Any experience with NixOS on MNT Reform?

MNT Reform
14

I tried building the installer image from the current stock Debian on a RK3588 Pocket Reform with nix 2.32.2, but it wouldn’t build using unstable nixpkgs due to the error below. It seems to be complaining that the kernel patches don’t have a name attribute? Might be some change in unstable.

$ nix --extra-experimental-features nix-command --extra-experimental-features flakes build .#
error:
   … while calling the ‘derivationStrict’ builtin
     at «nix-internal»/derivation-internal.nix:37:12:
      36|
      37|   strict = derivationStrict drvAttrs;
|            ^
      38|

   … while evaluating derivation 'nixos-image-25.11pre-git-aarch64-linux.img'
     whose name attribute is located at «github:nixos/nixpkgs/2fb006b87f04c4d3bdf08cfdbc7fab9c13d94a15?narHash=sha256-kJ8lIZsiPOmbkJypG%2BB5sReDXSD1KGu2VEPNqhRa/ew%3D»/pkgs/stdenv/generic/make-derivation.nix:544:13

   … while evaluating attribute 'buildCommand' of derivation 'nixos-image-25.11pre-git-aarch64-linux.img'
     at «github:nixos/nixos-hardware/7467f155fcba189eb088a7601f44fbef7688669b?narHash=sha256-rNHeoG3ZrA94jczyLSjxCtu67YYPYIlXXr0uhG3wNxM%3D»/mnt/reform/rk3588/installer.nix:193:11:
      192|           inherit (config.installerImage) compressImage;
      193|           buildCommand = ''
         |           ^
      194|             mkdir -p $out/nix-support $out/installer-image

   … while evaluating the option `system.build.toplevel':

   … while evaluating definitions from `/nix/store/xjjq52iwslhz6lbc621a31v0nfdhr5ks-source/nixos/modules/system/activation/top-level.nix':

   … while evaluating the option `assertions':

   … while evaluating definitions from `/nix/store/xjjq52iwslhz6lbc621a31v0nfdhr5ks-source/nixos/modules/system/boot/kernel.nix':

   (stack trace truncated; use '--show-trace' to show the full, detailed trace)

   error: attribute 'name' missing
   at «github:nixos/nixpkgs/2fb006b87f04c4d3bdf08cfdbc7fab9c13d94a15?narHash=sha256-kJ8lIZsiPOmbkJypG%2BB5sReDXSD1KGu2VEPNqhRa/ew%3D»/pkgs/os-specific/linux/kernel/build.nix:564:69:
      563|           else
      564|             " (with patches: " + lib.concatStringsSep ", " (map (x: x.name) kernelPatches) + ")"
         |                                                                     ^
      565|         );

I was able to get further by using nixos-25.05:

$ cat flake.nix
{
  inputs.nixpkgs.url = “github:nixos/nixpkgs/nixos-25.05”;
  inputs.nixos-hardware.url = “github:nixos/nixos-hardware”;
  inputs.flake-utils.url = “github:numtide/flake-utils”;

  outputs = { self, nixpkgs, nixos-hardware, flake-utils, … }:
    flake-utils.lib.eachDefaultSystem (system:
      rec {
        packages.default = packages.installer;
        packages.installer = (import “${nixpkgs}/nixos” {
          configuration =
            { config, … }: {
              imports = [
                “${nixos-hardware}/mnt/reform/rk3588/installer.nix”
              ];

          system.stateVersion = "25.05";
        };
      inherit system;
    }).config.system.build.image;
  });
}

However this now gives an error when building mnt-reform-firmware-rk3855-dsi.drv (../rkbin/tools/boot_merger: cannot execute binary file: Exec format error). I am pretty sure this is due to boot_merger being compiled for x86_64 as discussed here: Building MNT Reform RK3588 U-Boot

I ran out of time to troubleshoot this but based on what I’m seeing, in order to build on a non-x86_64 machine, I guess that U-Boot (and therefore the install image) will need to be built using qemu or cross-compiling? Is this correct?