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

Here's the image I used for installation: x1e-endeavouros.img.7z
I've built Calamares while booted from USB from this PKGBUILD with only slight modifications and a dirty hack described here. After pacman -U I overwrote the configs in /etc/calamares/ with configs from calamares_config.tar.gz (same GDrive folder as the image) and installed with systemd-boot.
The partitioning is the following:

1. ESP (stock from Windows) -> /efi
2. Other Windows partitions
3. Separate /boot (XBOOTLDR)
4. Separate /root (needs to have endeavouros label and be f2fs)
5. Separate /home

AFAIR it was necessary to create /home/liveuser for Calamares to work,
These configs still need some work (probably eos_bootloader module needs to be dropped), so after installation succeeds, it won't boot.
So one would need to chroot into the installed system, manually install linux-x1e and x1e-uki packages (second is optional; both packages are available in my repo) and create a simple systemd-boot config in /boot/loader/entries/ and then it should boot.
If installing x1e-uki, make sure to first create /etc/kernel/cmdline file:

efi=novamap pd_ignore_unused clk_ignore_unused fw_devlink=off cma=128M root=PARTLABEL=endeavouros rootfstype=f2fs rootwait rw loglevel=7