Release v1.3.0

This is an incremental release to v1.2.2.

If you would like to upgrade an existing, older version of this image to v1.3.0 (rather than just downloading and using the latest v1.3.0 image directly), please see below.

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

• Migrated from porthash repository verification to Gentoo's own, official gemato-based approach (with failure quarantine). Accordingly, the porthash USE flag on dev-embedded/rpi3-64bit-meta has switched from default-on to default-off as of v1.3.0, and the weekly-gated rsync URI has changed (to one without polluting porthash signatures), from rsync://isshoni.org/gentoo-portage-pi64 to rsync://isshoni.org/gentoo-portage-pi64-gem. (The older version will continue to be supported for a time, for backwards compatibility during the changeover period.)
• Added support for the transparent-compression write-through zswap cache to bcmrpi3-kernel-bis, and created a startup service (rpi3-zswap) to start using it. Given the highly compressible nature of most RAM pages on a running system, and the RPi3's relatively meagre I/O capabilities, this should materially improve system responsiveness under load. Parameterized via /etc/conf.d/rpi3-zswap.
• Added a startup service (rpi3-expand-swap), to increase the ('real', backing-store-based) swapfile size to 1GiB, space permitting, as a one-off operation post root partition and filesystem resize. Parametrized via /etc/conf.d/rpi3-expand-swap.
• Various minor ebuild tidy-ups.
• All packages brought up-to-date against the Gentoo tree, as of 16 September 2018. Most packages have been rebuilt on gcc-8.2 (which should bring a small performance improvement).
• Kernel upgraded to sys-kernel/bcmrpi3-kernel-bis-bin-4.14.71.20180922, accompanying boot firmware to sys-boot/rpi3-64bit-firmware-1.20180919 (these will of course auto-update as new versions are unmasked).

Upgrading from an Earlier Release of the Image

Users downloading this v1.3.0 image directly can of course omit the instructions below; as all settings have been correctly set up for you already.

First check your current release version, by issuing:

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

(look at the Installed versions: stanza)

Then follow the appropriate directions as shown (based on your release version):

• If your version is >= 1.3.0, you are already up-to-date! However, if you did not directly download the 1.3.0 image, you should still follow the instructions given immediately below, to ensure all your ancillary settings etc. (which genup may not have conformed for you) are also correct.
• Or, if your version is 1.2.0, 1.2.1 or 1.2.2, follow these instructions (below).
• Or, if your version is 1.1.3 or earlier, follow instead these instructions (below).

Upgrading for Users on Version 1.2.x of the Image

For those users on a 1.2.x release, the majority of the upgrade can be taken care of simply by running (as root, or using sudo):

pi64 ~ # emaint sync --repo sakaki-tools
pi64 ~ # emerge --update --oneshot app-portage/genup
pi64 ~ # nice genup

This may take a number of hours to complete.

Next, assuming the genup step completed successfully, you should then perform the following steps to finalize your upgrade.

First, ensure that all fixups have been run (these are small scripts, normally executed by /etc/cron.weekly/fixup, and managed by app-portage/weekly-genup; they may be viewed here). Issue:

pi64 ~ # /etc/cron.weekly/fixup

The output from this may be reviewed in /var/log/latest-fixup-run.log.

Next, ensure that your regular user is a member of the cron group, so that they can maintain their own crontabs. Issue:

pi64 ~ # gpasswd --add demouser cron

Obviously, if you have setup your own regular user, substitute their username for demouser in the above. Repeat the step for each such user you have created.

Then, ensure that your audio settings are persisted across reboots. To do so, issue:

pi64 ~ # rc-update add alsasound boot

Lastly check that you are using the correct binhost. As of 1.3.0, the official Gentoo gemato repository verification (with failure quarantine) is being used, so your binhost needs to be set to the version without additional porthash signed master hashes (since these cause the augmented tree to fail the gemato check). This switch should have been made automatically be the dev-embedded/rpi3-64bit-meta-1.3.0 ebuild, but you should double-check this. To do so, issue:

pi64 ~ # grep sync-uri /etc/portage/repos.conf/gentoo.conf
sync-uri = rsync://isshoni.org/gentoo-portage-pi64-gem

If you do not see the output above, edit /etc/portage/repos.conf/gentoo.conf to correct it, and then run genup again.

Also, ensure you do not have any custom porthash USE flag set in /etc/portage/package.use/rpi3-64bit-meta (this flag has gone from being default enabled in rpi3-64bit-meta-1.2.2 to default disabled in rpi3-64bit-meta-1.3.0). For avoidance of doubt, if you are unsure what is meant by the preceding comment, you have not set a custom flag, and may disregard this point.

Next, clean up any configuration files that may have been changed by the release, using dispatch-conf. When this tool prompts you what to do about a proposed file modification, you should use z to 'zap' any changes you are unsure of (keeping your original configuration file), u to 'use' (accept) any changes that look benign (e.g., where only comments have been modified) and m to 'merge' more complicated proposed changes, some parts of which (only) you wish to keep. If in doubt, use z!

In particular, be sure to zap any proposed changes to /etc/conf.d/rngd and /etc/conf.d/xdm!

Note that your kernel and boot firmware will be upgraded as part of this release, so be sure to reboot your RPi3 once you have completed the above process, to start using them.

Once you have done that, congratulations! You are now running on version 1.3.0!

Upgrading for Users on Version <= 1.1.3 of the Image

Users on v1.1.3 or earlier of the image should first temporarily inhibit upgrade to version 1.3.0, by issuing:

pi64 ~ # echo ">=dev-embedded/rpi3-64bit-meta-1.3.0" > /etc/portage/package.mask/rpi3-64bit-meta

and then follow the instructions for upgrade to 1.2.2 given previously.

Once this has been completed successfully, release the temporary mask:

pi64 ~ # rm -v /etc/portage/package.mask/rpi3-64bit-meta

and then follow the instructions given above to complete the upgrade to 1.3.0.

Release v1.2.2

This is an incremental release to v1.2.1.

If you would like to upgrade an existing, older version of this image to v1.2.2 (rather than just downloading and using the latest v1.2.2 image directly), please see below.

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

• Migrated the default binary kernel package from bcmrpi3-kernel-bin to bcmrpi3-kernel-bis-bin; the latter uses a slightly tweaked version of the upstream bcmrpi3_defconfig via this weekly autobuild (to which, incidentally, config-change PRs will be accepted for review). The original bcmrpi3-kernel-bin package (and autobuild) will continue to be supported, and indeed you can easily switch to this version if you desire (just run, as root, emerge -av1 sys-kernel/bcmrpi3-kernel-bin && reboot). However, having the ability to tweak the configuration (and possibly kernel source in future) provides additional flexibility. For example, in this release KVM is supported (see this thread) and the image ships with app-emulation/qemu if you want to try it out. Other facilities will be rolled out in future.
• The RPi3's SoC has a hardware random number generator, added the sys-apps/rng-tools package to start using it for /dev/random.
• Added the top-level package media-sound/mpd and media-sound/mpc (a music player daemon and client).
• Added a (first-cut, 64-bit) build of media-libs/raspberrypi-userland, so you can now use vcgencmd etc. Please note that (as with all 64-bit distros for the RPi3 at the moment), MMAL and OpenMax IL features are not supported (see also raspberrypi/userland#460).
• For those wishing to share files with Windows boxes, net-fs/samba is now bundled (you need to configure and activate it yourself, however, see e.g. these notes).
• Added a sysctl.d rule to optimize cache usage settings for low memory (per this article).
• Added a service (rpi3-safecompositor) which turns off display compositing if a high pixel clock is detected (> 1.2175MHz, currently). This is because certain applications, for example LibreOffice v6 Draw and Impress, can cause the whole system to lock-up when used with compositing on under such conditions.
• Added a startup service (rpi3-ethfix) to workaround some RPi3B+ Ethernet issues via ethtool.
• Various minor ebuild tidy-ups.
• All packages brought up-to-date against the Gentoo tree, as of 3 June 2018.

Upgrading from an Earlier Release of the Image

Users downloading this v1.2.2 image directly can of course omit the instructions below; as all settings have been correctly set up for you already.

Users on releases earlier than v1.2.0 should follow the manual upgrade instructions to 1.2.0 below; the final step genup therein will actually bring you to a baseline v1.2.2 now, then read on.

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

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

If you are already on v1.2.1 or v1.2.0, you can upgrade simply by running genup (or wait for the automated weekly update to do this for you). However, if upgrading in this manner, you may also want to emerge the new top-level applications available (medial-sound/mpd and media-sound/mpc), as these 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), and you should also set an appropriate configuration for the hardware RNG service: to do so, simply add the following uncommented lines to /etc/conf.d/rngd:

DEVICE=/dev/hwrng
NO_TPM=1
STEP=64
WATERMARK=2048

Then enable and start the service via:

pi64 ~ # rc-update add rngd boot
pi64 ~ # rc-service rngd start

Lastly, if upgrading via genup you may wish to switch your binary kernel package to the new '-bis' version (discussed more above); if so, simply issue:

pi64 ~ # emerge --verbose --oneshot sys-kernel/rpi3-kernel-bis-bin
pi64 ~ # reboot

and from that point forward you'll be using the enhanced kernel (it is also fine to stay with the vanilla bcmrpi3-kernel-bin, this is still supported going forward, you'll just be missing some additional features such as KVM etc.).

Release v1.2.1

This is an incremental feature release to v1.2.0: both the RPi3 Model B and B+ are now supported.

If you are already on v1.2.0, 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 (fotoxx), 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), and also set an appropriate WiFi regulatory domain in /etc/conf.d/rpi3-wifi-regdom post update (shipped default is "GB").

Users on releases earlier than v1.2.0 should follow the manual upgrade instructions to 1.2.0 below; the final step genup therein will actually bring you to v1.2.1 now.

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

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

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

• Added support for the RPi3 Model B+ (the RPi3 Model B remains supported too). Further details of the changes required may be found in this post and on the main project page. Dual-band WiFi, (faster) Ethernet, Bluetooth etc. all work on the B+, so you should be able to seamlessly upgrade to the newer board, should you wish.
• Migrated to kernel 4.14.y (shipped version: sys-kernel/bcmrpi3-kernel-bin-4.14.31.20180401); this is now the default branch of the RPi3 kernel tree, and is required for RPi3 B+ support. It boots fine on the RPi3 B too. VC4 and audio support is included.
• Added the top-level package media-gfx/fotoxx-18.01.3 (a digital photo processing program).
• Migrated to Firefox Quantum (www-client-firefox-58.0.1, plus the mandated dev-lang/rust-1.23.0-r1 and cargo-0.24.0); this should offer significantly faster browsing than the previous version.
• Added a service to set the WiFi regulatory domain (net-wireless/rpi3-wifi-regdom); the shipped default is "GB", but you can edit the file /etc/conf.d/rpi3-wifi-regdom to change this.
• Various minor ebuild tidy-ups.
• All packages brought up-to-date against the Gentoo tree, as of 31 March 2018.

Release v1.2.0

This is a significantly different release to the previous v1.1.3, not so much because of the applications it contains (although these have been updated), but because it is built on a newer Gentoo profile (17.0) than before (13.0). Profiles are changed rarely in Gentoo, for they determine how your entire system is built, often in backwards-incompatible ways: for example, in 17.0, the gcc compiler defaults to creating position independent executables (aka, 'pie'), which it did not do before. Accordingly (and as officially recommended), all packages have been rebuilt under the new profile for this image (and the corresponding binhost has also been changed (to avoid confusion), from https://isshoni.org/pi64 to https://isshoni.org/pi64pie).

As such, if you are on any earlier release (v1.0.0 through v1.1.3) and wish to upgrade, running genup is not sufficient - please instead follow the instructions below (users coming straight to this v1.2.0 release of course need take no special action, your system is already set up correctly).

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

• Migrated to Gentoo profile 17.0; all packages rebuilt.
• A new 17.0 profile binhost (https://isshoni.org/pi64pie) setup, and referenced in /etc/portage/make.conf.
  • The old 13.0 profile binhost (https://isshoni.org/pi64) will be retained for historical interest (at least for a while), but will no longer be autoupdated.
• The SPI interface is now on by default (in the image itself that is; the sys-boot/rpi3-64bit-firmware package default has not changed). You can easily turn this off again, by editing /boot/config.txt, if you need the affected GPIO lines.
• The necessary binaries for using your RPi3 to disable the Intel Management Engine are now bundled with the image. Together with the above change, this allows your system to be used to run me_cleaner 'out of the box' (provided you have the correct hardware connector and wires, of course). Users uninterested in this particular application are unaffected, and need take no action.
• Various ebuild tidy-ups.
• All packages brought up-to-date against the Gentoo tree, as of 13 January 2018.

Manually Upgrading to v1.2.0

To upgrade from a v1.1.0, v1.1.1, v1.1.2 or v1.1.3 release (regular or Pi-Top variants), perform the following steps (as root) on your RPi3.

Users on earlier v1.0.{0,1,2} releases should follow the manual upgrade instructions to 1.1.0 here, and once that has been done, come back here to upgrade to v1.2.0.

For avoidance of doubt, users coming straight to this v1.2.0 release should not follow the below instructions: your system is already up-to-date.

First, make sure you have at least 2GiB of free space on your RPi3's filesystem (use df -h to check), and that you are using at least version 6.4.0 of gcc (use gcc-config --list-profiles to check; look for the version marked with the asterisk).

Then, if that all looks good, proceed to update your ebuild repositories:

pi64 ~ # emaint sync --auto

You should now find you have a new custom profile available. Switch to it:

pi64 ~ # eselect profile set "rpi3:default/linux/arm64/17.0/desktop/rpi3"

You also need to switch your binary package host ('binhost'), as a new one has been started for the 17.0 profile, to avoid confusion / cross-contamination. To do so, issue:

pi64 ~ # nano -w /etc/portage/make.conf

and modify the line that currently reads:

PORTAGE_BINHOST="https://isshoni.org/pi64"

so it now reads instead:

PORTAGE_BINHOST="https://isshoni.org/pi64pie"

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

Now you can update the core build system. Do not follow the advice in the official news article to rebuild gcc, binutils and glibc individually (if you do, you'll end up building them locally, rather than pulling the new binaries from the binhost, which will take a long time). Instead, issue:

pi64 ~ # emerge --ask --verbose sys-devel/gcc sys-devel/binutils sys-libs/glibc

Check (when the above command prompts you for confirmation) that you will indeed be installing binary packages - this is a good indication you have set things up correctly.

Once this completes, rebuild your entire system for profile 17.0. Almost all of the required 900 or so packages should be available on the new binhost you just switched to, so this should only take a few hours (unless you have added many additional packages to the image yourself). Issue:

pi64 ~ # nice emerge --ask --verbose --emptytree --with-bdeps=y @world

Once it has completed, issue:

pi64 ~ # nice emerge @preserved-rebuild

then:

pi64 ~ # dispatch-conf

to resolve any proposed configuration file changes (for the most part, if you had a reasonably up-to-date 13.0 profile system to start with, typing z to 'zap' (discard) most of these proposed changes should be safe; a lot of packages have been re-installed here, but you want to keep your prior configuration, not roll it back to 'shipped defaults').

NB in particular, if you are using PINN, and dispatch-conf offers to update your /boot/cmdline.txt file, you must press z to discard this change, or your system may fail to boot (PINN modifies this file as part of its install process).

Once done, reboot your system. Then log in again as root, and issue:

pi64 ~ # genup

Once this has completed, congratulations, you have migrated to the (profile 17.0) v1.2.0 release! From this point, the automated weekly genup run should keep your system correctly up-to-date.

Incidentally, you can easily verify your current version at any time, by issuing:

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

Release v1.1.3

This is a minor, bugfix release to v1.1.2. If you are already on v1.1.0, v1.1.1 or v1.1.2, 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 applications available (particuarly kodi and clementine), as these 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).

Users on earlier v1.0.{0,1,2} releases should follow the manual upgrade instructions to 1.1.0 below; the final step genup therein will actually bring you to v1.1.3 now.

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

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

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

• Added the top-level packages media-tv/kodi-17.4_rc1 (a FOSS media-player / entertainment hub) and media-sound/clementine-1.3.1-r6 (a FOSS music player and library organizer).
• Added dev-java/icedtea-3.5.1, a FOSS build of OpenJDK (Java) v8. This is included in the image by default, as libreoffice is now built with the java USE flag enabled (as recommended for its Base application).
• Added x11-misc/twofing-0.1.2-r2, which provides two-finger gesture support (emulated right-click, scrolling, pinch zoom and rotate) when using the official 7" touchscreen. It is active by default (but has no effect on systems without a touchscreen attached).
• Added app-accessibility/onboard-1.4.1, an onscreen keyboard, again primarily for touchscreen users.
• Prevented NetworkManager from changing the hostname if one is offered to the machine via DHCP (see the tail of issue #13 for details), as this was causing the .Xauthority file for the automatically logged-in session to become invalid.
• Added a pseudo-ebuild xfce-extra/xfce4-mixer-4.99.0-r1, to allow seamless replacement of xfce-extra/xfce4-mixer, which has been masked, due to vulnerabilities (Gentoo bug 628424). The new version installs media-sound/volumeicon instead.
• Various minor ebuild tidy-ups.
• All packages brought up-to-date against the Gentoo tree, as of 15 September 2017.

Release v1.1.2

This is a minor, bugfix release to v1.1.1. If you are already on v1.1.0 or v1.1.1, you can upgrade simply by running genup (or wait for the automated weekly update to do this for you).

Users on earlier v1.0.{0,1,2} releases should follow the manual upgrade instructions to 1.1.0 below; the final step genup therein will actually bring you to v1.1.2 now.

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

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

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

• All image packages can now be controlled by the rpi3-64bit-meta metapackage (it has additional USE flags - core, xfce, pitop and apps that determine what is brought in). As shipped however, the (standard) image does not specify pitop or apps by default (so you can still easily pare down your end-user apps, if desired).
  If you are upgrading from an earlier release, you can clean up your /var/lib/portage/world file after updating, if you like, since the majority of the lines in there are now implied by core or xfce; for reference, the /var/lib/portage/world on the v1.1.2 image now reads (end-user apps only):

  app-arch/p7zip
  app-crypt/seahorse
  app-editors/emacs
  app-editors/lfhex
  app-editors/mousepad
  app-office/libreoffice
  app-office/libreoffice-l10n
  app-portage/porthole
  app-text/evince
  dev-embedded/rpi3-64bit-meta
  dev-util/meld
  mail-client/claws-mail
  mail-client/thunderbird
  media-gfx/gimp
  media-gfx/ristretto
  media-video/mplayer
  media-video/smplayer
  media-video/vlc
  net-irc/hexchat
  sys-apps/gnome-disk-utility
  sys-apps/qdiskusage
  sys-devel/portage-distccmon-gui
  www-client/firefox
  www-client/links
  

• Variant Pi-Top image (and support ebuilds) added. The Pi-Top is an RPi3-based DIY laptop; the Pi-Top image contains configured drivers for screen backlight brightness control, clean power-down, pitopSPEAKER initialization and battery level monitoring.

  If you have been running an older version of this image on your Pi-Top and would like to retain your work, while migrating to use the newly-available drivers, then please see the instructions below.

• Added an initial version of Gordon Henderson's wiringpi library and gpio utiltiy.

• Added new-user 'fixups' for Xfce4 (compositing redraw on vertical blank etc.), via the xfce-extra/xfce4-fixups-rpi3 package.

• Various minor ebuild tidy-ups.

• All packages brought up-to-date against the Gentoo tree, as of 27 July 2017.

Optional: Crossgrading an Existing 1.1.2 Image to the Pi-Top Variant

NB - this should only be done by users on a Pi-Top system who want to upgrade an older gentoo-on-rpi3-64bit image:

• New Pi-Top users should just download the v1.1.2 genpi64pt.img.xz image directly (per instructions on the project's main page), and
• Users of 'vanilla' RPi3 boards should not install these components, as they are platform-specific.

OK, begin by bringing your existing image to v1.1.2, following the instructions above.

Once you have done this, issue:

pi64 ~ # dispatch-conf

and merge any pending configuration changes. Then, issue:

pi64 ~ # echo 'USE="${USE} pitop"' >> /etc/portage/make.conf

to set the pitop USE flag globally (this will affect the rpi3-64bit-meta package, inter alia). Now bring your system up to date with the new settings:

pi64 ~ # genup

When this completes (allow around an hour), you should issue:

pi64 ~ # dispatch-conf

again, and merge any changes. Make sure you accept the modifications to /boot/config.txt, if offered.

Then, activate the necessary services at the appropriate runlevel:

pi64 ~ # rc-update add pitop-poweroff shutdown
pi64 ~ # rc-update add rpi3-i2cdev boot
pi64 ~ # rc-update add pitop-speaker default

Reboot. You can now add the battery monitor plugin into the top panel if you like - it should work correctly. Keyboard shortcuts should also work (for brightness etc.). On shutdown (but not reboot), the Pi-Top's hub should shut off power cleanly once Gentoo has finalized.

Note that keyboard shortcuts for audio will also work, but they require the audio mixer plugin to be installed in the panel (as it is for demouser, for example). Your user needs to be a member of the wheel group (as demouser is) to modify screen brightness, or monitor the battery (access to the I2C and SPI busses being restricted to that group, as shipped).

GPIO access should be possible using the gpio app; a 64-bit build of the wiringpi library is also included (the header files are in /usr/include/wiringpi, libraries in /usr/lib64).

That's it! Have fun with your new 64-bit Pi-Top ^-^ Once you have upgraded, you can run genup etc. just like a regular image user - the binhost supports both.

PS at the moment I do not have any of the other Pi-Top add-on boards so haven't been able to add drivers for them. Shouldn't be too hard to do though. Feel free to send me a PR!

Acknowledgement: a big thank-you to rricharz, whose work made possible the Pi-Top drivers in this variant image.

Image Files

The image files may be fetched via the links in the Downloads section immediately below. Please see these notes on the main project page for an explanation of what each is, and how to write and use your chosen image.

NB: in particular, please note that most users will want the first (genpi64.img.xz) image - the Pi-Top variant (genpi64pt.img.xz) should only be used for those who want to run their RPi3 in a Pi-Top chassis (as it contains platform-specific drivers to communicate with the Pi-Top's onboard battery, hub, speakers etc.)

Release v1.1.1

This is a minor, bugfix release to v1.1.0. If you are already on v1.1.0, you can upgrade simply by running genup (or wait for the automated weekly update to do this for you).

Users on earlier v1.0.{0,1,2} releases should follow the manual upgrade instructions to 1.1.0 below; the final step genup therein will actually bring you to v1.1.1 now.

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

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

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

• Fix #17 (offset mouse cursor on HDMI TVs when overscan in use): disable_overscan=1 is now uncommented by default again in config.txt (in the top-level directory of the filesystem in the image's first partition, available as /boot/config.txt when logged in). Also, a service (rpi3-safecursor) is added to the default runlevel; this forces (always accurate, but slower) software cursor blitting to be used, if the disable_overscan stanza is detected as having been commented out in, or removed outright from, config.txt (and VC4 is enabled).

  Users with computer monitors should be unaffected by these changes (everything worked before and should still work, hardware cursor blitting will still be in use); users with HDMI TVs should find their mouse cursor is usable again (and for avoidance of doubt can safely enable overscan, if needed on their display to avoid clipping, by commenting out disable_autoscan=1 in config.txt).

  The rpi3-safecursor service will also turn off display compositing if it detects that overscan is not disabled. If this occurs, and you want to revert it later, you'll need to turn compositing back on manually (via Applications→Settings→Window Manager Tweaks, Compositor tab).

• Shift to PARTUUID-based naming (rather than explicitly using /dev/mmcblk0p{1,2}, to make it easier for those users not running the image from a microSD card (changes to /etc/fstab, the autoexpand-root service, and cmdline.txt (in same directory as config.txt).

• Migrate the 50-disable-Xv.conf rule into ebuild control (rpi3-init-scripts).

• Clean up the binary kernel package uninstall logic, and make the with-matching-boot-fw version-binding less loose.

• Various minor ebuild tidy-ups.

• All packages brought up-to-date against the Gentoo tree, as of 20 July 2017.

Release v1.1.0

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

Note: those wishing to manually upgrade from an earlier image should see below.

• All the required firmware and startup files have now been placed under ebuild control, for ease of maintenance going forward:

  • A metapackage, sys-firmware/rpi3-64bit-meta from the (subscribed) rpi3 ebuild repository (overlay) governs the inclusion of all the components discussed below (controlled by a set of USE flags). This is intended to simplify future maintenance (and upgrading for existing users). The version of the metapackage matches the version of the live-USB release to which it pertains.

    For avoidance of doubt, the rpi3-64bit-meta metapackage does not specify the various end-user applications installed on the image (such as libreoffice, firefox etc.), so these may be freely uninstalled or modified as required.

  • The /boot firmware (excluding the kernel and DTBs; those are provided by sys-kernel/bcmrpi3-kernel-bin, discussed later) is now provided by sys-boot/rpi3-64bit-firmware: the upstream raspberrypi/firmware/boot repo is checked once per week for new release tags, and a new corresponding ebuild created automatically if one is found. This package also provides 'starter' configuration files /boot/cmdline.txt and /boot/config.txt (with settings matching those on the image), but these are CONFIG_PROTECTed, so any changes you make subsequently will be preserved.

  • The configuration file brcmfmac43430-sdio.txt, required for the RPi3's integrated WiFi, is now provided by sys-firmware/brcm43430-firmware (its main firmware being provided by the standard linux-firmware package).

  • Firmware (/etc/firmware/BCM43430A1.hcd) for the RPi3's integrated Bluetooth transceiver is now provided by sys-firmware/bcm4340a1-firmware (adapted from the Arch Linux pi-bluetooth package). A startup service and udev rule are provided by the companion net-wireless/rpi3-bluetooth package (adapted from the same Arch Linux upstream).

  • The /etc/local.d/ondemand_freq_scaling.start boot script, which switches the RPi3 from its (bcmrpi3_defconfig) default powersave CPU frequency governor, to ondemand, for better performance, has been switched to a sysinit OpenRC service, provided by sys-apps/rpi3-ondemand-cpufreq.

  • The autoexpand_root_partition.start script has been migrated into an OpenRC boot service, provided by sys-apps/rpi3-init-scripts.

    It is now also possible to replace the default autoexpand_root_partition sentinel file (in the top level directory of the image's first partition) by an autoexpand_root_none sentinel file, before first boot; doing so will cause the autoexpand-root service still to force-set the demouser and root passwords (to raspberrypi64), but not to change the partition structure (thanks to @procount for suggesting (#14)).

• Keeping your system up-to-date has been made significantly simpler:

  • An autobuild of the official raspberrypi/linux kernel (default branch) using bcmrpi3_defconfig has been set up here; a new release tarball is automatically pushed once per week, and a matching kernel binary package (sys-kernel/bcmrpi3-kernel-bin) is also created simultaneously.

    NB: at the time of writing, the rpi-4.9.y branch was the default (receiving most attention for backports etc.); however, as this does not (yet) have backported audio drivers, 4.10.17 build (and matching binary package, bcmrpi3-kernel-bin-4.10.17) has also been created (and is used on the image). Using -bin packages for the kernel makes it easy to switch between them (and to update your kernel, and module set, to the latest version available - along with all other packages on your system - whenever you issue genup); you can see the kernels available by issuing eix bcmrpi3-kernel-bin. Also, note that by default (via the with-matching-boot-fw USE flag) installing a particular sys-kernel/bcmrpi3-kernel-bin version will also cause the version of sys-boot/rpi3-64bit-firmware (see above) current at the time the kernel was released, to be installed (to /boot). This helps to reduce issues with firmware / kernel mismatches with cutting edge features such as VC4 support.

    Use of the provided binary kernel package is optional, you can always uninstall it and build your own kernel if desired.

  • The project's Gentoo binhost at https://isshoni.org/pi64 has been updated to perform a weekly update and autobuild of all installed packages on the image, allowing your RPi3 to perform fast updates via the resulting binary packages where possible, only falling back to local source-based compilation when necessary (using this facility is optional, of course, just like the binary kernel package). The binhost also provides a (weekly-gated) rsync mirror (rsync://isshoni.org/gentoo-portage-pi64) for the main gentoo repo (with porthash authentication), used to keep your RPi3's "visible" ebuild tree in lockstep with the binary package versions available on the isshoni.org binhost. Use the provided binary packages at your own risk.

  • A custom Gentoo profile, rpi3:default/linux/arm64/13.0/desktop/rpi3, is provided (and selected as the active profile on the image), which supplies many of the default build settings, USE flags etc., required for 64-bit Gentoo on the RPi3, again, keeping them in lockstep with the binhost (and ensuring you will have a binary package available when upgrading any of the pre-installed software packages on the image). You can view this profile (provided via the rpi3 ebuild repository) here.

  • These features (the rpi3:default/linux/arm64/13.0/desktop/rpi3 profile, weekly autobuild isshoni.org binhost, 'weekly-gated', signature-authenticated portage rsync mirror (rsync://isshoni.org/gentoo-portage-pi64), and the sys-kernel/bcmrpi3-kernel-bin binary kernel package), make updating a typical system (with few user-added packages) possible with a near 100% hit rate on the binhost's binaries. As such, updating (via genup, for example, or an old-school eix-sync && emerge -uDUav --with-bdeps=y @world) is much less onerous than before, and so has been automated on the image (via the app-portage/weekly-genup package, which installs a script in /etc/cron.weekly). This automated weekly updating can easily be disabled if you do not wish to use it (simply edit the file /etc/portage/package.use/rpi3-64bit-meta and set the -weekly-genup USE flag, then emerge -v rpi3-64bit-meta).

• A number of significant additions have been made to the pre-installed software set, in particular:

  • The fully featured app-office/libreoffice-5.3.4.2 has been installed (and app-office/abiword dropped, due to display issues).

  • www-client/firefox-53.0.3 has been installed; thanks to this Gentoo forum thread for hints on getting it to build (these changes have been added to the rpi3:default/linux/arm64/13.0/desktop/rpi3 profile so you can also build locally if desired, see here). Also, the system... USE flags have been dropped; they were causing a lot of unnecessary rebuilds.

    www-client/links-2.14 has been retained on the image for those wanting a lighter-weight browser.

  • mail-client/thunderbird-52.2.0 has been added (same comments about building as for firefox apply); it seems to run reliably now. mail-client/claws-mail-3.15.0 has been retained on the image, for those wanting a lighter-weight alternative.

  • media-gfx/gimp-2.9.4-r3 has been added to provide a fully featured image editor.

• The initial swapfile has been reduced from 2GiB to 1.5GiB (this is easy to modify).

• The initial boot configuration in /boot/config.txt has been somewhat changed. `dis...

Release v1.0.2

Changes in this release:

• Further fix aimed at addressing #1: modified autoexpand_root_partition.start, to force-set root and demouser passwords on first boot.

Release v1.0.1

Changes in this release:

• Fixes aimed at addressing #1:
  • Timeouts in partition resizing script made more conservative.
  • Ensured all /etc/shadow password timestamps predate the swclock last shutdown time.
  • Members of the wheel group (includes demouser) now have passwordless sudo access to all commands, for convenience during setup (added %wheel ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL in /etc/sudoers).
• Frequency governor switched to ondemand mode (from default powersave) by this script on startup (addresses #2).