socle

Wikipedia: In architecture, a socle is a short plinth used to support a pedestal, sculpture, or column.

A collection of packages and modules to support NixOS on single-board computers based on the RK3588(S) SoC. Currently, the following boards are supported:

• Orange Pi 5
• Orange Pi 5 Plus

Features

• Linux Kernel 6.1
• OpenCL 3.0 with libmali
• Options to enable device tree overlays

Usage

Socle provides a template you can use as a base for your new NixOS installation.

Building an SD Image

The easiest way to build an image is to use the provided flake template. The template contains NixOS configurations for Orange Pi 5 and Orange Pi 5 Plus.

1. Clone the template:

   nix flake new --template github:dvdjv/socle nixos
   

   This will create a directory named nixos with the system configurations in it.

2. (Optional) Edit the configuration:

   Open the file nixos/configuration.nix in a text editor. To change the default user credentials, locate the following lines:

   users.users.nixos = {
     isNormalUser = true;
     password = "nixos";
     extraGroups = [ "wheel" ];
   };
   

   Adjust the username, password, and groups as you see fit. To change the timezone, locate the following lines:

   # You can set your timezone here
   # time.timeZone = "Europe/Dublin";
   

   Uncomment the timezone option and insert your timezone.

   You can tune other options as well. Consult the NixOS manual for the list of possible options. Board-specific options are set in the files orangepi5.nix and orangepi5plus.nix. Notice, that the default network name differs between the boards.

3. Build the image

   On a aarch64-linux machine:

   nix build .#nixosConfigurations.orangepi5.config.system.build.sdImage
   

   to build an Orange Pi 5 image; or:

   nix build .#nixosConfigurations.orangepi5plus.config.system.build.sdImage
   

   to build an Orange Pi 5 Plus image.

   On a x86_64-linux machine:

   Cross compilation does not use the binary pachage cache and is prone to errors. It is recommended to use a aarch64-linux machine instead.

   Locate the following lines in configuration.nix

   # to build on aarch64 machine
   hostPlatform = { system = "aarch64-linux"; };
   
   # to build on x86_64 machine
   # hostPlatform = { system = "aarch64-linux"; };
   # buildPlatform = { system = "x86_64-linux"; };
   

   and change it to

   # to build on aarch64 machine
   # hostPlatform = { system = "aarch64-linux"; };
   # to build on x86_64 machine
   hostPlatform = { system = "aarch64-linux"; };
   buildPlatform = { system = "x86_64-linux"; };
   

   Build the image as described above.

4. Flash the image:

   zstdcat result/sd-image/nixos-sd-image-23.11pre-git-aarch64-linux.img.zst | dd of=/dev/sdX bs=1M
   

   Replace /dev/sdX with the device node corresponding to your SD card.

Device Tree Overlays

Device tree overlays can be enabled using the board.hardware.enabled option. Examples are provided in the flake templates. For a complete list of hardware options, refer to the board-specific modules in the source code.