This guide assumes you just upgraded your MNT Reform’s Processor Module to the RCORE RK3588, and your previous OS and data reside on an encrypted NVMe SSD which you’d like to continue using.
Flash the latest RK3588 system image to an SD card
First, get the link to the system image .gz file:
- Go to https://mnt.re/system-image
- Then click on
reform-system-rk3588.img.gz - Right-click and copy the link to “Download (1.16GB)”
In a terminal, use bmaptool to copy the image to your SD card directly from the web:
sudo bmaptool copy https://source.mnt.re/reform/reform-system-image/-/jobs/6202/artifacts/raw/reform-system-rk3588.img.gz /dev/sdX
(If you don’t have bmaptool installed, you can do so using: apt install bmaptool on a Debian-based system).
In the command above, replace the link after “copy” with the one you copied from the browser. this will make sure you have the most up-to-date build job number (version). Also, replace /dev/sdX with the device name of your SD card (you can figure that out using lsblk).
Boot from SD card
Insert the freshly imaged SD card into your MNT Reform and turn it on. After a while, you should see text output on the screen and a progress bar during the resizing of the disk. Then, it will start the setup wizard.
Create a temporary account with the setup wizard (complete it).
Mount and upgrade your old system
Once logged in, unmount /boot and mount the NVMe on /mnt and chroot into your old system:
sudo umount /boot
sudo cryptsetup open /dev/nvme0n1 crypt
sudo mount /dev/mapper/crypt /mnt
sudo chroot /mnt
# from this point, you're in your old system
mount -t proc proc /proc
mount -t sysfs sysfs /sysfs
mount -t devtmpfs devtmpfs /dev
We now need to make sure that the /boot mountpoint in /etc/fstab in your old system points to the boot partition on the SD card, which might have a different device name on the RK3588 than on your previous system:
nano /etc/fstab
Comment out any existing line containing /boot and create the following new line (the order of lines doesn’t matter):
/dev/mmcblk1p1 /boot auto errors=remount-ro 0 1
Then save and exit by pressing Ctrl+O followed by Ctrl+X.
Now you can mount /boot in the chroot:
mount /boot
You’ll now want to upgrade the kernel package in your old system, which will also regenerate the initramfs on the sd card. for that, you need to make sure that DNS works in your chroot. an easy fix:
echo "nameserver 8.8.8.8" > /etc/resolv.conf
Then install the latest kernel and firmware for the RK3588’s Mali GPU:
apt update
apt install linux-image-mnt-reform-arm64 firmware-misc-nonfree
update-initramfs -u
Once the process is done, exit the chroot and reboot:
exit
systemctl reboot
If the process was successful, after a while the system should come back up and ask you to enter the NVMe SSD decryption password.
For now, you’ll have to leave the SD card inserted to boot, because the bootloader and /boot partition reside on the SD card while your main system is on the NVMe SSD. This makes recovery from any issues easier. In the next version of this guide, we’ll show you how to move the bootloader and boot partition to the eMMC flash of your Processor Module.