[Arm-dev] Centos aarch64 on Raspberry PI 3

[Jim Perrin]

On 01/07/2017 01:51 PM, Paul R. Ganci wrote:
> I received a Raspberry PI 3 for Christmas with which I am playing. I
> would like to install the aarch64 CentOS 1611. However I am finding very
> limited information on the web as how to go about doing that. Can
> somebody get me started on what I need to do in order to install CentOS
> 1611? Some initial questions.
> 
> 1.) Can the aarch64 distribution even be installed on a Raspberry PI 3?

Not, but we're working on it. There's a patchset that needs to be
backported from a more recent kernel to the 4.5 kernel used in the
aarch64 release. Additionally, there are a couple bugs in the kernel to
be fixed regarding memory handling. The RPI3 is limited enough in ram
that these bugs would have serious implications when running the 64bit
version. In short, I hope to have something we can use in the coming
weeks, but it's not currently in a functional state.

One final note: There's a bug in the upstreamed graphics driver that has
significant problems. Because of that, the patchset we're working on
disables it. The distro would be limited to framebuffer console on the
rpi3 only in 64bit mode.


> 
> 2.) If the answer to question 1 is yes, can somebody give me some
> instructions on how to proceed? Links to any quick start or installation
> guides would be appreciated.
> 
> 3.) I have not been able to get X windows to start with the armv7hl
> CentOS version already installed. Will Gnome run on Raspberry PI 3 or is
> some other desktop graphics suggested

Oh, see  answer above. I answered a bit out of order it seems.

> Thank you for your help getting started.
> 

-- 
Jim Perrin
The CentOS Project | http://www.centos.org
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