Recommendations for RasPi

Hi,

I’m about to install Leap on a Raspberry Pi. Is there any recommendation or consideration to take care about before starting? Any recommended WM? And even more important - link to the ARM version? From https://www.opensuse.org/#Leap I could not find it…

Thanks!

Hi
What Model RPI? What is the intended end use of the RPI?

For RPI3 they are here;
http://download.opensuse.org/ports/aarch64/distribution/leap/42.2/appliances/

The others are here;
http://download.opensuse.org/ports/

Here are the pages for each model RPi.
On each page, you will find

  • Download links for your model RPi, always updated to current stable. Typically includes Tumbleweed versions of JeOS(for building appliances), XFCE, LXQt, X11(MinimalX) and more.
  • Instructions for writing the image to your SDcard

RPi (original) and RPi Zero
https://en.opensuse.org/HCL:Raspberry_Pi

RPi2
https://en.opensuse.org/HCL:Raspberry_Pi2

RPi3
https://en.opensuse.org/HCL:Raspberry_Pi3

TSU

I just finished installing the XFCE image on a Pi 3. Followed the existing instructions and it booted up correctly.
There were a few surprises along the way:

  1. I purchased a new MicroSDHC 32 GB card to install the OS; my main box (which is already heavily loaded with USB stuff) had a hard time reading the empty card so that I could transfer over the image. I solved this by transferring the image to my existing Pi Raspbian image card, and then plugging a card reader into the Pi and transferring the image onto the new card using the Pi.
  2. There’s not a lot of info on the image download page to help a new user decide which image to use. I just guessed and chose the middle option.
  3. The image unpacks itself; there is a bit of output to the screen as this happens, but expect blank screens from time to time, just be patient.
  4. I used a smart TV as the monitor for first boot; the image output by the Pi was poorly displayed on the TV which was not able to correctly auto adjust to the size of the HDMI input, so there were parts of the picture invisible around the edges of the screen. It’s possible I could force my TV to adjust, but it is not on my list of skills; I will look it up. What the Sony Bravia was able to do was to sense the new input on HDMI and automatically switched itself on to display that new incoming stream.
  5. When all is loaded and ready, you are in root. No users are created. No VNC is installed. But everything appeared to be working, so we can go from there. These issues were only a surprise because the Raspbian OS loads a VNC (but does not immediately activate it) and establishes a normal user “pi”.
  6. When finally logged in as root, start Yast to make further adjustments such as adding normal users, install vnc and so on…
  7. If your main machine is openSUSE and you want to connect to a Pi running Raspbian by VNC then watch for compatible protocol issues. After upgrading my Raspbian suddenly I could no longer connect using vinagre due to conflicting protocol issues - I finally resolved these by replacing the default vnc on Raspbian with X11VNC. Things are much more comfortable with openSUSE on both main machine and Pi. Once vino and vinagre installed you get a fine vnc image from the Pi with almost no hassles.
  8. The Raspbian image starts you off with Chromium browser - openSUSE uses Firefox, which is more suitable for my purposes.

I have a lot more testing to do, but it is looking good so far.

In addition to the above:

  1. ssh is the only access you have on initial startup / the only port open.
  2. The open port is obatained by DHCP; you can get the port by running nmap.
  3. It’s not a good idea to use Yast through VNC. On several occasions I have started an install, I watch the progress, then the progress appears to stall and I can’t access controls any more. The process finishes ok, but I can’t see that until I force quit VNC client, log in again, and there is the confirmation waiting. So if you have the same problem, use yast via ssh, never gave me a problem so far.

Hi
Re point 1, the first thing I do if I log in via ssh as root user;


useradd -m <username>
passwd <username>
passwd (to change root user password)
exit
ssh host

Then go about final configuration…

Normally I use serial access for initial config, then can see the dhcp ip address as well :wink:

Oh if you want wireless to survive you need to tweak /etc/dracut.conf.d/raspberrypi_modules.conf and remove sdhci-iproc from add_drivers and run mkinitrd.

In addition to the above:

  1. expect problems when you want to build standalone programmes. Unlike the Raspbian which is set up from the ground to be a programming environment, nothing is set up in XFCE at least. Maybe in one of the other images.
  2. It’s easy enough to install compilers and make, just takes a bit of effort but once done is done.
  3. example of a remaining issue: I needed to compile a programme which needed a resource “cpuid.h”; after installing the packages for gcc 48 this resource was missing, even though it is present on my main openSUSE machine with the same compiler development sources installed. When using the CLI version of yast I don’t see the option to search for file names in packages, so it is quite hard to find out if you may have the file but it is stored in a strange location.
  4. I took the risk and copied over the “cpuid.h” from the main machine to the Pi and the programme was able to compile, but there is a chance I will run into issues later.
  5. Access to the VNCserver seems to be more responsive when using the Iced Tea-browser approach on ports 580x rather than vinagre on 590x.

Thanks, I looked for this and inside the file I find a comment:

# Workaround for Wifi
omit_drivers+=" sdhci-iproc"

So I guess it is already taken care of?

On Tue 21 Feb 2017 04:06:01 PM CST, colbec wrote:

malcolmlewis;2813357 Wrote:
>
> Oh if you want wireless to survive you need to tweak
> /etc/dracut.conf.d/raspberrypi_modules.conf and remove sdhci-iproc
> from add_drivers and run mkinitrd.

Thanks, I looked for this and inside the file I find a comment:

Code:

Workaround for Wifi

omit_drivers+=" sdhci-iproc"

So I guess it is already taken care of?

Hi
No, you need to also remove from the first line as well since it’s been
added as a mod file and still present at boot.

On Tumbleweed it’s still an issue (well was last time I tried it).


Cheers Malcolm °¿° SUSE Knowledge Partner (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE Leap 42.1|GNOME 3.16.2|4.1.36-44-default
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Hello!

openSUSE on Raspberry Pi 3 - From Zero to Functional System in a Few Easy Steps guide:

https://www.suse.com/communities/blog/opensuse-raspberry-pi-3-zero-functional-system-easy-steps/

The R Pi has an odd quirk related to fixed IP addresses.
It’s nice to have a fixed IP on the Pi so that you know what the IP will be when it boots up.
So you just follow the normal process of configuring a static IP and it registers itself on the network no problem.
The oddity is that it will continue to register the same dynamic IP that it first acquired from the local DHCP server; now your Pi has two IPs.
It seems that this is okay, but somewhat unusual for a non-network device; it is frequently used on routers and switches, but not on desktop machines.
You can try to delete the lease on the router that has provided the dynamic address, but the Pi will just request it again.
You can remove it entirely by shutting down all DHCP servers on the local net.
It happens on Raspbian and openSUSE.
It’s not doing anything bad (except that is it confusing and in the case that it uses your last available DHCP IP), it just is.

In between I have setup the Pi using the E20 image. Worked like a Charme.
The largest pain was to find where the SD Card is located in Leap 42.2: /dev/mmblk0 or something like this. I monitored journalctl to but it did not show up.
A after this was solved, rest of the installation was easy.

On 02/23/2017 03:46 PM, DocB wrote:
>
> In between I have setup the Pi using the E20 image. Worked like a
> Charme.
> The largest pain was to find where the SD Card is located in Leap 42.2:
> /dev/mmblk0 or something like this. I monitored journalctl to but it did
> not show up.
> A after this was solved, rest of the installation was easy.
>
>

dmesg is your friend in this case.


Ken
linux since 1994
S.u.S.E./openSUSE since 1996

You are right! With all the pain switching from /var/log/messages to journalctl I completely forgot about dmesg.
But sad to see that there are still multiple sources required to determine what is going on…