genBerry: a kind of stage4 for raspberry Pi

Message

dervishe · Post by **dervishe** » Tue Jan 12, 2016 6:00 am

Hello,
playing with some raspberry Pi, i came to build a stage4 image (that i called genBerry) and some installation scripts for it. Those scripts will take care of all the part of the installation: sdcard partitioning, formatting and mounting, kernel building and new portage tree on a squashfs image. You can, of course, customize the installation with some options when you call the scripts.
The compress image size is approx 190MB. I had tested it against raspberry 1A, 1B, zero and 2B. All the archive retrieved during the installation are verified against the public key of their author.
Once installed, the system contains no swap, /tmp and /var/log are tmpfs FS.
genBerry is built on the official stage3 for raspberryPi.
I'll be more than happy and grateful if some are interested in testing / using it and make feedback.
The link is here: https://github.com/dervishe-/genBerry

audiodef · Post by **audiodef** » Tue Jan 12, 2016 2:44 pm

Very nice! I'll give this a try if I can find the time.

Post by **NeddySeagoon** » Tue Jan 12, 2016 7:34 pm

/me checks in

dervishe · Post by **dervishe** » Wed Jan 13, 2016 11:53 am

thanks for your interest

zhangyubaka · Post by **zhangyubaka** » Thu Jan 14, 2016 9:11 pm

rpi2 wanted.

Post by **NeddySeagoon** » Thu Jan 14, 2016 10:32 pm

dervishe,

Well, I have a BINHOST for the arm6j Pi.

dervishe · Post by **dervishe** » Fri Jan 15, 2016 1:39 am

@NeddySeagoon awesome, can i include your repository ? Did you have some kind of crypto signature to ensure users that the bin packages are genuine (i never used bin packages in gentoo then perhaps my request is not accurate)
Thanks for your work

@zhangyubaka actually, the current-stage3-armv6j_hardfp version just boot without problems for the rPi2 (i tested it) but some services are failing i'm working for a more complex script which will build the base images for current-stage3-armv6j_hardfp and current-stage3-armv7a_hardfp
Actually the todo list is:
* possibility to choose the locale
* export to an iso image
* select the partition scheme

I think all this will be available at the end of January (well it depends of my free time but i think, i can handle it)
Btw, i will be on FOSDEM this year and if some wants to talk about it, i will be happy to exchange ideas

Edit: reduce the todo list with the thing done

Post by **NeddySeagoon** » Fri Jan 15, 2016 7:24 pm

dervishe,

None of that BINHOST is signed. Its just an scp of my Pis /usr/portage/packages.
Feel free to use or link to my BINHOST. If you use a link, it would be best if you linked to the level with the READme file.

szatox · Post by **szatox** » Sat Jan 16, 2016 9:05 pm

I wonder... When I look at variables used by emerge, it's pretty obvious you can install cross-compiler, create a directory storing config files for emerge e.g.
$config/pi/etc/portage/make.conf
with CHOST set to the target architecture and then launch

Code: Select all

emerge --root="my_new_shiny_gentoo_for_TT" --config-root="$config/pi" list of packages you want to include in the target system"

So... Anyone tried that? I haven't (yet) but when I see how advanced and flexible emerge is, and considering there are stage3 tarballs for many architectures incompatible with each other, I really doubt someone is keeping 10 servers with different architectures just to build those.
And there must be an easier way than doing all this stuff manually.

Hmm... AFAIR there was one variable more that has to be set in make.cont when the build host doesn't match target host.

Post by **NeddySeagoon** » Sat Jan 16, 2016 9:55 pm

szatox,

Pure cross compiling doesn't work by design for perl and python.
Its fine for all the things you need to port Linux to a new arch, after all, that's how ports are done.

Outside of that, its pretty hit and miss because build systems are not well tested in a cross compile environment.

In theory, you can use crossdev to get say an arm7a toolchain ... that works.
Set up /usr/armv7a-hardfloat-linux-gnueabi/etc/portage/make.conf for the target
Then do

Code: Select all

armv7a-hardfloat-linux-gnueabi-emerge @system

to build system from nothing.
In practice, you don't get very far.

dervishe · Post by **dervishe** » Mon Jan 18, 2016 5:28 am

I've updated the image now, there's 2 archives one for armv6j and the second for armv7a. The armv6j comes with distcc and the NeddySeagoon binhost repository.
I added too the possibility to put the kernel sources on the sdcard.
@NeddySeagoon i have some trouble with including your repository at the README level (portage need the Packages file i thik) then i include in make.conf the address: http://grytpype-thynne.org/~roy/BINHOSTS/gcc-4.x/arm6j/

Post by **NeddySeagoon** » Mon Jan 18, 2016 7:08 pm

dervishe,

For make.conf, you need to link to the directory where the Packages file is.
It would be good to include a comment in the make.conf pointing at the Readme though.

dervishe · Post by **dervishe** » Mon Jan 18, 2016 7:33 pm

NeddySeagoon,
that's what i done (except for the comment but i will add it asap)
I will add an option for the users to choose if they want to include the repository or not. Actually, if you choose the ARMv6j, it is added automatically.
thanks