Flashing Guide

Bundles that include a CM5 ship pre-imaged with ARK-OS. Follow this guide if you purchased just the carrier and are installing your own Compute Module.

Option 1: ARK Golden Image

The golden image is Raspberry Pi OS with the carrier's config.txt baked in and ARK-OS installed. Download the one for your compute module from downloads.arkelectron.com/pi/just-a-pi/latest: justapi-cm5-trixie-ark-os.img.xz or justapi-cm4-trixie-ark-os.img.xz. Write it to the SD card with Raspberry Pi Imager (Use custom), without OS customization. Log in as pi / raspberry. The image configures the cameras for the Raspberry Pi Camera Module 3 (IMX708); for another camera, change the dtoverlay=imx708 lines in /boot/firmware/config.txt.

For a module with eMMC, hold the BOOT button while powering the board, connect the USB JST-GH port to the host, and run rpiboot so the eMMC appears as a drive. Write the image to it.

To build the image yourself, see ark_pi_image (--target justapi-cm5 or justapi-cm4).

Option 2: Raspberry Pi Imager (manual)

Flash stock Raspberry Pi OS, then configure the carrier by hand:

Pi CM5 Lite with Micro SDPi CM5 with EMMC

Then edit config.txt for the carrier (After Flashing, Before Installing), boot, and install ARK-OS.