Working distros on la frite

miguelagve

Hi,
I'm trying to get other distros running on the board aside from the ones provided by libre-computer on the board.
I would like to know if anyone has any working one, and give me some advice on how to run it. 
Thank you in advance.

loverpi

All of the kernel, device-tree, mali kernel module you need can be found here: http://share.loverpi.com/board/libre-computer-project/libre-computer-board/
It should work on any debian derivatived distro. The other stuff you would possibly need is in /opt folder such as userspace mali blobs and such.
Board boots regular UEFI apps from /EFI/boot/bootaa64.efi.

aeldemery

I have Arch general Arm64 running on the board, only problem is sound is not working.

miguelagve

loverpi said:

All of the kernel, device-tree, mali kernel module you need can be found here: http://share.loverpi.com/board/libre-computer-project/libre-computer-board/
It should work on any debian derivatived distro. The other stuff you would possibly need is in /opt folder such as userspace mali blobs and such.
Board boots regular UEFI apps from /EFI/boot/bootaa64.efi.

Is there any special change to the kernel compare to mainline, or could I use any aarch64 kernel? 
And with regards to the mali driver, you wouldn't need any if running kernel 5.2 or higher and mesa 19.1, would you?

FransM

Well the kernel released by libre is

linux-image-4.19.64+_4.19.64+-60_arm64.deb 

The + after the version number means that this is build from modified sources, so I guess not everything will work if you use another aarch64 kernel.

Unfortunately libre does not release source code (which is actually a GPL violation), so building your own kernel is also not possible.

PS: I don't understand why it is so difficult to create a source tarball after building and distributing that, or to push the code to gitlab or github during the release process.

loverpi

@FransM There's uncommited changes to the device tree for adding some model and vendor strings used by lc_distro_transfer script. Kernel sources can be found here: https://github.com/libre-computer-project/libretech-linux/tree/v4.19/libretech-master-stable-build

FransM

@loverpi That tree has "Latest commit 7887498 on Jun 23 "

4.19.64 is from 6 days ago, so this github tree is definitely not up-to-date.

Why not just push the version you used to build the kernel to github? Shouldn't take much time and gives a much better impression!

miguelagve

loverpi said:

@FransM There's uncommited changes to the device tree for adding some model and vendor strings used by lc_distro_transfer script. Kernel sources can be found here: https://github.com/libre-computer-project/libretech-linux/tree/v4.19/libretech-master-stable-build

do the changes affect anything aside the lc_distro_transfer tool? 

loverpi

@miguelagve The branch is the current kernel used in the images.

VCR0

 miguelagve said:

Is there any special change to the kernel compare to mainline, or could I use any aarch64 kernel? 
And with regards to the mali driver, you wouldn't need any if running kernel 5.2 or higher and mesa 19.1, would you?

Any news on that jazzy 5.2 kernel, is that the Ubuntu 20.04 that i heard is being developed?  By this link it doesn't look like we'll see it until April.  (https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2019/10/ubuntu-20-04-release-features)

Anyone have any other news on versions using the kernel that will try to support our device upstream?

djismgaming

You can try the ones from Armbian at https://www.armbian.com/la-frite/. They work beautifully for a server. Haven't used one with any desktop environment yet from them. Currently use the Ubuntu one with a Pi-Hole docker container. Works beautifully and the temperature hangs around 46c (great in Puerto Rico's hot temperature). That is without any cooling solution on it.

Welcome to Ubuntu Bionic with Armbian Linux 5.3.8-meson64
System load:   0.00 0.01 0.00  	Up time:       8 days
Memory usage:  31 % of 966MB  	Zram usage:    5 % of 483Mb  	IP:            192.168.1.10
CPU temp:      46°C
Usage of /:    21% of 7.2G

davisonja

Oh, nice @djismgaming! I'm still trying to get to the bottom of my lack of video on LibreELEC. I'm hoping to find an image running a more recent kernel (that isn't LibreELEC) that also gives me video - the standard Ubuntu images that Libre Computer have made available work fine, but they're running a 4.x kernel (I forget which) and LibreELEC has 5.3, so comparing differences is tricky.

With luck this will be a step toward it!