[Arm-dev] Building CentOS7 userland for ARM64 server boards

[Scott Branden]

Hi Jim,

Yes, we wish to add support for new (currently CentOS unsupported) Arm64 
SoCs.

Currently we have a Yocto based distribution that builds ATF (with 
UEFI), Kernel+DTBs, Host tools+utilities (such as signing+flashing type 
tools), RootFS, and RPMs.

I took the prebuilt CentOS Rootfs and it boots on our platform to the 
shell.  So that is a great start.  But we use a different kernel 
versions so I was thinking we need to rebuild against our kernel headers 
to ensure 100% API compatibility.  Or, do you think that is not 
necessary (we are working on 4.12 kernel right now)?

We also have kernel modules built inside and outside of the kernel tree 
that need to be installed in lib/modules.  And firmware in 
lib/firmware.  And we need to install our kernel headers for native 
development on platform.  How should these be integrated with CentOS?

We also have RPMs built in Yocto that we would like to install - need to 
learn mechanism of how to add new RPMs in CentOS.  One thing that may 
need to be resolved is shared libraries?

Last item I can think of right now is recommended runtime method from 
RPM install.  We use DNF server with Yocto Distribution.  We need to add 
our RPMs to whatever CentOS uses.

So the answer to your question is yes we would like to add CentOS 
support for our SoCs.

Thanks,

  Scott



On 17-06-29 08:31 AM, Jim Perrin wrote:
> I may have read your initial email incorrectly, so lets back up and look
> at what your goals are so that I can help appropriately.
>
> Are you wanting to install CentOS on a currently supported aarch64
> server, or are you trying to get CentOS working on a new (unsupported) SoC?
>
>
>
> On 06/28/2017 05:47 PM, Scott Branden wrote:
>> Hi Jim,
>>
>> Thanks for the pointer (I know nothing about CentOS).
>>
>> I assume the ReadMe.txt you are referring to is here:
>>
>> http://mirror.centos.org/altarch/7/isos/aarch64/ReadMe.txt
>>
>>
>> Is there a getting started page somewhere I am missing?
>>
>> Where do I get the livemedia-creator tool from?
>>
>>
>> Do I download CentOS-7-aarch64-Everything.iso or what is it used for?
>>
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>>   Scott
>>
>>
>>
>> On 17-06-28 03:06 PM, Jim Perrin wrote:
>>> I generate the rootfs with the livemedia-creator tool, and the kickstart
>>> included in the README. You could do something similar with a command
>>> something like:
>>>
>>>
>>> livemedia-creator --no-virt --make-disk --project "My Custom Build"
>>> --releasever "7" --image-name "MyCustomRootFS" --ks MyKickstart.ks
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 06/28/2017 01:35 PM, Scott Branden wrote:
>>>> Hello,
>>>>
>>>> I'm new to CentOS and looking for any useful instructions/documentation
>>>> to read up on.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I would like to learn about how the rootfs has been generated for
>>>> CentOS.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> The Alternative Architecture Centos SIG already prepared a tar archive
>>>> containing a CentOS 7 userland for ARM64 server boards:
>>>>
>>>> curl -sSL -o CentOS-7-aarch64-rootfs-7.3.1611.tar.xz
>>>> http://mirror.centos.org/altarch/7/isos/aarch64
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Could someone provide instructions on the steps take to build this exact
>>>> image?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>>    Scott
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Arm-dev mailing list
>>>> Arm-dev at centos.org
>>>> https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/arm-dev
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