Fedora 21 REMIX for Raspbery Pi 2B

[clivem]

Fedora 21 REMIX for Raspbery Pi 2B

Fedora 21 REMIX for Raspbery Pi 2B image download

These images are based on the "official" F21 21-5 armv7hl images, but have been updated, so the packages on them are current, (as of 20150219), and the kernel-* packages replaced with raspberry-pi-kernel-*.

Unlike the official Fedora images, a "default" root password, ("fidora"), is already set. So if you don't want to go through the graphical initial setup, (with keyboard/monitor attached), you can ssh into the device as root. The default hostname has been changed from localhost to something more useful. ie. fidora-kde-remix, fidora-lxde-remix, fedora-xfce-remix, fedora-minimal-remix, depending on image.

So assuming you boot the LXDE image headless, and plug in a ethernet cable before booting, you can ssh into it, "ssh root@fidora-lxde-remix.local", and upon entering the root password, "fidora", get a command prompt.

The key difference between these remix images and other scripted solutions to making a F21 RPi2 image, is that they are supported by a repo, and except for the "binary only" bootloader, everything is built from source using Fedora compiler flags and rpm packaged. Which, to cut a long story short, means that the kernel can be updated from yum/dnf, rather than being stuck with whatever was copied to the /boot partition from a clone of Pi firmware github, when the image was created.

Not that I want to warn anyone away from trying these images, but I am unable to provide a great deal in the way of support, so would suggest you stick with Raspian, if it is your "first time out". My use of the Pi is completely headless, so I'm not the best person to advise on hdmi overscan settings in config.txt. etc. etc.

PS. A thank you to Digitial Dreamtime Ltd for sponsoring my time to work on these images and the download server on which they are hosted.

The graphical images, (KDE/XFCE/LXDE), have had the root fs resized to fit on an 8GB SDCARD. Don't try installing to anything smaller than a 8GB card!

[hexelpdkk]

Firstly, thanks for these Clive and thanks to Digital Dreamtime for their sponsorship.

I have so far tried the previous iteration of the LXDE (or possibly XFCE) spin, which was great, and then added the LXQt desktop (I tried RazerQT last year and liked the look of it).

Yesterday I tried to create a smaller LXQt install without success, by starting with minimal and just doing a groupinstall. Firstly I couldn't get wifi up from the command line (wpa_supplicant isn't in the minimal image, and nmcli didn't want to play). Is there a way to set up a wifi connection from the minimal install?

Even after using wired LAN, I managed to get LXQt going, but the desktop background never repainted.

Now going to look at the kde image, and probably try LXQt on top of that.

Thanks again

[clivem]

Yes, wpa_supplicant package (and probably other things needed for wireless) isn't included with the minimal image.

I'd recommend you start with one of the GUI images, whatever you intend to do with it, if you want to get wireless working or installing another desktop, etc.etc.

[onurmx]

How can i install this .raw.xz file sorry i am new.

[onurmx]

How can i install this .raw.xz file sorry i am new.

I find solution.Here is how to install:
1.extract .raw.xz file and it seems like .raw file.
2.Change file system .raw to .img
3.Write with win32diskimager to sd card
And ready for use.

[user007]

You may use Berryboot - Boot menu/OS installer for ARM devices (http://sourceforge.net/projects/berryboot/).
The Berryboot web site is http://www.berryterminal.com/doku.php/berryboot
It is needed to download 32.8MB zip file and to copy the unzipped files to a FAT or FAT32 formatted microSD card.
Then you may start RPI2 and add to the Berryboot main menu the existing image of Fedora ARM 21 OS with MATE desktop. It is downloaded and installed at full Internet speed. Then you may add to the Berryboot main menu other RPI2 OS as well.
Fedora 21 MATE is running very well, the MATE desktop is nice and fast, Firefox v.33.1 is already pre-installed (Raspbian OS has only old Firefox version Iceweasel). Only audio hardware should be added.
The previous version included in Berryboot was Fedora 18 with xfce desktop - it was running very well too on RPI2.

[Ongelma]

Fedora 21 REMIX for Raspbery Pi 2B

Fedora 21 REMIX for Raspbery Pi 2B image download

So assuming you boot the LXDE image headless, and plug in a ethernet cable before booting, you can ssh into it, "ssh root@fidora-lxde-remix.local", and upon entering the root password, "fidora", get a command prompt.

Not that I want to warn anyone away from trying these images, but I am unable to provide a great deal in the way of support, so would suggest you stick with Raspian, if it is your "first time out". My use of the Pi is completely headless, so I'm not the best person to advise on hdmi overscan settings in config.txt. etc. etc.

The graphical images, (KDE/XFCE/LXDE), have had the root fs resized to fit on an 8GB SDCARD. Don't try installing to anything smaller than a 8GB card!

In LXDE version I tried to disable the overscanning on hdmi @ config.txt but failed. Then i noticed that in /boot/ folder there are readily configured config.txt files for different purposes. so:

take a backup of the original config.txt file: in /boot/ folder:
sudo mv config.txt configbackup.txt

if you want overscan disabled:
sudo mv config.txt.hdmi_nooverscan config.txt
(this renames the config.txt.hdmi_nooverscan to config.txt
sudo reboot and voila.

[Alex/AT]

Just a question: can zram/zswap be included into the custom F21 kernel releases for Pi 2B? With a gig of RAM and 4 cores, it's a very viable option for both swapping and tmpfs.

[clivem]

I'll enable CONFIG_ZRAM and CONFIG_ZSWAP on the next kernel package I build.

[clivem]

I've uploaded a scratch raspberrypi-kernel rpm package to the unstable repo, which supports these F21 remix images. CONFIG_ZRAM and CONFIG_ZSWAP are enabled. From being logged into a booted image you need to run "sc-cleanUpdate-unstable-pi raspberrypi\*" from the cmd line. Reboot afterwards.

raspberrypi-kernel-3.18.7-516.20150226git0aa653a

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* Thu Feb 26 2015 - 3.18.7-516.20150226git0aa653a.sc20
- Experimental build with ZRAM and ZSWAP ebabled for bcm2709 flavour.
  CONFIG_ZSWAP=y
  CONFIG_ZPOOL=y
  CONFIG_ZSMALLOC=m
  CONFIG_ZRAM=m
  CONFIG_ZRAM_LZ4_COMPRESS=y
  CONFIG_CRYPTO_LZO=y
  CONFIG_LZ4_COMPRESS=m
  CONFIG_LZ4_DECOMPRESS=m

[Alex/AT]

Thanks! Will test today.

[Alex/AT]

Tested with:
zswap.enabled=1 zswap.compressor=lz4 zswap.max_pool_percent=50
and some memory-hungry data-parsing PHP scripts.

With zswap, pi remained ultimately responsive, all background tasks ran fast and no ping increase was seen (1G swap was filled for 800Mb). Without zswap, system crawled at ~200Mb fill, straining memory card (iowait quickly got to 100% on all cores and stayed at that).

zram just works. Used it (again with lz4 as compressor) instead of tmpfs, safe and sound.

[clivem]

Cool! I've only done very minimal testing, but don't seem to be any negative affects having those options enabled, so will leave them enabled for future builds.

[ryanben]

Hi, I dd the lxde image to 64gb micro sd.
After the first run, I got the configuration screen (time zone, creating user, etc...) but couldn't log in as root after I got the login screen. Then I restarted and fedora won't boot. I created sd again from scratch but it won't boot.
Any idea what went wrong?

[Ulfasti]

I am currently using berryboot version of Fedora 21 (Mate). Is is possible to use your kernel with it? I tried to use command: sc-cleanUpdate-pi raspberrypi\* but it only: says command not found.

I guess I need to know your repositorys address, could you share it?

Thanks for your hard work!

[clivem]

After the first run, I got the configuration screen (time zone, creating user, etc...) but couldn't log in as root after I got the login screen.

I think it may be that Fedora doesn't allow a ROOT login to X session. Did you create a normal user from the initial setup (configuration) and try to login as that user?

Then I restarted and fedora won't boot. I created sd again from scratch but it won't boot.
Any idea what went wrong?

Short answer.... I don't know. It did boot but now won't boot. SDCARD gone bad, maybe. You tried putting the image on another card?

[clivem]

I am currently using berryboot version of Fedora 21 (Mate). Is is possible to use your kernel with it? I tried to use command: sc-cleanUpdate-pi raspberrypi\* but it only: says command not found.

I guess I need to know your repositorys address, could you share it?

I'm not familair with Berryboot, don't know which image it is using, whether the kernel is rpm packaged and what the consequences will be of trying to use the raspberrypi-vc-* and raspberrypi-kernel* packages with it. So I'd recommend against doing this. If it all goes horribly wrong, I won't be able to help with fixing it....

Having said that,

Code: Select all

sudo yum install http://www.squeezecommunity.org/repo/21/arm/squeezecommunity-repo-1-5.fc21.noarch.rpm http://www.squeezecommunity.org/repo/21/pi/arm/squeezecommunity-pi-repo-1-2.noarch.rpm

get's you the repo config installed, but I reiterate, you are on your own if you use this repo on top of any image that I have not created.

[Ulfasti]

Thank you very much! I like berryboot because of ability to boot multible operation systems without sd-card swap. If I don't get your kernel work, I will try your edition of Fedora 21 with my second sd-card

I tried to convert your version to work with berryboot with this tutorial, but system did not boot.
http://www.berryterminal.com/doku.php/b ... tributions

[ryanben]

After the first run, I got the configuration screen (time zone, creating user, etc...) but couldn't log in as root after I got the login screen.

I think it may be that Fedora doesn't allow a ROOT login to X session. Did you create a normal user from the initial setup (configuration) and try to login as that user?

Then I restarted and fedora won't boot. I created sd again from scratch but it won't boot.
Any idea what went wrong?

Short answer.... I don't know. It did boot but now won't boot. SDCARD gone bad, maybe. You tried putting the image on another card?

I didn't create a user.
I don't think it's the card. Writing/reading is fine on my mac but I'll try another card as you suggested.

[fedofan]

Hi.
Would love to use your build, but how do I get it on sdcard? FeodProj Wiki Instruc do not cover pi2 yet.
Sorry for bothering, but this uboot-thing confuses me quite a bit.
Can U help or share a "quick install"?
Thank
G

[clivem]

Hi.
Would love to use your build, but how do I get it on sdcard? FeodProj Wiki Instruc do not cover pi2 yet.
Sorry for bothering, but this uboot-thing confuses me quite a bit.
Can U help or share a "quick install"?
Thank
G

There is no uboot involvement on these Pi images. Pi hardware includes the first stage bootloader which looks for a vfat partition and calls the second stage bootloader....

All you need to do is decompress the image and write it to an sdcard. Don't ask me how to do this from Windows or Mac, I don't use them. Maybe others can help there.
On Linux...

Code: Select all

xzcat XXXX.img.xz | dd of=/dev/sdX bs=4M
sync
eject /dev/sdX

Where XXXX.img.xz is the name of the image you wish to use and /dev/sdX is the sdcard. (dmesg will tell you what disk letter/path the OS has given to the sdcard.) Then boot the card on the Pi2B.

[fedofan]

Funtastic ! dd is what I'm used to...
Have checked KDE-Spin. Kind o' slow, naturally. Will try xfce next.
Thanx a lot.
G
P.S.: The repo is the official arm7, I suppose? Do you know if rpmfusion is allready available?
Skip P.S. Just found out its enabled...

[clivem]

P.S.: The repo is the official arm7, I suppose? Do you know if rpmfusion is allready available?

Yes, rpmfusion repo (both free and non-free) is already installed and enabled on these images.

[jwh1981]

Awesome work to say the least! I was able to use the minimal image and compile Quake3, very quick I might add. The game ran considerably faster than my RPi1. I haven't done a comparison of the current Raspbian vs. this F21 build, but I imagine being a completely ArmV7 distro has to help in one way or another.

If I may ask of a request for future builds: Would it be possible for the swap partition to be the last partition (p3) on the image? I don't know about others, but I usually delete the swap partition, extend out the root partition all the way and then make a swap file.

Again, Thank you for your hard work!

[clivem]

If I may ask of a request for future builds: Would it be possible for the swap partition to be the last partition (p3) on the image? I don't know about others, but I usually delete the swap partition, extend out the root partition all the way and then make a swap file.

This is something I have been thinking about... I left the disk layout the same as in the original Fedora 21-5 images for compatibility with my existing "compose" scripts. I also think it would be better to drop the swap (2nd) partition and have a swap file on the root partition, which could be easily deleted by those not wanting to use it, like the Pidora images.