MS-R1 experience report & findings

[HeyMeco]

Now that ACPI is implemented I gave it a try (with 6.18.10 main) on the MS-R1 (with a in-development Armbian implementation of this project). So here are some things I've noticed, some might already be on your to-do:

• rtl8127 driver is missing for the 10GbE nic used on this device
• Only boots when armchina_npu is disabled else the kernel crashes
• USB-C DP works but USB Devices connected to the monitor do not.

Things I had to do different:

• Disable firmware inclusion during the kernel compile

Thank you for all the work you put into this project! The desktop experience already is way more stable (and without micro stutters every couple seconds like on the vendor 25Q4 kernel)

[SeanMcG]

I installed sky1-minimal on my MS-R1 that runs Debian 13 earlier today but now it won't boot.

I'll try booting from a rescue USB and see if blacklisting the NPU module helps.

[SeanMcG]

Regarding the firmware exclusion, is this because the MS-R1 is ACPI boot?

Does this probably mean we have to wait for a system update from Minisforum?

[kikitux]

@HeyMeco about the nic, this works great: https://github.com/minisforum-repo/r8127-dkms

in the releases page they got the .deb ready to use
https://github.com/minisforum-repo/r8127-dkms/releases/download/11.015.00-1/r8127-dkms_11.015.00-1_all.deb

[HeyMeco]

Regarding the firmware exclusion, is this because the MS-R1 is ACPI boot?

No that was just with the armbian build system as we didn’t download the firmware beforehand to attach to the kernel. It is better to use the firmware dynamically from the sky1-firmware repo anyways

[SeanMcG]

I still can't get 6.18.11-sky1-r1 to boot on my MS-R1. The screen goes blank and sometimes even cycles back to GRUB.
I booted it afterwards with the Debian rescue USB and it looks like nothing is written to the systemd journal so I have to assume this is occurring early on in the boot process.
Is there any way to get the early pieces logged to the screen? or perhaps to a USB serial dongle?

[HeyMeco]

@SeanMcG have you disabled the npu driver?

[SeanMcG]

@SeanMcG have you disabled the npu driver?

No, is putting it in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf enough or do I have to add any kernel command line args to GRUB?

[HeyMeco]

No, is putting it in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf enough or do I have to add any kernel command line args to GRUB?

blacklist.conf is enough. You can blacklist it via grub cmdline if you can’t get into userspace.

[SeanMcG]

Tried again, no luck. Screen goes blank as do the lights on my keyboard.

Do I need anything in GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX or should it be blank for this kernel? I know the vendor kernel needed a surprising number of arguments there.

[polprog]

I've installed sky1-minimal on stock arm64 Debian 12 and I am getting the same symptoms (black screen after GRUB boot). Blacklisting armchina_npu module does not change anything. I will try to gather some logs from UART if there are any.
Judging by the lights on the NIC, kernel crashes, as port is still in 10M mode.