PostmarketOS Trailblazer (postmarketos-trailblazer)

From postmarketOS Wiki
PostmarketOS Trailblazer
Manufacturer PostmarketOS
Name Trailblazer
Codename postmarketos-trailblazer
Model Various
Type generic
Hardware
Chipset Various
CPU Various (Qualcomm, i.MX, Rockchip, etc...)
GPU Various
Architecture aarch64
Software
Original software Various
Original version Various
postmarketOS
Category testing
Pre-built images yes
Mainline yes
Features
Flashing
USB Networking
Internal storage
SD card
Battery
Screen
Touchscreen
Keyboard
Touchpad
Multimedia
3D Acceleration
Audio
Camera
Connectivity
WiFi
Bluetooth
Ethernet
GPS
Modem
Calls
SMS
Mobile data
Miscellaneous
FDE
USB-A
HDMI/DP
Sensors
Accelerometer
Magnetometer
Ambient Light
Proximity
Hall Effect
Haptics
Barometer
Power Sensor


Trailblazer is a bleeding edge, unstable target for EFI capable ARM64 devices. It runs linux-next and should otherwise be adjusted to support as many devices as possible.

The goal of trailblazer is to motivate more upstream kernel development by providing a tighter feedback loop (patches land in linux-next weeks before they make it into mainline or stable), as well as encouraging more generic solutions to the device specific hacks we have in userspace.

On supported devices, trailblazer should reflect the current state of upstream. It allows users to easily appreciate what features are unavailable, and more importantly appreciate when a new feature does get added upstream.

How it works

The linux-next kernel package in pmaports is updated daily by our CI system, for example this pipeline produced this commit.

The kernel is based on the upstream defconfig, with the postmarketOS distro-specific options added, and some additional device drivers that aren't enabled by default. No kernel patches are allowed.

Note Since linux-next is particularly prone to breaking, it's quite possible that trailblazer won't work on a given day. We don't yet have boot testing CI, but this would certainly be a useful addition.

Contributors

Supported devices

Devices that have been tested with Trailblazer, note that this doesn't necessarily mean they work currently, because as mentioned before, linux-next is particularly prone to breaking.

Users running Trailblazer

Installation

Use pmbootstrap to build your own installation image.

Installation will depend on the device and usecase, for Qualcomm devices running U-Boot, install with pmbootstrap install --split --add my-device-firmware-package and then flash with fastb boot flash userdata $(pmbootstrap config work)/chroot_native/home/pmos/rootfs/postmarketos-trailblazer-root.img flash system $(pmbootstrap config work)/chroot_native/home/pmos/rootfs/postmarketos-trailblazer-boot.img.

Note If flashing to UFS storage on a Qualcomm platform, you must pass --sector-size 4096 to pmbootstrap install!

For installing directly to the target medium (like an sdcard or USB stick -- or internal storage) do pmbootstrap install --disk /dev/sdX where sdX is the target device (which you can usually identify with lsblk).

Reporting bugs

In general, you should expect things to not work properly here. If you aren't sure if an issue is already known, please ask in the postmarketOS devel Matrix or IRC channel. Please avoid filing issues on pmaports unless you're certain that it's a bug that either a) should be tracked by the postmarketOS community, or b) is an issue with the trailblazer target itself (like missing kernel modules, config options, or dependencies for a device).

Adding a new device

In general we want to support as many devices as possible, as such adding new modules to the initramfs, enabling new kernel modules, or installing additional firmware by default are all reasonable things to do.

If your device requires some additional services to run during boot, then this should be done in such a way that it doesn't affect other devices. For example the service should check that it's relevant for the underlying hardware and exit otherwise.

Firmware packages can be added as long as they don't introduce firmware with conflicting paths.