rob thijssen
f0b2d7846a
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Validated by running it on the machine, twice, and inspecting the result. Two properties of this laptop rule out the obvious approach, and the script exists mainly to encode them. Its internal UFS reports 4096-byte logical sectors, so the image — built with 512-byte geometry — cannot be dd'd onto it; the GPT header and every partition offset would land in the wrong place. And there are no EFI runtime variables, so efibootmgr cannot register a boot entry and GRUB has to sit at the removable-media path where the firmware looks unprompted. Three things the validation runs caught that review would not have: rsync is not in the image. I had put it in the build container and never in the package list, so the first run died at the copy. It now falls back to tar (--xattrs-include='*', or SELinux labels are silently dropped and the result does not boot), and rsync is in base.pkgs for the progress output. Copying a live root makes tar exit non-zero — files change underneath it, and this machine's clock is wrong besides, so every mtime looks like it is in the future. With pipefail that aborted the install after the root filesystem and before /boot, leaving a half-installed disk that looked plausible. Warning-level exits are now tolerated and only a fatal exit 2 stops the run. systemd-machine-id-setup keeps an existing valid id, and one had just been copied off the stick, so the installed system was a clone. The file is removed first now. Also: msm_dpu probes ~6s in, while the initramfs is still root, and asks for qcom/a630_sqe.fw before the real filesystem carrying it is reachable. It never retries. Adding the Adreno firmware to the initramfs is a few tens of kilobytes. c630-firmware does the same for the DSP blobs once they exist, since dracut rejects install_items globs that match nothing. chrony, because the RTC reads 1970 and nothing was correcting it. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com> Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01XWRjNJMistCy6ngXH5aJLS
175 lines
7.7 KiB
Markdown
175 lines
7.7 KiB
Markdown
# Fedora for the Lenovo Yoga C630 13Q50
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Builds a ready-to-write Fedora aarch64 disk image for the Lenovo Yoga C630
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(model 81JL, Qualcomm SDM850), using Gitea Actions.
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The approach is borrowed from [aarch64-laptops/build][aal], but the heavy
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lifting that project had to do in 2019 is now unnecessary: mainline Linux has
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carried `sdm850-lenovo-yoga-c630.dts` since 5.5, and Fedora ships it in
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`kernel-core`. There is no kernel to patch and no GRUB to compile. What is left
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is assembling a disk image that boots on hardware whose firmware hands Linux no
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device tree.
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[aal]: https://github.com/aarch64-laptops/build
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## What you get
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`output/fedora-44-<variant>-lenovo-yoga-c630-<date>-<ref>.img.zst` — a GPT disk
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image with an ESP, a `/boot` partition and an ext4 root. Decompress, write it to
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a USB stick or microSD card, and boot. The root filesystem grows to fill the
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medium on first boot.
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Two variants:
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| Variant | Size | Contents |
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|---------------|-------|----------------------------------------------|
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| `minimal` | 8 GiB | Console, sshd, and enough tools to debug the machine |
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| `workstation` | 16 GiB| GNOME desktop |
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Default login is `fedora` / `fedora`, and the password must be changed at first
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login. Root is locked.
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## Hardware status
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| Works out of the box | Needs firmware from Windows | Not supported |
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|---------------------------------|-----------------------------|---------------|
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| UFS storage, USB, keyboard, touchpad, touchscreen | Graphics (Adreno 630 zap shader) | LTE modem |
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| WiFi + Bluetooth (ath10k WCN3990) | Audio | |
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| Battery and charging | Sensor hub — lid switch, accelerometer, auto-rotate | |
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| Display (unaccelerated) | Hardware video decode (venus) | |
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Fedora ships everything Qualcomm permits to be redistributed, which covers
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WiFi and Bluetooth outright. Graphics is the awkward case: the generic Adreno
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pieces (`a630_gmu.bin`, `a630_sqe.fw`) are packaged, but the C630's device tree
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asks for a **model-signed** zap shader, `qcdxkmsuc850.mbn`, which exists only in
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your machine's Windows partition — Fedora's generic `sdm845/a630_zap.mbn` is not
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what this device requests. Audio, sensors and video decode are the same story.
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Run `sudo c630-firmware` once after installing — see
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[docs/firmware.md](docs/firmware.md) for the full list and a manual fallback.
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## Building
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CI does this on every push to `main`. To run it yourself:
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```sh
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./build/build-image.sh --variant minimal
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```
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You need `podman` and, on an x86_64 host, aarch64 emulation:
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```sh
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sudo dnf install -y qemu-user-static-aarch64
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sudo systemctl restart systemd-binfmt
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```
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`build/build-image.sh` runs on the host and only sets up the container.
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`build/stage2.sh` runs inside an aarch64 Fedora container and does everything
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else: `dnf --installroot`, the overlay, dracut, and the disk assembly. It builds
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filesystems from directory trees with `mke2fs -d` and `mcopy` rather than
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mounting loop devices, so it does not need `/dev/loop-control` — which CI
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runners generally will not hand out.
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### Iterating
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Every aarch64 binary runs under emulation, and the `dnf` transaction is
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essentially all of the cost — 500-odd packages' worth of rpm scriptlets for
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`minimal`, four times that for `workstation`. Everything after it takes
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minutes. Since getting this machine to boot will take a few attempts, the build
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is arranged so you only pay that once:
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- The post-`dnf` root filesystem is staged under `<work>/base`, keyed on a hash
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of the package lists, release and variant. Editing `config/device.env`,
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`overlay/`, or the bootloader config reuses it. Editing `config/packages/`
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invalidates it automatically.
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- The working copy is made with `cp --reflink=auto`, so on btrfs or xfs it is
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a copy-on-write clone rather than a real copy.
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- Downloaded rpms live in `.cache/dnf`, outside the staged tree, so even
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`--fresh` re-runs the scriptlets without re-downloading.
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In practice a kernel-command-line change rebuilds in a few minutes.
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```sh
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./build/build-image.sh --variant minimal # reuses the staged base
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./build/build-image.sh --variant minimal --fresh # forces a reinstall
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./build/build-image.sh --variant minimal --keep-rootfs # keep the tree to poke at
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```
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CI points `--work` and `--cache` at `/var/tmp/c630-build` so both survive
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between jobs. That is per-runner, so the first build on a given runner is cold.
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The build container defaults to `git.lair.cafe/gongfoo/build-fedora-44-aarch64`,
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which ships the assembly tooling so it does not have to be installed under
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emulation on every run. If that image is not reachable the build falls back to
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stock Fedora and installs the tooling itself — slower, but it works.
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## Repository layout
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```
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config/device.env C630 parameters: DTB path, kernel command line, geometry
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config/packages/*.pkgs Package lists — base plus one file per variant
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overlay/ Files copied into the root filesystem (*.in are templated)
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build/build-image.sh Host driver: emulation checks, podman invocation
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build/stage2.sh The actual build, inside an aarch64 container
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firmware/local/ Optional drop-in for firmware you extracted yourself (gitignored)
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.gitea/workflows/ CI
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docs/ Installation, firmware, runner setup
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```
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## Documentation
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- [docs/install.md](docs/install.md) — writing the image and booting the laptop
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- [docs/firmware.md](docs/firmware.md) — what needs extracting from Windows and why
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- [docs/runner-setup.md](docs/runner-setup.md) — one-time Gitea runner preparation
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## Boot status
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Confirmed on hardware, from a USB stick:
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- GRUB loads the kernel and the device tree
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- The kernel comes up and probes the SDM850 — UFS controller, display
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subsystem, WiFi and IPA all appear as platform devices, so
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`DEVICE_CMDLINE` and the DTB are right
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- The framebuffer console works (`simple-framebuffer`, 240x67)
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- The root filesystem mounts, systemd starts, and it reaches a login prompt
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- Networking works over a USB WiFi dongle, and sshd is reachable
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- `build/install-to-disk.sh` copies it onto the internal UFS
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Not yet confirmed: booting from the internal drive rather than USB.
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Onboard WiFi does not appear at all, and audio, sensors, video decode and
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accelerated graphics are all absent — every one of them waiting on the
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model-signed firmware described in [docs/firmware.md](docs/firmware.md). On
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this machine Windows has been wiped, so those blobs are gone; the kernel names
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each missing file explicitly in `dmesg`.
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The internal drive needs `build/install-to-disk.sh` rather than `dd`: its UFS
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uses 4096-byte logical sectors, which the 512-byte image geometry cannot be
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written onto directly. See [docs/install.md](docs/install.md).
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SELinux is shipped permissive — see below.
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### SELinux
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The build labels the filesystem offline with `setfiles`, so enforcing should
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work. It ships **permissive** anyway, because the failure mode is unusually
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punishing: an unlabelled root takes PID 1 down with `Failed to allocate manager
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object` before anything can be logged into and repaired, and `/.autorelabel`
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cannot save it because nothing survives long enough to act on the flag.
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Once the machine is up and you are happy with it:
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```sh
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sudo setenforce 1 # try it for this boot
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sudo sed -i 's/^SELINUX=.*/SELINUX=enforcing/' /etc/selinux/config
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```
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Or set `SELINUX_MODE=enforcing` in `config/device.env` and rebuild.
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## Caveats
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The kernel command line and firmware layout are taken from Fedora's Snapdragon
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WoA documentation and the aarch64-laptops project; the parts specific to the
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C630's older SDM850 are reasoned from those rather than derived from
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documentation for this machine. Findings belong in this README.
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