ARM Installation Guide/Know your hardware
ARM devices can be very different, and this has implications on the way you will install Parabola.
More specifically you will need to know:
- From which storage device(s) your device can boot. Most supported devices can boot from a microSD card. Knowing the order in which it tries to boot on the storage devices, can also be useful, as it helps you understand what is going on, if your device is not booting. Knowing the partitioning/filesystem boot requirements, can also be handy in that case, especially if they are not mentioned in this installation guide. If so, it would be nice if you could add them in this guide.
- Obtaining insight, as to why the system may not be booting:
- Not all devices can be connected to a display, and when they can, the display is not necessarily available early at boot.
- Some devices have an easily accessible serial port that can act as a display + keyboard replacement.
- The state of the software support for your device:
- What hardware components have kernel support, and which do not
- The limitations of the boot-loader (and it's version)
For boards which high-priority support by the Parabola team, refer to the Parabola Recommended Computers article.
In addition, the Computers article also lists other ARM computers which need a bit more work in Parabola and/or this installation guide. Note that some of them they might already contains enough information to be installed by more experienced people, but lack information on the status and so on. Make sure to read the page for your device, if there is one, as those contains device-specific information, which may be important for a successful Parabola installation.
For other boards, here are some links to such information:
