Arch Linux Arm on Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x (X elite)

arch-yoga.md

Arch

This is the method I used to install Arch on the yoga slim 7x. This is from memory so I may have forgotten things

prerequisites

• disable bitlocker in windows
• resize the windows partition
• disable secure boot in BIOS

installation

• Download the Debian 12 image from https://git.codelinaro.org/linaro/qcomlt/demos/debian-12-installer-image
• write it to USB, use gparted to resize the partition
• download the latest (ancient) arch linux arm generic image from https://archlinuxarm.org/platforms/armv8/generic
• unpack the initrd and add this tarball
• also add some tools like mkfs.ext4 and fdisk (I downloaded debian 12 versions and unpacked the necessary libs and binaries)
• boot from the USB (use F12)
• once in installer, press Fn+alt+F2 to get to another TTY
• create a wpa_supplicant file and start wpa_supplicant
• back on tty1, continue the installer until it has setup networking
• return to tty2
• create /boot and / partitions (and any other you want)
• mount / on /mnt
• unpack the tarball into /mnt
• mount /boot on /mnt/boot
• bind mount /sys, /dev, /proc and /run in /mnt
• chroot in /mnt
• set the date with the date command (otherwise signature verification fails)
• use

pacman-key --init
pacman-key --populate archlinuxarm

• update with pacman -Syyu
• copy kernel, initrd and device tree from the USB
• do the rest of Arch setup
• do some of the steps outlined by linaro, in particular the zink environment
• exit the chroot
• edit the USB grub to load from the nvme
• reboot with F12 and boot from the nvme
• build newer kernel, initrd and dtb
• get firmware from https://github.com/Seraphin-/linux-firmware-x1e80100-lenovo-yoga-slim7x

post installation

• I replaced the windows nvme with a bigger one that has only linux, that way I was able to update the UEFI boot manager to load Arch without the USB stick
  • Download shellaa64.efi and place it on USB stick
  • use the following grub entry:

  menuentry "UEFI Shell" {
    insmod fat
    insmod chain
    search --no-floppy --set=root --file /shellaa64.efi
    chainloader /shellaa64.efi
  }
  

  • boot to UEFI shell
  • use the commands in the debian 12 image explanation to set Arch as first boot entry
• install mesa from this PKGBUILD https://github.com/joske/PKGBUILDs-x1e/tree/master/mesa

Does KVM virtualization work on those machines?

@kmeaw: It's... not impossible, but I don't know if anyone has tried it on the slim7x yet. The main difficulty is that by default these machines boot into EL1, and you have to jump through some hoops to boot them in EL2. See here: https://github.com/TravMurav/slbounce

Hardware support in EL2 is currently worse, because the default hypervisor provides some services that are missing when booting into EL2 using slbounce.

Also I don't know how much of KVM support is upstream yet, but I have heard that (with some unmerged patches) both normal and nested virt are working. (The person developing this is doing so on the DevKit AFAIK.)

@kmeaw just to give an update, in the last 5 days I made a lot of progress. I can now boot my machine in EL2, and run QEMU VMs without issues. Steps that are needed (also see this draft PR for my NixOS repo):

• Apply the device tree overlay from the slbounce repo: https://github.com/TravMurav/slbounce/blob/97b24ec89faa11827e7def220b0aa53dd5d5f447/dtbo/x1e-el2.dtso
• Add the id_aa64mmfr0.ecv=1 kernel param (without this QEMU will crash the whole system)
• Get tcblaunch.exe from C:\Windows\System32\tcblaunch.exe, and copy it to the root of your ESP
• Follow the instructions in the slbounce README for testing and loading it.

The things that don't work compared to EL1 are the battery indicator and DP altmode.

(There is also a patch that makes slbounce detect whether you are loading an overlayed device tree (see my PR for that), and only do SL if that's the case. This way you can select between EL1 and EL2 mode from the boot menu without having to go through an EFI shell.)

@kuruczgy Thank you for the update! I think this information would be really useful for someone considering buying a Snapdragon laptop and running Linux on it.