Bootable 64-bit RPi3/Pi4 Gentoo image (OpenRC/Xfce/VC4) Pt 2

mirage032 · n00b Joined: 11 Dec 2005 Posts: 10 Location: 51.49 -0.015

Hello,

First, huge thanks to Sakaki and all contributors for maintaining and documenting the various guides on Gentoo. Especially for arm64.

I received the Raspberry Pi 4 8GB RAM last month, it works like a charm except for few minor things:
- I can't seem use 3D acceleration properly on arm64 but there is already a topic on that.
For what it's worth I get 44 fps in 1920x1200 in local using glxgears

Jarodiv · n00b Joined: 17 Jan 2020 Posts: 38

mirage032 · n00b Joined: 11 Dec 2005 Posts: 10 Location: 51.49 -0.015

Jarodiv · n00b Joined: 17 Jan 2020 Posts: 38

mirage032 · n00b Joined: 11 Dec 2005 Posts: 10 Location: 51.49 -0.015

Indeed, I have the same configuration.

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sun Aug 23, 2020 6:43 pm Post subject:

mirage032,

Don't mix gcc version in a compile farm.
distcc can't call the correct version. You need to set all gcc versions with gcc-config, or eselect gcc.

Mixing gcc versions has been known to produce broken code.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

Jarodiv · n00b Joined: 17 Jan 2020 Posts: 38

Are you using fkms (dtoverlay=vc4-fkms-v3d) or kms (dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d)? With kms I had a similar, poor performance. fkms on the other hand produces good results.

mirage032 · n00b Joined: 11 Dec 2005 Posts: 10 Location: 51.49 -0.015

Thank you both for the suggestions.

Jarodiv, you're right. This is why I upgraded to gcc 10.2 using distcc to avoid any kind of issue (I still know that I might find some weird issues):

I followed sakaki's guide Set Up Your Gentoo PC for Cross Compilation with crossdev

Except that I use eselect to use gcc 10.2 on the host machine.

mirage032 · n00b Joined: 11 Dec 2005 Posts: 10 Location: 51.49 -0.015

I just used full image from sakaki latest build available here.
I got 25-27fps in fullscreen (4CPUs were at 100%) and it was still using lvmpipe.

I guess I will keep it headless.

Sakaki · Guru Joined: 21 May 2014 Posts: 409

BobbeNa · n00b Joined: 26 Sep 2020 Posts: 1

i want to take the time to thank the people who have taken then time build, test, and make available this Gentoo for Arm. it is the one desktop I have been trying to get working right on my raspberry pi after I had used RaspOS. I think you have done a great job making this such smooth running OS.
_________________
Live and Let Live

Bobbe

Raspberry Pi 4 Gentoo 64

Sakaki · Guru Joined: 21 May 2014 Posts: 409

sakaki stepping down from gentoo-on-rpi-64bit (aka genpi64) maintenance (effective EOL notice)

Dear fellow Gentoo and RPi enthusiasts -

I am afraid I have some difficult news to share.

As some of you already know, the last few months have been very challenging for me in terms of bandwidth, because my current, "real-world" job has required increasing (and ultimately, unsustainable) amounts of my time, struggling to deliver a much increased workload with a skeleton staff post-lockdown. While I need to stay employed in this difficult environment, my family life has been coming under immense strain, and it became clear that something had to give.

As a result, I have -- after much debate -- decided to accept a recent offer (which arrived unsolicited, and to my surprise) from another org to join them.

In many senses they offer a perfect fit, as the role is a lead architect position focused on post-quantum crypto for embedded systems, two of my real-world areas of practice, the org is world-renowned, and while the time commitment is still large, it is manageable.

However, it also comes at a significant (non-financial) cost, as their legals essentially prohibit me from contributing to external projects in my spare time to any material extent (sadly, this includes genpi64; which they know all about... unsurprising, given who they are I guess ><).

Consequently, I must announce that I will be stepping down as the maintainer for this project (and a number of others on GitHub, such as raspbian-nspawn-64) with immediate effect. As I am the sole maintainer for these (and since, my bad, no real succession planning has been done), this effectively means these projects are going EOL at this point.

For the meantime, I will leave the repos up (for historical interest and since they may be of use still in certain applications); however, there will be no further updates to the underlying binhost etc. (other than for the kernel autobuilds, which will remain running as they are entirely unattended atm; but, I will not attempt to fix them if they break). Nor will I be accepting/actioning further pull requests / bug reports from this point. Email requests for support will also have to be politely declined ><. I will continue to monitor this forum, but will be unable to provide in-depth technical responses to queries as before, and any responses may be somewhat delayed.

My sincere and heartfelt apologies to those who have contributed to, used and commented on genpi64 over the nearly four years since I first released it (seems such a long time ago now!). With the benefit of hindsight, it is apparent that I should have spent more time creating a maintenance community around this project (and others), but, in truth, I never expected it to gain the (modest!) popularity that it did; it was just a proof-of-concept that kind of grew...

Of course, this is not the end in any sense for Gentoo on the aarch64 / 64-bit RPi platform, which remains very much a going concern (as you can see from the many active contributors on this forum). Also, given that the custom overlay for gentoo-on-rpi-64bit is still available, you can (relatively easily) create your own 'downstream' Gentoo-based distro, if you so desire, and take up from where I am leaving off. If that piques your interest, please go for it!

In closing, I'd just like to note my heartfelt thanks to everyone who has used the image over the years, and to the fantastic team of devs and enthusiasts who make up the Gentoo and Raspberry Pi communities (a particular shout out to NeddySeagoon!). It's truly been an honour to be a (tiny!) part of those endeavours for a little while, and I hope genpi64 has helped, in some small way, to demonstrate that 64-bit Gentoo on systems such as the very capable RPi4 makes a lot of sense.

So, kind regards, stay well, and I trust our paths may cross again in the future ^-^

Sayounara!
_________________
Regards,

sakaki

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Wed Oct 28, 2020 6:54 pm Post subject:

Sakaki,

Jarodiv · n00b Joined: 17 Jan 2020 Posts: 38

Really sad to hear but at the same time being happy for you, that you got this amazing opportunity (btw, it sounds really strange to me as a german, with our extensive privacy laws, that a company can dictate what you are allowed to do with your private time). You did an amazing job with your overlay, it helped me countless times to get my own Gentoo up and running, huge thanks for that!

I think the best solution would be if the changes Sakaki has made would be merged into upstream (I'm aware that this is a "someone has to do that" statement).

Some of them already found their way, others didn't yet. I've managed to get a desktop Gentoo running smoothly, using only 7 packages from the overlay (most only for convenience; more certainly are required for additional functionality), the rest already is working fine using only upstream and other official packages (e.g. the Raspberry Kernel).

ian.au · l33t Joined: 07 Apr 2011 Posts: 606 Location: Australia

while true · Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2020 6:11 pm Post subject:

Oh, Sakaki, ooooh. so much mixed feelings...

You made me happy.
I am grateful for your genpi64,
thank you for marvelous image.
I am sad you are leaving this project of yours.
Congratulations on your new job post.
Bye and good winds to your sails Sakaki!
...
...
(has she left? she has?
ok, now listen up, eternal noob here,
I am scared to bones!
now just what does that mean for noobs that use her's genpi64?
like, exactly, will I be able to genup this rig,
and for how long? Is it smart to stay on it?
If not, than what are my options to run gentoo 64 bit on raspberry pi?
Thank you)
_________________
Kind regards, Goran Mitic

alive
while true
kick ass

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2020 6:49 pm Post subject:

while true,

genup will stop working as of now. Sakaki said that there will be no more binhost updates.

Sakakis image is based on the ::gentoo repo, the ::genpi64 overlay and patches to make things work properly on Raspberry pi.
None of these things will go away. The ::genpi64 overlay and patches and resultant binhost will no longer be updated.

What to do ... you can migrate to ::gentoo (without the ::genpi64 overlay and patches) plus the Foundation kernel.
That's not terribly attractive as the Pi specific ebuilds will be lost and things like ffmpeg and Kodi will be become sub optimal.

What to do depends on your individual USE case.

The Pi 4, with 4G or 8G RAM is a fairly capable build system.
Add in distcc to a cross compiler on helpers and it can do quite well.
Don't build on the SD card though. Use a USB HDD.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

emerge_life · n00b Joined: 09 May 2011 Posts: 11

while true · Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2020 10:34 am Post subject:

Hello NeddySeagoon,

I have great rig, two 1080p monitors,
rpi4/8g, overclocked to 2ghz, nice cooling armour with fans,
hooked up on 400gb ssd disk.
I cried a little when I got this set up
like 6 months ago - running genpi64 (lite of course).
My gentoo box, with 8 core amd is turned on once a week,
or every other, to help genpi64 compile genup with distcc, and than turned off.
I am on genpi64 as daily computer, well, almost a year.

here is a picture of my rig, usually it is tucked behind the monitors:
www.vodjatropa.si/gentoo/genpi64_rig.jpg

My individual daily use case is sylpheed, qutebrowser, mpv and xterm (tui apps). openvpn, ssh. I have an app i made in c++ that runs always.
than again, I have libreoffice, filezilla, qtcreator, gimp, that are also needed.

So now I am here where is no laughter, since i do not understand terminology. ::gentoo repo, the ::genpi64 overlay and patches, migrate to with Fundation kernel. But I understand sub optimal.
I do not know how to migrate unless there is a handbook I can follow, just dumb between ears. Are there any instructions on the matter?

Thanks Neddy.

For how long can I stay on this rig with last update?
Is there a gentoo handbook for rpi?
And is there noone that knows and could pick up Sakaki's torch?

The range for gentoo on rpi is HUGE,
from top-notch-hight-edge-best-in-the-world-Scotty-can-hide-himself-engineer (aka Sakaki)
to fart-full-skull-ARM-chair-idiot (aka me).
Gentoo team, hear my words so I can teach you,
take my hand when i try to reach you,
but my words, like silent rain drops fell,
into the sound of silence...

Thank you.
_________________
Kind regards, Goran Mitic

alive
while true
kick ass

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2020 11:16 am Post subject:

while true,

There is no Rpi handbook. We would need one for every arm64 single board computer and they are all different.
There isn't even an arm64 hardbook as its almost the same as amd64, except where it diverges due to the differences in individual platforms.

When Sakaki started genpi64, arm64 on Gentoo was a bit like the wild west. Since that time its become more mainstream. Recently it was made a stable profile on Gentoo.

::gentoo means the Gentoo ebuild repository.
::genpi64 means Sakakis genpi64 overlay.

Its the repro names that can appear in emerge output after each package, when you do an update.

Carrying on genup, which is Sakakis updater that fetches from binhost will be a lot of work. It means maintaining Sakakis genpi64 overlay and a public binhost to make the packages available.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

while true · Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2020 12:06 pm Post subject:

Hello NeddySeagoon,

Thank you for your patience and explanations, but I stll do not know what all this means.

Is gentoo on rpi4 over for noobs?
Will it ever be like genpi64, or similar?
Can I keep using genpi64, and for how long?
You mentined migration, is there a how-to page?
Can one fresh install gentoo on rpi4, with external ssd drive, and where can one turn for instructions and help, if one is noob, dumb consumer?

Thank you
_________________
Kind regards, Goran Mitic

alive
while true
kick ass

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2020 12:59 pm Post subject:

while true,

while true · Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2020 8:41 pm Post subject:

aaa...
oh...
the struggle i do to have a gentoo...

so a battle plan is in order,
let me read upon and expect new threads.
thank you Neddy
_________________
Kind regards, Goran Mitic

alive
while true
kick ass

lperkins2 · n00b Joined: 18 Apr 2014 Posts: 14

Have hope! The GenPi64 project lives on. I use it professionally, so have little choice but to continue making arm64 Gentoo on Raspberry Pi a functional thing. Given that I have to do the work anyway, I may as well make it available to everyone else.

I have created a GitHub organization called GenPi64 and am working on the technical details as we speak (actually, I'm going to bed next, but it's my main project for tomorrow). I have a 1TB/month server I can lend to the cause (if we get past 1TB/month, I *will* have to ask for donations), and an 8core behemoth with a crossdev environment set up. I don't think Sakaki ever posted the build tools, so I'll likely have to recreate a fair portion of them from scratch, but it isn't *that* complicated.

Also, while I will see to it this project continues, for now, one of the first priorities is to get some other knowledgeable people on-board to help. I'd hate to fail the "autobus" test and leave this project dead (though, to be quite honest, I think this project would be the least of my worries in that case).

Anyway, I'll cross post this to the raspberrypi forums when I can, my registration email there seems to have choked somehow; waiting on a support ticket.

P.S. I've created a discord server for the time being, to coordinate with anyone else interested in helping the project. https://discord.gg/Eu5D2e5KJQ is the link.

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2020 11:44 am Post subject:

lperkins2,

I for one, will not use discord. Their terms of service are offensive to me.
Also, I'm a superannuated canine and I don't want to lean any novel manoeuvrers.

I encourage you and other genpi64 followers to join #gentoo-arm on freenode and join in with the existing gentoo arm and arm64 teams.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.