GPD Pocket

= Gentoo on GPD Pocket =

The GPD Pocket is a 7" UMPC manufactured by Game Park Digital running an Intel Atom x7-Z8750 and 8Gb RAM http://www.gpd.hk/pocket.asp. Lots of work has already been done on getting the kernel to work out of the box by Hans de Goede.

Compile the Kernel
This is the most complex step but you can avoid the pain by downloading the pre-built kernel from https://github.com/joshskidmore/gpd-pocket-arch-guide. A kernel can be compiled from gentoo-sources in portage, a working configuration can be found on Hans de Goede's github linux-sunxi config (I can confirm that gentoo-sources-4.16.0 works). Also, gentoo-sources-4.16.0 contains the GPD Pocket fan driver.

Install the Kernel Sources
Copy the .config file from Hans de Goede's github repository https://github.com/jwrdegoede/linux-sunxi into.

This change to the linux-sunxi  file should help with a funny sound driver problem:

Your new kernel is available in  and the new modules in.

Creating an EFI-capable bootable USB drive
Use  to create a new GPT partiton table on the USB Stick. The partition table must be UEFI or the BIOS will not be able to read the boot loader files.

An EFI System partition is just a FAT32 partition, to set up the partition you may need to install.

Mount the drive and make the UEFI boot directories:

Create a linux root file system on :

Download and extract a stage 3 onto  (alter the mirror and date to flavour):

Edit the  and   files so that you can login.

Installing a Bootloader
SYSLINUX will be used to boot the kernel, if syslinux is not installed on your system, do it now:

Copy the required binaries to the USB Stick:

Create the syslinux configuration file:

The kernel and the RAM disk will be created next

Kernel and Initial RAM Disk
Creating a custom  is explained here  to allow access to the GPD Pocket internal eMMC flash and access to the USB stick that the root fs is installed on some modules must be available in the initramfs:

These files can be copied from the kernel modules directory when a kernel is compiled with the Hans de Goede (or Fedora) settings.

The newly created initramfs and kernel should be copied to the EFI partition:

Booting to the USB Drive
To boot to the USB drive insert the drive into the GPD Pocket's USB socket and press F7 when the GPD Pocket is starting up (that means hold down Fn and press 7 a few times when you power up).

You should be presented with a list of startup options, one of which should be the name of your USB drive, select that one and syslinux should start and then boot the kernel and execute the initramfs.