
|
space separated list of patterns, used to identify dtb for Android. | regex patterns, i.e. "qcom,msm-id\s*=\s*<0x141\s*0x20001>; qcom,board-id\s*=\s*<0x08\s*0x0e>;" |
splash
Variable | Description | Possibles values |
---|---|---|
screen_width
|
The width of the display (DEPRECATED: no longer required) | 800, 720, 1440... anything really |
screen_height
|
The height of the display (DEPRECATED: no longer required) | 1280, 2560... other |
usb
Change how the target device shows up when connected with USB to a host PC. pmaports!706 added support for these variables in the mkinitfs script, when using the configfs network method.
Variable | Description | Default |
---|---|---|
usb_idVendor
|
Vendor ID | 0x18D1 ("Google Inc.")
|
usb_idProduct
|
Product ID | 0xD001 ("Nexus 4 (fastboot)")
|
usb_serialnumber
|
Device's serial number string | postmarketOS
|
usb_network_function
|
Name of the network function to use, located in /config/usb_gadget/g1/functions/
|
ncm.usb0 with a fallback to rndis.usb0
|
usb_network_udc
|
Name of the USB Device Controller (UDC) to use, typically found in /sys/class/udc
|
whatever UDC is found in /sys/class/udc
|
The correct IDs can be seen in init.*.usb.rc
of Android/TWRP sources for that device (or directly in rootfs, boot into twrp and see)
OR plug in device running stock Android/TWRP and watch dmesg for things like
[ 3.939519] usb 1-2.4: New USB device found, idVendor=2717, idProduct=ff40, bcdDevice= 4.14 [ 3.939521] usb 1-2.4: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3 [ 3.939521] usb 1-2.4: Product: MI 9 [ 3.939522] usb 1-2.4: Manufacturer: Xiaomi
cgpt/depthcharge
These variables are used with ChromeOS devices ( pmbootstrap!2163).
Variable | Description | Possible values |
---|---|---|
cgpt_kpart
|
Path to the file to be written to kernel partition | e.g. /usr/share/u-boot/google-peach-pit/u-boot-dtb.img.kpart , /boot/vmlinuz.kpart
|
cgpt_kpart_start
|
Number of sectors from the start of the drive to place the kernel partition | e.g. 8192
|
cgpt_kpart_size
|
Size of kernel partition | e.g. 32768
|
depthcharge_board
|
Board codename used in depthcharge-tools, see https://github.com/alpernebbi/depthcharge-tools/blob/master/depthcharge_tools/boards.ini | e.g. kevin
|
generate_depthcharge_image
|
Set this to true, so the mkinitfs command will generate a vmlinuz.kpart file after creating the initramfs. Add depthcharge-tools as dependency to your device's APKBUILD!
|
true , false
|
Obsolete options
weston
weston_pixman_type
: used to be a Weston specific workaround for the "red screen bug" (#54): we patched Weston to accept a--pixman-type
argument to override the framebuffer mode that the kernel driver reports. However, this patch was quickly incompatible with future changes in Weston, and it is not as good as patching the kernel to report the right framebuffer mode, so it was removed (pmaports#136).- Various options from weston.ini used to be duplicated, but this was removed in
!739. If you need to set weston specific options from your device (such as the output backend or the keymap), please add a weston.ini file to your pmaport (example).
device
nonfree
: Components of the device, that only run with closed source firmware. This is now legacy due to nobody uses it. (pmaports#438)dev_keyboard
: Originally intended to point osk-sdl to the hardware keyboard, but was never used. (It should detect hardware keyboards automatically...)keyboard
: programs should automatically detect if the device currently has a keyboard or not (oftentimes it can be plugged in anyway). (pmaports#3145)modules_initfs
: Kernel modules to include in the initramfs, has been replaced with themodules-initfs
file in the device package (
pmaports!4169). See Device_specific_package#Kernel_modules for more information.
mesa_driver
: This was used by osk-sdl, which will be dropped from pmaports in
flash
flash_fastboot_vendor_id
: fastboot used to have a-i
option, but this was removed (#1830). Since we only had one device using this and nobody to verify if the option is really needed with this device, we decided to remove it. If you are interested in bringing it back, please create a new issue.bootimg_mtk_mkimage
: Did the same asbootimg_mtk_label_kernel
andbootimg_mtk_label_ramdisk
but with hard-coded LABEL values. Replaced in
boot-deploy!49 when it was discovered that not all devices follow the exact same format.
generate_gummiboot
: Generate necessary config for and install gummiboot (Dropped in boot-deploy 0.11)
splash
framebuffer_landscape
: removed by the switch pbsplash with no apparent replacement (#2660).
usb
usb_rndis_function
: renamed tousb_network_function
in