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Release v1.5.0
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@sakaki- sakaki- released this 19 Aug 02:45
· 31 commits to master since this release
v1.5.0
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Learn about vigilant mode.

This release marks a significant milestone for the project, as the RPi4 is now supported (in addition to the RPi3 model B and B+, which remain supported too).

If you would like to upgrade an existing, older version of this image to v1.5.0 (rather than just downloading and using the latest v1.5.0 image directly), please see below.

Thanks to rapid upstream progress on aarch64 kernel work for the new board, there are surprisingly few compromises required when running the Pi4 under a 'pure' 64-bit OS such as this one. Specifically, for the Pi4 in this 1.5.0 release:

  • V3D graphics acceleration is supported in X under vc4-fkms-v3d / Mesa;
  • the full 4GiB complement of memory is usable (if you are lucky enough to own a top-of-the-line model, that is ^-^);
  • the V4L2 M2M video codecs and optional plug-in camera module are both usable;
  • use of dual HDMI displays is supported;
  • Bluetooth, fast Ethernet, and dual-band WiFi work.

Changes in this release (see main project page for further details):

  • Ground-up recompiled all software on the image (userland and kernel) using march=armv8-a+crc -mtune=cortex-a72 -O2 CFLAGS, meaning it should be optimized for the out-of-order execution provided by the newer Pi4's Cortex-A72 SoC, while still retaining backwards compatibility with the older RPi3 B/B+'s Cortex-A53.
  • Changed the project's GitHub name, from gentoo-on-rpi3-64bit to gentoo-on-rpi-64bit, to reflect the fact that the RPi4 is now also supported. Thanks to the way GitHub does things, people trying to find the old project should be automagically redirected to the renamed version. My bad in choosing an over-limiting moniker first time ><
  • Updated the RPi3 kernel (from the bcmrpi3-kernel-bis weekly autobuild) to version 4.19.66.20190816.
  • Added an additional kernel (from the bcm2711-kernel-bis weekly autobuild). This second kernel is used when booting the RPi4, lives at /boot/kernel8-p4.img, and is a tweaked version, as the name suggests, of a completely separate configuration: bcm2711_defconfig, as opposed to bcmrpi3_defconfig. The two kernels have distinguished release names, and so separate subdirectories in /lib/modules, but as they are built together, they share a common kernel tree tip commit. The kernel version used in this release includes (on the bcm2711 build) the recently-upstreamed PR#3144 (which allows the full 4GiB of RAM to be used, where present) and PR#3063 (which enables the use of V3D acceleration on the Pi4). The two kernels have auto-generated ebuilds by which they are installed: sys-kernel/bcmrpi3-kernel-bis-bin and sys-kernel/bcm2711-kernel-bis-bin, respectively.
  • Boot firmware updated to sys-boot/rpi3-64bit-firmware-1.20190718, and userland libraries to media-libs/raspberrypi-userland-1.20190808 (for dual-monitor aware tvservice utility etc.)
  • Size of the boot partition on the image expanded, from 63MiB to 255MiB, to accommodate the new dual-kernel setup just described (required for RPi3/4 booting).
  • Added dev-lang/go (it's been the most frequently requested package), and (an arm64 Pi4 patched version of) dev-libs/pigpio (for easy control of GPIOs) to the core package set.
  • Added sys-block/gparted (for disk management), net-misc/xorgxrdp and net-misc/tigervnc[server] (for remote access), media-sound/pavucontrol for pulseaudio (also made this a default USE flag), and x11-misc/arandr (for multi-screen layouts) to the xfce package set. (Also modified the arandr ebuild to add a login service that auto-loads layouts saved to ~/.screenlayout/default.sh).
  • Added app-office/abiword to the apps set (a lighter alternative to libreoffice writer - which remains bundled too - that some may prefer).
  • Included a slightly tweaked media-libs/mesa to allow v3d acceleration on the RPi4. Standard vc4 acceleration on the RPi3 is still supported.
  • Updated the pyconfig_gen application (found at Settings→RPi Config Tool): now supports configuring a second monitor (on the Pi4), and also setting the WiFi regulatory domain (RPi3/4). A simple overclocking "manettino" ^-^ for the Pi4 is also provided (all permitted settings should be warranty-safe, per RPF advice, but use at your own risk!).
  • Updated the media-video/pi-ffcam "camera live view" applet to work with the Pi4 (found in the Multimedia menu).
  • Also updated the media/video/pi-ffplay application for the Pi4 (again found in the Multimedia menu, this is a trivial app to illustrate accessing the Pi 3/4's hardware video codecs via v4l2m2m).
  • Moved 6by9's patches to media-video/ffmpeg (upon which the two apps above rely) forward to version 4.1.4, as these don't seem to be upstream yet.
  • Tidied up a number of boot-time services for RPi4 compatibility (e.g., x11-misc/rpi3-safecompositor etc.). Note that for simplicity I have not renamed these, so please don't disable or remove services just because their name starts with rpi3- (as for the most part, they still do something useful on an RPi4 too!).
  • I did change the name of the main repo used by the image though, from rpi3 to genpi64, and migrated the custom profile too. You can read more about this here.
  • Version bumped sys-boot/rpi3-boot-config, to update the baseline /boot/config.txt file for use with the Pi4 (while still retaining compatibility with the Pi3B/B+).
  • Renamed the master meta-package, from rpi3-64bit-meta to rpi-64bit-meta.
  • Added LLVM_TARGETS="WebAssembly BPF" (in addition to the default AArch64), to allow dev-lang/rust to be built with the wasm USE flag.
  • Various minor ebuild tidy-ups.
  • All packages brought up-to-date against the Gentoo tree, as of 10 August 2019 (which means e.g., www-client/firefox-68.0.1, www-client/chromium-76.0.3809.87-r1, app-office/libreoffice-6.3.0.4 etc. are bundled; a full list of installed packages may be found here).

A variant image for the Pi-Top v1 (an RPi3-based DIY laptop) is also included, as usual.

Notes and Caveats

Updated EEPROM Firmware

If you are using a Pi4, don't forget to update your EEPROM firmware; there's an official fix released that will allow your system to use ~300mW less power. For more information, please see here.

USB Shortcomings

As this release comes early in the lifecycle of the RPi4, expect to find a number of bugs and issues with it! In particular, one major issue, (due, as I understand it, per this post by 6by9, to a lack of FIQ fast interrupt handling on aarch64) is that isochronous transfers over USB are likely to be pretty bad in 64-bit compared to 32-bit. For example, USB webcams etc will drop frames (bulk transfers, as you might get e.g. when copying large files to and from a storage device, work fine on USB under 64-bit however; as do low-speed peripherals such as mice and keyboards).

Upgrading from an Earlier Release of the Image

Users downloading this v1.5.0 image directly can of course omit the instructions below; as all settings have been correctly set up for you already.

Users on earlier releases who wish to manually upgrade should follow the manual upgrade instructions to 1.4.2 below; the final step genup therein will actually do most of the work of getting you to v1.5.0.

However, as v1.5.0 has a dual-kernel setup (to allow booting on the RPi4, which has a significantly different SoC to the RPi3), you next need to expand your boot partition, and then switch meta-package, to complete the upgrade.

Let's begin by expanding the boot partition. On v1.4.2 and earlier, this is 63MiB in capacity, which is insufficient for a dual kernel system (something I should have anticipated, apologies ><). Since the root and boot (filesystems') partitions directly abut in v1.4.2, you need first to shrink, and then move forward, the root partition (and filesystem); and then expand the boot partition (and filesystem) to fill the space thus freed up.

I recommend using the FOSS gparted graphical tool to do carry out these tasks - it is much less error-prone than using the command line. Begin by backing up your current Gentoo microSD card, then insert it into a Linux PC and run gparted (it is available in most distros). Select the second (root) partition of your card, and elect to shrink and move it, so it has 193MiB of preceding space. Then, select the first (boot) partition, and elect to expand it, from 63 to 256 Mib, with 0 space before and after (the tool will probably change its size to 255MiB automatically, to preserve alignment). Commit the operations, and wait for them to conclude (it may take up to half an hour or so).

Once done, boot your image (on an RPi3) to ensure it is still functional, and check the amount of free space on /boot, using df -h. If all looks good, you can proceed to migrate to the new metapackage. Since you have just genup-ed, your overlays will be up-to-date, so now (working as root at your RPi3, booted into the image), issue:

pi64 ~ #  emerge -v --nodeps dev-embedded/rpi-64bit-meta

We use --nodeps here, as we need both metapackages around at the same time for the next step.

Next, copy across any uncommented custom settings from /etc/portage/package.use/rpi3-64bit-meta to /etc/portage/package.use/rpi-64bit-meta (being sure to change any references to rpi3-64bit-meta to rpi-64bit-meta when you do). Note that for most users, this will be a no-op, as all lines in /etc/portage/package.use/rpi3-64bit-meta will be commented, as originally shipped, but it is always best to check.

Once done, remove the old metapackage from your @world set; issue:

pi64 ~ # emerge --deselect dev-embedded/rpi3-64bit-meta

With that, you're all set to finalize the upgrade. To do so, simply run:

pi64 ~ # emaint sync --repo sakaki-tools
pi64 ~ # emerge -v --oneshot --update app-portage/genup
pi64 ~ # genup

Let this run to completion. Once done, run:

pi64 ~ # dispatch-conf

to review any modified configuration files. Pay particular attention to /boot/config.txt, as the distributed version of this file contains changes that are critical to booting successfully on the RPi4 (if you haven't made any changes to this file, dispatch-conf will silently upgrade it: however, many users will have changed it, either directly or via the pyconfig_gen application, in which case the utility will ask you what to do). If in doubt, press u when prompted, to use the new copy of the file (you can learn more about using the dispatch-conf tool here).

Once that's done, issue:

pi64 ~ # ls /boot/kernel8*

and you should see that you now have a kernel8-p4.img (the Pi4 kernel) installed, as well as the more usual kernel8.img (the Pi3 kernel) in place. And, if you run:

pi64 ~ # eix -I dev-embedded/rpi-64bit-meta

you should see that you have >= v1.5.0 installed. If so, congratulations, your upgrade is complete! You can now try booting your image on an RPi4 if you like ^-^ Good luck!

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