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Release v1.3.1
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@sakaki- sakaki- released this 28 Dec 16:09
· 47 commits to master since this release
v1.3.1
6943f6a

This is an incremental release to v1.3.0. If you are already on v1.3.0, you can upgrade simply by running genup (or wait for the automated weekly update to do this for you). However, you may also want to emerge the new top-level application available (chromium), as this will not be automatically installed for you unless you have set the apps USE flag on the rpi3-64bit-meta package (this flag is not on by default).

If you would like to upgrade an existing, older version of this image to v1.3.1 (rather than just downloading and using the latest v1.3.1 image directly), please see below.

Changes in this release (see main project page for further details):

  • Added the full-scale www-client/chromium web browser (in addition to www-client/firefox, which remains supported and included on the image). Note that the version on the image (71.0.3578.62-r2) uses a slightly modified ebuild, which adds the openh264 USE flag, and is built with -proprietary-codecs -openh264, which removes all the (patent encumbered) h264 code from the application, so it may be lawfully distributed in binary form. You can rebuild it yourself with modified USE flags yourself if you wish, of course.
  • The minimum supported microSD card capacity has been increased to 16GB (up from 8GB). In reality, with recent versions of the image 8GB cards were only really useful for a quick tryout; they were too small to properly genup etc., and 16GB cards are now readily available and relatively inexpensive. The initial expanded image size is now 11,328MiB (of which the root partition is 11,264MiB (11GiB), which will be autoexpanded to fill any additional free space on first boot of course), so this provides reasonable headroom.
  • Added the pyconfig_gen utility, for easy, GUI-based update of (a subset of the features contained in) the /boot/config.txt file on the RPi3. This utility is autostarted on first boot for each user. Changes made to the /boot/config.txt file using this application are subject to ratification on reboot; if the user does not explicitly accept them, an automatic reboot under the prior, 'last known good' config is performed. This prevents users locking themselves out by specifying (e.g.) an HDMI mode that is unsupported by their display. Only a relatively small (but hopefully, useful) subset of the options available may be edited via this application, but this will be increased in future. It is still possible to directly edit /boot/config.txt - the app ignores keys it does not manage.
  • As a bonus side-effect of the above, the PyQt5 framework - including the Qt5 Designer GUI editor - has been added to the image.
  • Added an Xfce4 startup service, xfce-extra/xfce4-noblank, to prevent the user's xscreensaver blanking the display when notionally 'off', since this can cause problems with some displays (under vc4-{f,}kms-v3d graphics drivers, at least) where the display cannot be powered back up once blanked in this manner (by regular mouse or keyboard activity, anyhow). Installs an /etc/xdg/autostart/xfce4-noblank.desktop entry.
  • Updated the kernel to sys-kernel/bcmrpi3-kernel-bis-bin-4.14.90.20181222 (and the boot firmware to sys-boot/rpi3-64bit-firmware-1.20181112).
  • Various minor ebuild tidy-ups.
  • All packages brought up-to-date against the Gentoo tree, as of 26 November 2018.

Upgrading from an Earlier Release of the Image

Users downloading this v1.3.1 image directly can of course omit the instructions below; as all settings have been correctly set up for you already.

Users on earlier releases who wish to manually upgrade should follow the manual upgrade instructions to 1.3.0 below; the final step genup therein will actually bring you to a baseline v1.3.1 now.

You can easily check your current version at any time, by issuing:

demouser@pi64 ~ $ eix rpi3-64bit-meta

Once upgraded, you can, at your option, modify /etc/portage/make.conf, to provide fallback usage of Gentoo's mirror rotation. To do so, issue:

demouser@pi64 ~ $ sudo nano -w /etc/portage/make.conf

Then edit the GENTOO_MIRRORS line in that file, so that it now reads:

GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://gentoo.osuosl.org/ http://trumpetti.atm.tut.fi/gentoo/ http://distfiles.gentoo.org"

Leave the rest of the file as-is, then save, and exit nano.

If you like, you can then install the Chromium browser (an open-source version of Google's Chrome web browser). To do so, issue:

demouser@pi64 ~ $ sudo emerge -av www-client/chromium

Confirm when prompted. The installation is fully backed by binary packages, so should not take too long.

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