After applying the SD Card disk formatting and ‘optimisation’ mentioned previously, I decided to attempt to bring the version of Fedora (14) up to date.. The Fedora 17 Pi ‘respin’ is due sometime in May, but I decided – based on my experiences with Fedora 17 on the Dreamplug – to try to ‘hack’ F17 from the … Continue reading →
Despite previous ‘tweaks’, I have been experiencing continuing problems with SD Card Linux performance, and with the unreliable operations of yum / rpm, with associated db corruption, when they have to be ‘killed’ after hanging.. Based on two excellent pieces of prior research: http://blogofterje.wordpress.com/2012/01/14/optimizing-fs-on-sd-card/ and http://www.raspberrypi.org/forum/projects-and-collaboration-general/optimizing-linux-for-flash-memory – I will be having a stimulating (!) time performing formatting … Continue reading →
I had intended to persevere with the Fedora 14 ‘respin’, despite it being (correctly, IMHO..) described as ‘a bit buggy’.. Performance was improved with the newer 3.1.9+ kernel image, without the debug messages, but overall the response was still very sluggish.. I selected XFCE as the UI, as I had used this – successfully – with Fedora … Continue reading →
Found the latest kernel image (still 3.1.9-based..) and associated pre-compiled modules at the git repository – https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware – and the ‘new’ version of kernel.img does away with the annoying console debug messages.. Device still seems very slow, but maybe I’m too used to quad-core systems with masses of memory! I even tried the Debian system, as this … Continue reading →
Raspberry Pi finally arrived today.. Set up with Fedora ‘Respin’ FC14.. Initial impressions.. Confirmed what we already know – does _not_ support Class 10 SD Cards! Had to do a quick install onto an old 2GB Class 4 card (not really big enough!**)… 32GB Class 4 card on order.. First boot – prompts for user name … Continue reading →
Tried to join the Element14 ‘Programming-the-Pi’ Webinar this afternoon (April 4th), but although the java app started OK, all I saw was an ‘info’ window, and myself showing as the sole attendee! Tried with Firefox and then Chrome, but no joy… Maybe the Cisco Webex stuff they are using doesn’t work with Linux? (Oh, the irony…) (”Webinar” … Continue reading →
The Raspberry Pi boot sequence is somewhat unique, due – amongst other things – to the binary code blobs necessary to drive the Broadcom CPU/GPU at boot time. The FAT32 boot partition looks like this: The three binary files arm<nnn>_start.elf provide varying allocations of the processor for CPU (compute) versus GPU (video) work. This effectively means that … Continue reading →
The Linux kernel source for the Pi has been ‘forked’, rather than being released as a patch set.. This is probably a necessary evil, in order to get a working version out in public… But.. This has the (obvious) downside that we have to rely on regular creation of ‘newer’ forked versions, and the current Pi kernel … Continue reading →
This is how I compile ARM kernels. There are other ways of doing this, but this works, for me.. First – I should mention – Read the Wicki! This is at http://elinux.org/R-Pi_Hub After getting the ‘forked’ kernel I then had to obtain a suitable config file, which included the necessary extra items for the Pi Broadcom chipset.. … Continue reading →
The Fedora armv5tel / x86_64 cross-compiler toolchain is a bit ancient (GCC 4.1.2!), and the Pi is armv6.. So.. I needed a more up-to-date and architecture-friendly substitute.. After some abortive attempts (some of the other armv7 cross-compilers were just as old!) I found a set of armv7 / x86_64 cross-compiler rpms – including gcc version 4.6.1 – … Continue reading →