Fedora ARM on Raspberry Pi

So we've been working with Fedora on the Raspberry Pi for about a month. I've posted a tiny video demo to YouTube:



Blog post: http://blog.chris.tylers.info/...../256-.html

• Fedora 13 armv5tel (Fedora 15 coming next month)
• boot to character-mode login in 23 seconds
• 14-17MB for basic boot depending on services

[asb]

Hi Chris, thanks for sharing. In case you haven't looked at it yet, you'll want to apply this kernel patch for the newer udevd I assume Fedora 15 relies on:
https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/21d93e2e29722d7832f61cc56d73fb953ee6578e

I think in the end I just pinned an older udev on my Debian sid setup as I'd rather run the same kernel as everyone else unless there's a good reason otherwise, but it should do the trick. Apparently there's at least one patch you'll want for systemd, assuming there aren't more kernel features the systemd in F15 wants:
http://lists.linuxtogo.org/pip.....33244.html

[liz]

Thanks Chris! I've added your vid to the front page. Thanks again for all your work on this.

Hi asb, that landed in 2.6.26 and the F15 PA GA kernel was 2.6.28 -- so we're good.

[asb]

Quote from Chris Tyler on October 19, 2011, 23:01
Hi asb, that landed in 2.6.26 and the F15 PA GA kernel was 2.6.28 -- so we're good.

See the commit, it didn't get wired up for ARM until after 2.6.35. If you're not getting issues with accept4 and later udevd then fine, just thought I'd share something I ran in to when running more bleeding edge Debian builds.

Edit: Re-read, I think you're saying you can just use the stock 2.6.38 Fedora kernel. Of course that includes the fix, but you'd have to port the raspi kernel patches (likely not that hard though).

Quote from asb on October 19, 2011, 23:04
See the commit, it didn't get wired up for ARM until after 2.6.35. If you're not getting issues with accept4 and later udevd then fine, just thought I'd share something I ran in to when running more bleeding edge Debian builds.

Edit: Re-read, I think you're saying you can just use the stock 2.6.38 Fedora kernel. Of course that includes the fix, but you'd have to port the raspi kernel patches (likely not that hard though).

Sorry, I meant .36 and .38 not .26 and .28 as I wrote, and I understand now what you were saying (.36 for systemd vs what was in the video). I'm going to try patching 3.0.4...

[asb]

Quote from Chris Tyler on October 20, 2011, 12:22
Sorry, I meant .36 and .38 not .26 and .28 as I wrote, and I understand now what you were saying (.36 for systemd vs what was in the video). I'm going to try patching 3.0.4...

Yeah, a 3.0 kernel would be great (there was also a handy patches for the smsc95xx ethernet controller to fix a silly bug with the mac being regenerated on every ifup). Do keep us all updated.

Does it run Chromium / HTML 5 Animations?

I could think of some really cool Kiosk like applications using this with a big 1080p HDTV.

Really, all I would need is 1080p HDMI output and a browser with HTML5/animation support.

No, not yet at least:

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Chromium

By the way, the Fedora ARM build system is here, if you want to see if your favorite packages are available:

http://arm.koji.fedoraproject......koji/index

Thanks for the link, added it my Sig which is becoming a FAQ all on its own ^^
Don't hesitate to post updates, people are starting to wonder about kernel modules/drivers, graphics libs... I'm sure they'd be delighted to know if not what already works, at least what's on the to-do list ...

Does Fedora-ARM supports some other languages besides European languages?
For instance, Korean, Japanese, Chinese.

I am totally new to Linux, but it was pretty easy to add packages necessary for reading&typing those 3 languages in case of Fedora 15 (X11+LXDE or Xfce)

Quote from GyuhangCho on December 9, 2011, 14:24
Does Fedora-ARM supports some other languages besides European languages?

Fedora ARM is Fedora ... so whatever is supported on x86 is generally supported on ARM (except where the packages won't compile or are x86-specific, such as Intel microcode). Language support varies by package, so you could test the software which you're interested in using on an x86 system to get a sense of how it will work on the Pi.

Hello Chris,

could you provide your current fedora 13 based rootfs / kernel / initrd somewhere please. I look forward to the release of the Raspberry hardware but I want to set up a test environment for some compilations based on fedora-arm and the resources I found on the net where for version 12 or earlier.

I'am looking forward to get one of the smallest fedora boxes on the planet

Thanks

Marco

Hello all, I have very little experience with Fedora or any version of Linux.  To get more familiar should I just load the latest on to a VM or old PC?  Is there an inexpensive x86 based board that would give similar performance to the raspi?  Thanks.

[jamesh]

Yes, an old PC or virtualbox (or similar) would be fine for trying it all out. Don't know about x86 boards of a similar power.

rmw

I also considered exploring Linux a daunting task, however this youtube video of setting up a linux virtual machine on Windows makes it seem so easy... Can"t wait to try it out but want to review the mentioned products first.

feature=youtube_gdata_player

OK, I downloaded VirtualBox and Fedora.  Took me 20-30 minutes to install everything.  Seems simple enough.  I'll probably just wait for the raspi board to mess with this any more.

New Raspberry Pi development vm version 0.2

Hi all,

I haven't seen this mentioned in the forums anywhere else so posting a link here now:

http://russelldavis.org/Raspbe.....02.torrent

Below is the README that is included with the exported appliance.

-------

RaspberryPi Development Virtual Machine 0.2

This is an exported virtualbox virtual machine for developing software for
the RaspberryPi. It is setup using the git versions of scratcbox2 & qemu (19/01/12), the fedora 13 for ARM as rootfs seed & arm-2011.03 codesourcery toolchain.

The root password is toor and the username and password for the normal user
is raspberry/password

To compile software for the raspberrypi as you would normally on an x86 machine
prefixing sb2 to any command. e.g. instead of gcc hello.c -o hello you would type sb2 gcc hello.c -o hello

To update, install or remove libraries and software in the seed rootfs use the command sb2 -eR yum ... where update, install, remove etc.

If you want to build and install libraries to use when building other software
that are not availble via fedora yum then rather than prefixing with sb2 prefix the command with sb2 -eR e.g. sb2 -eR make && make install

You can upgrade scratchbox2, qemu, the rootfs or toolchain quite easily as they are all in seperate dirs inside the raspberry_pi_development directory. it shoudl be possible to just swap them out when/if you need/want.

I have installed apache2 adn linked the $HOME/build directory so you can download anything you build to another system. You will probably want to change the network settings for the VM from NAT to Bridged though.

An ssh server is also installed so you can ssh in to the vm if you want as well (same proviso as above though. You'll need to change from NAT to Bridged to get it working).

If you have any other questions about the VM then you can send them via my blog (http://russelldavis.org) or post on the raspberry pi forum. (http://raspberrypi.org)

I have added one of my favourite bash aliases to the .bashrc doch is very handy in case you forget to use the sudo prefix to a command. just type doch and it'll redo the command but with sudo added.

Russell Davis (ukscone) 20/01/12

Is there a YUM repository ready for RasPi launch?

The first batch of Raspberry Pi machines is nearing completion, and it's time to ship some software!

The Raspberry Pi Fedora Remix 14 will be released on Feb 22, and everyone is invited to the release event. Here are the details:

What: Raspberry Pi Fedora Remix Release Event

Where: Seneca Centre for Development of Open Technology, Toronto

When: Wednesday, February 22, 2012, 3:00-5:00 pm

Details: http://bit.ly/raspi-remix-14

Just out of curiosity, Fedora 13 & 15 were mentioned earlier on in the thread. You are now presenting the 14 remix   Any special reason or did this version just fit the hardware better with the time constraints? Will this be the version on the sd card on release day?

If so, I need to brush up on Fedora, as I have not used it in several years.

As it's nearly 2am here, I'll not expect to see the amendments in the Wiki and the FAQ for a few hours

I need to do a detailed post on this, but in brief: We're shipping F14 because it's fairly well tested (the OLPC ARM release for the XO 1.75 is based on it) and it uses upstart rather than systemd (boots with a smaller footprint).

The plan is to go directly to F17 next (in early May – ARM and primary architectures will be released almost concurrently). By F18, ARM is expected to be a primary architecture   There's a lot of work going on to make sure F17/F18 are really good Pi releases (and this will accelerate as more people get hardware and can contribute).

[Jessie]

Good news, I wish the event was closer than Toronto then I could show up.  But I'll have a couple beers for you all.

22nd huh...?  Do you know something I don't. 

Does that mean that the Raspberry will be shipped with an outdated, unofficial platform, unsupported linux distribution ? ( https://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/announce/2011-December/003023.html )

On the other hand, Debian support Arm officially in its current release and every others ...

That doesn't sound very professional.

I hope that for the educational release they will get at least Fedora 17 and that release will be officially supported by the Fedora Project. Because I'm very concerned about what they will learn about security from being in an unsupported environment. Yeah you know, in a production environment choosing the most secure environment, that's not that much of a concern.

The OLPC support just a little fraction of the fedora project AFAIK, and they can do the support themselves. The fact that they are using it is not that relevant if everyone can install the entire Fedora Repository.

I don't think you will be leaving us without security updates, but the only fact that every students can go to wikipedia or the fedora website and see "unsupported" is wrong. We should take learning security habits more seriously.

The only fact that the big x86 market will not be contributing to security fixes on this release anymore is a concern.

I imagine the teacher saying "always check that your softwares are up to date ! Or in fact, well ... If it's possible ..."

If Fedora is not the official distribution for the Raspberry it's not a problem and it's pretty great to know that you are working actively on the fedora arm project, this will help to build a better future, but I will not recommend that release for a production environment ... AT ALL !

[jamesh]

ElectronikHeart said:

Does that mean that the Raspberry will be shipped with an outdated, unofficial platform, unsupported linux distribution ? ( https://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/announce/2011-December/003023.html )

On the other hand, Debian support Arm officially in its current release and every others ...

That doesn't sound very professional.

I hope that for the educational release they will get at least Fedora 17 and that release will be officially supported by the Fedora Project. Because I'm very concerned about what they will learn about security from being in an unsupported environment. Yeah you know, in a production environment choosing the most secure environment, that's not that much of a concern.

The OLPC support just a little fraction of the fedora project AFAIK, and they can do the support themselves. The fact that they are using it is not that relevant if everyone can install the entire Fedora Repository.

I don't think you will be leaving us without security updates, but the only fact that every students can go to wikipedia or the fedora website and see "unsupported" is wrong. We should take learning security habits more seriously.

The only fact that the big x86 market will not be contributing to security fixes on this release anymore is a concern.

I imagine the teacher saying "always check that your softwares are up to date ! Or in fact, well ... If it's possible ..."

If Fedora is not the official distribution for the Raspberry it's not a problem and it's pretty great to know that you are working actively on the fedora arm project, this will help to build a better future, but I will not recommend that release for a production environment ... AT ALL !

Well, if you are so upset about it (and I'm not sure why - 14 is thoroughly tested) I suggest you build your own distribution rather than complaining about what others are doing. You don't seem to comprehend how much effort goes in to something like this and to have people like you come in blurting on about unprofessionalism is insulting, and I don't like it. First warning.