Debian Image Builder for ARM Boards

This repository provides scripts to build Debian images for various Rockchip-based ARM single-board computers (SBCs). It creates bootable images based on Debian Trixie, with support for both traditional 512-byte and 4096-byte sector sizes.

The goal is to run stock Debian: the Debian kernel, no vendor BSP. Where mainline support is not yet sufficient for a board to be useful, a custom kernel is used until it is.

The builder consists of two stages:

• First stage: Creates a base Debian rootfs image (base_mmc_2g.img or base_mmc_2g_4k.img).
• Second stage: Customizes the base image for specific boards, installs board-specific u-boot, DTBs, kernels, and configurations.

• Builds minimal, clean Debian images using debootstrap.
• Supports 512-byte and 4096-byte logical sector sizes (via SECTOR_SIZE=4096 environment variable).
• Board-specific customization: hostname, network config, device tree, kernel selection.
• Installs u-boot binaries from inindev/uboot-rockchip.
• Debian's linux-image-arm64 kernel on every board except rk3576, which needs a custom kernel until mainline support lands (see Kernels).
• Output images named like <board>_<codename>-<version>[_4k].img (e.g., rk3588-rock-5b_trixie-13.2_4k.img).

• rk3308-rock-s0
• rk3568-nanopi-r5c
• rk3568-nanopi-r5s
• rk3568-odroid-m1
• rk3568-radxa-e25
• rk3576-armsom-sige5
• rk3576-luckfox-omni3576
• rk3576-nanopi-m5
• rk3588-nanopc-t6
• rk3588s-orangepi-5
• rk3588-orangepi-5-plus
• rk3588-rock-5b

The intent is to run the stock Debian kernel wherever mainline support allows it.

• all boards except rk3576 — Debian's linux-image-arm64. The rk3588 was in the same position as the rk3576 for some time; mainline support is now sufficient to boot headless, so these run Debian kernels.
• rk3576 — not yet mainlined enough to run the Debian kernel, so these images are built with a custom kernel from inindev/linux-rockchip. They will move to the Debian kernel once mainline support lands.

As of this writing, the Debian kernel does not quite support graphics mode on these boards. For a desktop, compile a kernel from a more recent upstream release, or use one from Collabora or inindev/linux-rockchip.

• Linux host. Run the scripts as a normal user with sudo access — they invoke sudo themselves for loop devices and mounts, and are not meant to be run as root.
• ARM64 architecture required for building.
• Installed tools: debootstrap, wget, xz-utils, losetup, sfdisk, mkfs.ext4, dd, unzip, curl, etc.

• Note: rk3576 boards support UFS media, which requires a 4096-byte logical sector size — that is what the 4k image is for.

cd debian/
# standard 512-byte sector image (default)
sh make_debian_img.sh

# 4096-byte (4K-native) sector image
SECTOR_SIZE=4096 sh make_debian_img.sh

Outputs:

• base_mmc_2g.img (512-byte)
• base_mmc_2g_4k.img (4096-byte)

# from repository root
sh create_images.sh [path/to/base_image.img]

# example with 4K base image
sh create_images.sh debian/base_mmc_2g_4k.img

Outputs images in outbin/ directory, compressed with xz.

sh debian/make_debian_img.sh clean

• Board-specific network configs: configs/network_<board>.cfg
• Custom DTB overlays or functions: configs/dtb_<board>.cfg
• Additional overlays/firmware can be added in relevant directories.

• Images are designed for eMMC/SD card installation with 4k sector variants for UFS storage.
• flashing (as root): xzcat image_name.xz > /dev/sdX

GNU General Public License v3.0 (GPL-3.0) – see LICENSE file.