Hey folks, the MNT Reform image comes with a bunch of pre-installed software. Has anybody tried installing a minimal Debian system and, potentially, has their notes available somewhere?
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Yes, you can create a more minimal image by running the mkimage.sh script in the reform-system-image repo with the --quick option. That option will exclude most things related to the graphical user interface. If you want to have even fewer packages, just edit the mkimage.sh script and let it install less stuff.
You can also approach this problem from the opposite direction and attempt to use the debian-installer to install Debian on your Reform. Do you have an imx8mq or ls1028a? That should make the experience a bit more fun and it should even work with bookworm: reform.debian.net
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Thanks for the reply! Iāve got i.MX8MP, I think Iāll try installing bookworm.
The only thing thatās not clear to me from reading the Debian page you linked is how to install it onto eMMC. Do I install the bootloader to SSD first, boot, copy it to the mmc and flip the switch on the SoM?
Iād like to improve the text on reform.debian.net given your input. Iād like to make a few things more clear but Iād need to understand first:
- what made you understand that you have to install the bootloader to SSD? Step 5 in āReform-specific installation stepsā states that it will offer to flash u-boot to sd-card or emmc
- what made you understand that you have to flip a switch on the som for this to work? If you have the imx8mp, then there is no switch to flip.
- what made you understand that you have to go through extra steps like boot, copy, reboot to finish the installation?
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what made you understand that you have to install the bootloader to SSD? Step 5 in āReform-specific installation stepsā states that it will offer to flash u-boot to sd-card or emmc
Sorry, that was a typo, I meant the SD card.
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what made you understand that you have to flip a switch on the som for this to work? If you have the imx8mp, then there is no switch to flip.
I thought that imx8mp was the original module MNT Reform shipped with, I must have mixed the names up. My reform has the original SoM, whatever it is called, and there is a switch, which specifies whether to look for the boot loader on the eMMC or the SD-card. so in order to boot from the SD card it needs to be in the āSDā position, but then, if I no longer wish to boot from said SD-card Iāll need to make sure the SoM looks for the boot loader and the kernel in the eMMC, thus I need to flip the switch.
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what made you understand that you have to go through extra steps like boot, copy, reboot to finish the installation?
If I understand correctly, eMMC must contain not only the boot loader but also the kernel. So if my /boot section is in the eMMC will the installer also put the kernel in there?
That sounds like you must have the imx8mq and in that case this writup applies to you: document boot options (#2) Ā· Issues Ā· Reform / reform-handbook Ā· GitLab
Does that answer your questions?
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Does that answer your questions?
Thanks, it does in theoryā¦
In practice, I think that page is a bit outdated as well the README.md of reform-system-image, because when I try running ./mkimage.sh --quick imx8mq it says unsupported image: imx8mq.
And then when I try to build all images by running ./mkimage.sh --quick it errors out with stuff like
E: cannot create /home/bob/reform: Permission denied; cannot create /home/bob/reform/reform-system-image: Permission denied; cannot create /home/bob/reform/reform-system-image/tmp.yBFrmo3h9W: Permission denied; cannot create /home/bob/reform/reform-system-image/tmp.yBFrmo3h9W//etc: Permission denied; cannot create /home/bob/reform/reform-system-image/tmp.yBFrmo3h9W//etc/apt: Permission denied; cannot create /home/bob/reform/reform-system-image/tmp.yBFrmo3h9W//etc/apt/apt.conf.d: Permission denied
Even though Iām running it as the very same user who owns the filesystem. It is probably an issue with qemu-user or something like that, but Iām not well versed in qemu, so as now Iām stuck.
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Thank you for reporting these issues. Iām never reading these pages, so I fail to notice in practice.
That was from a time when there was only the Reform 2 and neither the Pocket Reform nor the Reform Next existed. These days, the argument to the script is the full image name. I updated the README.md.
The reason is that the script sets TMPDIR to the current directory and you probably do not have executable privileges for the āotherā group on your $HOME directory and that means that the unshared user is unable to traverse into it. I now removed this from the script. Itās only useful if you run the script on platforms like the imx8mq or a311d which only have 4 GB of RAM and if /tmp is on a tmpfs without a large swap, then putting the system images into /tmp is a bad idea.
Please try to git pull and see if your issues are fixed. Thank you!
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Hey thanks for making those changes! After git pull it now compiles, Iāll report back with the installation process 
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