2017/11/20 02:42 (UTC) 1/5 Slackware ARM on the Raspberry Pi 3

Slackware ARM on the Raspberry Pi 3

The Raspberry Pi 3 has a Broadcom BCM2837 SoC incorporating a Quad-core ARMv8 Cortex-A53 [64
bit] CPU @ 1.2GHz and VideoCore IV GPU @ 400MHz, and comes with 1GB LPDDR2 SDRAM @
900MHz. This revised and upgraded ARM single board computer succeeds the Raspberry Pi (2), and is
considerably quicker and a lot more powerful. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are now included on-board. Still no
RTC though. Think of the RPi3 as a renovation, and not an innovation. Slackware ARM, as you would
expect, runs faultlessly on this device, with a very significant increase in speed. Compile times are
much shorter compared to the RPi2, for example.

The Raspberry Pi 3 is supported outside of the official Slackware ARM tree by the Slackware
community.

Slackware releases 14.2, -current

Slackware ARM -current or Slackware ARM 14.2 can be installed on the Raspberry Pi 3.

Follow the link(s) in the table below. These are maintained by a separate author as part of the
Slackware-on-Raspberry Pi community.

Using official
Slackware Installation
Site Slackware Notes
versions methods
packages
An end-to-end HOW TO
guiding you through the
FatDog 14.2,-current Yes Slackware installer
installation and setup process
for bot.

As long you use the most recent raspbian image and firmware the Raspberry Pi 1 manual install
method also works for the Pi 2 and Pi 3.

Manual install method without a Raspbian image

This method is for installing Slackware ARM 14.2 on a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B without a Raspbian
image. However, it should work for other Slackware ARM and Raspberry Pi versions.

1. Partition and format the SD Card

$ sudo fdisk -l /dev/mmcblk0

Disk /dev/mmcblk0: 31.9 GB, 31914983424 bytes

4 heads, 16 sectors/track, 973968 cylinders, total 62333952 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

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Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System

/dev/mmcblk0p1 2048 67583 32768 b W95 FAT32
/dev/mmcblk0p2 67584 62333951 31133184 83 Linux
$ sudo mkfs.vfat /dev/mmcblk0p1
$ sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/mmcblk0p2

Remarks:

I use a 32GB SD Card

I choose 32MB for the size of the first partition
I let the empty space left for the second partition

2. Put the Raspberry Pi firmware in the SD Card

$ git clone https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware.git

$ sudo mount /dev/mmcblk0p1 ~/mnt
$ sudo cp -r firmware/boot/* ~/mnt
$ sudo umount ~/mnt
$ sudo mount /dev/mmcblk0p2 ~/mnt
$ sudo mkdir -p ~/mnt/lib/modules
$ sudo cp -r firmware/modules/* ~/mnt/lib/modules
$ sudo umount ~/mnt

3. Put the Slackware ARM mini root file system in the SD Card

$ wget -c
ftp://ftp.arm.slackware.com/slackwarearm/slackwarearm-devtools/minirootfs/ro
ots/slack-14.2-miniroot_01Jul16.tar.xz
$ sudo mount /dev/mmcblk0p2 ~/mnt
$ sudo tar -C ~/mnt -xf slack-14.2-miniroot_01Jul16.tar.xz
$ echo "/dev/mmcblk0p1 /boot vfat defaults 0 0" | sudo tee ~/mnt/etc/fstab
$ echo "/dev/mmcblk0p2 / ext4 defaults 0 0" | sudo tee -a
~/mnt/etc/fstab
$ echo "proc /proc proc defaults 0 0" | sudo tee -a
~/mnt/etc/fstab
$ PASSWD=$(openssl passwd -1 -salt cetkq/enZx6/c2 password)
$ sudo sed -i "s|\(root:\).*\(:16983:0:::::\)|\1${PASSWD}\2|"
~/mnt/etc/shadow
$ sudo sed -i 's|USE_DHCP\[1\]=""|USE_DHCP\[1\]="yes"|'
~/mnt/etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf
$ echo "PermitRootLogin yes" | sudo tee -a ~/mnt/etc/ssh/sshd_config
$ sudo umount ~/mnt

Remarks:

I set “password” as password for the “root” user

I set DHCP on the “eth1” network interface
I allow the “root” user to connect through SSH

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2017/11/20 02:42 (UTC) 3/5 Slackware ARM on the Raspberry Pi 3

4. Insert the SD Card in the Raspberry Pi

Your SD Card is ready so you can insert it in the Raspberry Pi and boot.

You can connect remotely to your Raspberry Pi as “root” through SSH.

$ ssh root@raspberrypi

As soon as you are logged, you might want to install additional Slackware ARM packages:

$ wget --mirror ftp://ftp.arm.slackware.com/slackwarearm/slackwarearm-14.2

$ upgradepkg --install-new
ftp.arm.slackware.com/slackwarearm/slackwarearm-14.2/slackware/*/*.txz
$ removepkg
ftp.arm.slackware.com/slackwarearm/slackwarearm-14.2/slackware/*/kernel_*.tx
z

Remarks:

I consider that the Raspberry Pi hostname is “raspberrypi”

I recommend to add a normal user and use this user instead of “root”
I recommend to change the “root” user password
I recommend to disallow the “root” user to connect through SSH
I recommend to build your own Linux kernel packages because the kernel you are running does
not match with the installed Slackware ARM packages

5. Tips and tricks

5.1. Processor

The Raspberry Pi processor can reach 1.2GHz. However, by default, it is stuck to 600MHz even if it is
used at 100%. You can check the current frequency of the processor by typing:

$ cpufreq-info

In order to reach 1.2GHz when the processor is used at 100% (i.e., use the frequency scaling), you
need to change the default governors. Add the following line to the end of the /etc/rc.d/rc.local
file:

echo ondemand | sudo tee

/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq/scaling_governor

Now, the processor is correctly set.

5.2. Time

Unfortunately, the Raspberry Pi does not provide a Real-Time Clock (RTC). That is why there is no

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battery included with the board. It means that each time you shutdown the Raspberry Pi, the time is
reset! However, if you have internet access, you can update the time during the Slackware ARM boot.
Add the following line to the end of the /etc/rc.d/rc.local file:

ntpdate pool.ntp.org

Now, the time is correctly set.

5.3. Video

Unfortunately, the Raspberry Pi is not compatible with OpenGL (it is compatible OpenGL ES that is a
subset of OpenGL). It means that, by default, each application requiring OpenGL will be slow.
However, you can reach 60 FPS with OpenGL applications on the Raspberry Pi by using the correct
driver.

Firstly, you need to build Mesa (>= 17.0.4) with the VC4 DRI driver:

$ CFLAGS="-O2 -march=armv8-a -mtune=cortex-a53 -mfloat-abi=softfp -

mfpu=neon-vfpv4" \
CXXFLAGS="-O2 -march=armv8-a -mtune=cortex-a53 -mfloat-abi=softfp -
mfpu=neon-vfpv4" \
./configure \
--prefix=/usr \
--sysconfdir=/etc \
--with-dri-driverdir=/usr/lib/xorg/modules/dri \
--with-egl-platforms=x11,drm \
--with-gallium-drivers=vc4
$ make -j4
$ make install DESTDIR=/where/you/want/to/install

Then build your own Slackware ARM Mesa package and install it.

Secondly, add the following line to the end of the /boot/config.txt file:

dtoverlay=vc4-fkms-v3d

Then reboot the Raspberry Pi.

You can check that you are able to get 60 FPS with OpenGL applications on the Raspberry Pi by typing
the following command in an X terminal:

$ glxgears

Now, the video is correctly set.

Sources

Originally written by Exaga

https://docs.slackware.com/ Printed on 2017/11/20 02:42 (UTC)

2017/11/20 02:42 (UTC) 5/5 Slackware ARM on the Raspberry Pi 3

Contributions by yugiohjcj

howtos, hardware, arm, author exaga

From:
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