Pi4 Emerges

Gavinmc42 · n00b Joined: 23 Sep 2019 Posts: 21 Location: Brisbane

Now that I got my 4GB Pi4 today I can get serious about building stuff..

Being new to the Gentoo forum is there a place to put a list of apps that built for aarch64 Gentoo64 on Pi's?
Lots of stuff no one knows if they will build yet.

Sakaki has been holding my hand on the Pi forums while I learn, but now it is time to pay back to Gentoo.

So here is a I list of things that I emerged so far.

Arduino IDE
Code::Blocks
Geany

DOSbox
Trigger
Warzone2100

Art of Illusion
OpenSCADWhat does Stable AArch64 mean now

Bino (has a bug I think)

Some stuff compiles from source using make etc
OpenOCD, FlashROM.
Is there a need to convert them to ebuilds and how do I do it?

There is some stuff I got working on Raspbian Buster.
FlightGear, Openscenegraph, lots of GIS and mapping software I want to get going on Gentoo64

As a Gentoo noobie what do I need to learn?
What does "Stable" Aarch64, mean now?
_________________
Don't get Pi's if you are scared of learning.

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Mon Sep 23, 2019 1:43 pm Post subject:

Gavinmc42,

Welcome to Gentoo.

64 bit on Raspberry Pi has come a long way since the launch of the 3B.
Then, if you could get a serial console in 64 bit mode you were doing well.

arm and arm64 are a long way from mainstream. To learn the ins and outs of Gentoo you need to learn on an amd64 install.
A Gentoo guest in Virtualbox on Windows is fine. If something is broken there, it will get a lot more attention than being broken only on arm64.

Stable and Testing are two of the branches of the ::gentoo repo. Stable, denoted by arch (arm64) means well tested and at the time of being marked stable, no open bugs.
Testing denoted by ~arch (~arm64) means that the package built with some combination of of use flags for someone sometime. Its not well tested.
Then there is unkeyworded. That means nobody knows if it works or not, or if they know, they are not telling.

For completness, there is the haemorrhaging edge, in the shape of live ebuilds. They build from the upstream repo as it is at the time you hit it. They are never keyworded.

That's a quick overview.

Write ebuilds and contribute them if you have the skills.
Contribute keywords via the Proxy Maintainers
Bugzilla is a useful resource too.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

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

erm67 · l33t Joined: 01 Nov 2005 Posts: 653 Location: EU

Gavinmc42 · n00b Joined: 23 Sep 2019 Posts: 21 Location: Brisbane

Thanks guys, Arm64 is a bit quicker to type than aarch64

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Tue Sep 24, 2019 12:19 pm Post subject:

Gavinmc42,

I have KDE on my Pi3B. You have to turn off Baloo or it will try to index everything before it starts.
It should be much better on a Pi4 with more RAM and more IO bandwidth.
Its installed there but I haven't had any test time.

arm64 is still rough round the edges, its not really a suitable platform for a Gentoo beginner.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

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

Gavinmc42 · n00b Joined: 23 Sep 2019 Posts: 21 Location: Brisbane

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Wed Sep 25, 2019 8:52 pm Post subject:

Gavinmc42,

Yep, Sakaki has made 64 bit Gentoo on the Pi very easy to use.

There are two aspects to any operating system.
Maintaining it and using it. Even Windows needs to be maintained but it tries to hide it from you.

Windows and other binary operating systems, including Sakakis 64 bit gentoo are easy to maintain until you want to do something that they don't do for you.
With Windows, hard luck, you go without or pay lots of money.
On Gentoo, you build it yourself. If you are lucky, you can find an ebuild, if not, the ./configure, make, install steps are worth trying.

Gentoo is a set of tools you use to design your own distro. Its Portage, the package manager and the ::gentoo ebuild repositqry.
Everything else is upstream.

When you run a binary Gentoo derivative, its their OS design. Sakakis 64 bit Gentoo on the Pi is just that. Sakakis design of an operating system.
Once you find you want to change things, life gets harder.
Portage will take care of adding things with emerge.

When you get to changing build options, it gets harder. Things you have installed need to be rebuilt with new options.
Giver that arm64 is not mainstream, you might want to install things not yet tested an arm64.
You can do all of those things. Gentoo lets you. The further away from the binary offering you go, the more you are designing your own operating system.

The more you are designing your own operating system, the more CPU cycles you need to maintain it.

You may find this BINHOST useful. Only the gcc-9.x branch is maintained.

None of the above is knocking binary or derived distros. There is a whole spectrum of distro design possibilities.
Gentoo, DIY is at one extreme, a pure binary distro at the other.
Everyone needs to find a place where they are happy.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

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

Gavinmc42 · n00b Joined: 23 Sep 2019 Posts: 21 Location: Brisbane

I'm finding if something does not work there is usually another free open source program that does.
With Pi4's many more choices exist, some don't have Arm64 ebuilds yet, no big deal.
Depending on dependacies more than 50% just make.
The trick is to find one that is simple to use without needing to read manuals or watch videos/tutorials.

When tools, apps and OS's get in the way of making I look elsewhere.
Today Raspbian Buster is testing mesa 19.2.0-rc1, finally caught up to Sakaki's Gentoo64 :lol:

Overnight I can add Kicad to my list of working emerges.
And now I find you have done it already and it's on your repo

Would most of these be A53 builds?

I now understand how Gentoo's quickly become personal OS's.
It's like taking control back

The last time I had that was DOS3.3 days.
_________________
Don't get Pi's if you are scared of learning.