[Pkg-raspi-maintainers] Bug#848101: Bug#848101: please add the package to armhf

[Michael Stapelberg]

On Tue, Feb 21, 2017 at 1:54 PM, gustavo panizzo <gfa at zumbi.com.ar> wrote:

> Hello
>
> Can you please publish this pkg in armhf? I have a bunch of RPI3 and RPI2
> deployed as small servers, running jessie/stretch, I don't think I'll ever
> upgrade them to arm64.
> The amount of RAM on the RPI3 does not justify to run arm64, I don't do
> math on them so I dont see the point of running a newer arch on them (all
> of them are remote, so reliability is important)
>

The key advantage for me is that the upstream Linux kernel can be used,
i.e. a kernel that is supported by Debian can be used. That alone justifies
using arm64 for me.


>
> I know Debian's kernel doesn't support RPI3 in armhf, but maybe it will at
> some point. And if Debian's kernel never


IIUC, this is unlikely because people aren’t actively working on
upstreaming the armhf patches.


> supports armhf on the RPI3 doesn't matter, I'll build the kernel but I
> won't have to build the firmware :)
>

The firmware isn’t built in Debian either: the Debian package uses the
pre-built files from https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware and adds a
hook script to copy these files (plus the kernel image/dtbs/initrd and a
generated config) upon kernel/firmware changes.

The use-case you’re describing is something which I do not want to support.
The firmware (configuration at least) depends on the kernel build
configuration: obviously the CPU shouldn’t be put into arm64 mode when a
non-arm64 kernel is about to be booted, for example.

What you’re suggesting, hence, is to blow up the test/support matrix
significantly: in addition to being responsible for the kernel which is
included in Debian, we would also need to respond to potential problem
reports of users who use a kernel outside of Debian.

Such a change places an undue burden on the pkg-raspi team, which is
stretched very thin already.

All that said, as a practical workaround you can use dpkg
--add-architecture arm64 && apt update && apt install raspi3-firmware. Do
note that the package maintainers don’t endorse this and won’t support your
use-case.


>
>
> Regarding the config handling, I personally don't care. I want them to be
> pure Debian so I can manage them as my other servers.
>
>
> --
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>
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>
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-- 
Best regards,
Michael
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