Package repositoryMNT Reform system images
These disk images contain a bootable full Debian installation which can be
flashed to an SD-card or USB flash drive from which your Reform can then boot
directly into a full desktop installation. The image contains two partitions:
one for /boot and one for and /. U-Boot has been written to the correct
offset at the beginning of the image. Log in as root (empty password), change
the root password using passwd and create yourself a normal user using
adduser. The rescue system contains sway and wayfire for a graphical
desktops.
If you do not want to operate your Reform from the SD-card or USB stick (slow
and wears down the flash storage quickly) you can copy its contents to eMMC or
NVMe after having booted your Reform from the SD-card or USB drive. The scripts
reform-flash-rescue, reform-migrate and reform-setup-encrypted-nvme from
the reform-tools package help with that task. Alternatively, you can use the Debian Installer to install Debian onto your Reform like
you would install Debian on any other platform.
Table of Contents
You can obtain the machine name of your device (the first column) from the output of running cat /proc/device-tree/model.
| Machine name | Debian 12 Bookworm Stable | Debian 12 Bookworm Stable (backports kernel) |
|---|---|---|
| MNT Reform 2 | reform-system-imx8mq.img.xz (651M, GPG sig) | reform-system-imx8mq-bpo.img.xz (676M, GPG sig) |
| MNT Reform 2 with LS1028A Module | reform-system-ls1028a.img.xz (651M, GPG sig) | reform-system-ls1028a-bpo.img.xz (676M, GPG sig) |
| MNT Reform 2 with BPI-CM4 Module | n.a. | reform-system-a311d-bpo.img.xz (676M, GPG sig) |
| MNT Reform 2 with i.MX8MP Module | n.a. | reform-system-imx8mp-bpo.img.xz (676M, GPG sig) |
| MNT Reform 2 with RCORE RK3588 Module | n.a. | reform-system-rk3588-bpo.img.xz (676M, GPG sig) |
| MNT Pocket Reform with i.MX8MP Module | n.a. | pocket-reform-system-imx8mp-bpo.img.xz (676M, GPG sig) |
| MNT Pocket Reform with BPI-CM4 Module | n.a. | pocket-reform-system-a311d-bpo.img.xz (676M, GPG sig) |
| MNT Pocket Reform with RCORE RK3588 Module | n.a. | pocket-reform-system-rk3588-bpo.img.xz (676M, GPG sig) |
| MNT Reform Next with RCORE RK3588 Module | n.a. | reform-next-system-rk3588-bpo.img.xz (676M, GPG sig) |
How to verify GPG signature
gpgv --keyring /usr/share/keyrings/debian-keyring.gpg reform2-system.img.xz.sig /path/to/reform2-system.img.xz
How to flash to SD-card or USB flash drive
The disk image contains the bootloader (U-Boot) as well as a partition table, so it has to be written to the SD-card or USB stick directly instead of being copied to a mounted filesystem or written onto an existing partition. As a result, writing the image to your SD-card or USB stick will destroy all the data that was on it before. Be very certain that the device you are writing the image to is indeed the SD-card or flash drive you inserted and not any other disk. The following command will print the device node of any disk you attach to your machine while the command is running:
udevadm monitor --udev --property --subsystem-match=block/disk | sed -ne 's/^DEVNAME=//p'
Flash using dd
You can copy the system image using dd. Make sure to replace
/path/to/reform2-system.img by the path to the system image you downloaded
and /dev/mmcblkXXX by the block device belonging to your SD-card or USB flash
drive.
xzcat /path/to/reform2-system.img.xz | sudo dd of=/dev/mmcblkXXX status=progress
Flash using bmaptool
If you have the package bmap-tools installed, then instead of using dd you
can flash the image to your SD-card like this:
sudo bmaptool copy https://reform.debian.net/images/reform-systemXXX.img.xz /dev/mmcblkXXX
The advantages of using bmaptool over using dd are:
- will only copy blocks with data and skips empty blocks (around 30% less data to write)
- verifies checksums of downloaded data to prevent corrupt images
- safety checks to make sure that image is not written to mounted disks
- able to directly download from http server without local temporary files
- automatic decompression on-the-fly
- verifies GPG signatures
non-free blobs
These images contain non-free material in the form of DDR training blobs, ARM trusted firmware blobs, WiFi/BT firmware and/or HDMI/eDP firmware. The non-free blobs are loaded onto the hardware early-on during the boot process and do not run on the main processor. Sometimes the blobs are optional. For example the HDMI blobs are only necessary if you need HDMI output. If you have your U-Boot on eMMC, then you do not need U-Boot on your SD-card and would thus be able to have a DFSG-free SD-card image. If you care for that, simply zero-out the respective range of bytes between the partition table and the first partition. If you are booting from a USB flash drive instead of from an SD-card, the U-Boot binary will not be used.
For more information about the differences between the modules see https://mntre.com/modularity.html#table.
| CPU Module | non-free blobs |
|---|---|
| NXP i.MX8MQ (default) | Synopsys DDR4 training blob, Cadence HDMI blob |
| NXP i.MX8MPlus | Synopsys DDR4 training blob, WiFi/BT firmware |
| NXP Layerscape LS1028A | eDP display firmware blob |
| RCM4 with Banana Pi CM4 (Amlogic A311D) | ARM trusted firmware, WiFi firmware |
Source
The images are generated by the following scripts: https://salsa.debian.org/reform-team/reform-system-image
