[fedora-arm] Raspberry Pi 2 and VC4 firmware license

Hi Lubomir,

Post by Lubomir Rintel
Seems like there's not much that's left to be done for stock Fedora to
boot on Raspberry Pi 2 successfully [1].

There's not much, I've

Post by Lubomir Rintel
[1] https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1308355
One bit that notably prevents us from spinning an image that would boot
on RPi2 board solely from the Fedora packages is the VC4 firmware.

Yes, it's one, there's a bunch of others, the kernel now should be
mostly upstream, it's on my list (it's very long) to enable this and
test it. We also need to be able to use u-boot so that we can do
standard kernel upgrades/rollbacks as well as deal with the fact the
firmware needs a VFAT partition without having to have the confusion
and QA of twice the amount of images produced

Post by Lubomir Rintel
It seems to have a license [2] that's not compatible with Fedora's
"Redistributable, no modification permitted" license for binary

We spoke with the RPi foundation about this years ago to get some
adjustments made for distro distribution, and then Legal and got the
appropriate exceptions, then the board (as it was then) to get the
approval there. Basically the work has been done already and firmware
has been packaged in Fedora since last June [1].

[1] http://pkgs.fedoraproject.org/cgit/rpms/bcm283x-firmware.git

* This software may only be used for the purposes of developing for,
running or using a Raspberry Pi device.

[2] https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware/blob/master/boot/LICENCE.broadcom
The way to go now seems to be to spin a remix with the firmware added.
Does it make sense to talk to Broadcom or Raspberry Pi Foundation/Ltd
and asking them to lift the restriction? I doubt it would cause any
practical difference to them. Does anyone have a contact at Broadcom or
Raspberry Pi I could talk to?

We had those conversations well over 2 years ago long before the v2
was announced.

Peter

Jérôme Fenal

2016-02-15 14:18:08 UTC

Post by Peter Robinson
Hi Lubomir,

Hi all,

Post by Lubomir Rintel
Seems like there's not much that's left to be done for stock Fedora to
boot on Raspberry Pi 2 successfully [1].

There's not much, I've

What do we miss, besides this BZ, to get Fedora running on the Rappberry Pi 2?

With also Eric Anholt's new VC4 driver[1], that should get us closer
and closer from a fully-supportable Pi 2.

If needed, I just received a bunch of Pi 2 (5 of them), that I'll be
happy to use to test, either within Red Hat premises, or from my
personal internet connection.

That way, we could have Fedora-based Ceph or Gluster (or Hadoop)
demonstrators. Which wouldn't need the VC4 driver anyway.

Regards,

J.

[1] http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Raspbian-Feb2016-Update

Lubomir Rintel

2016-02-15 15:59:36 UTC

Post by Peter Robinson
Hi Lubomir,

Hi all,

Post by Lubomir Rintel
Seems like there's not much that's left to be done for stock Fedora to
boot on Raspberry Pi 2 successfully [1].

There's not much, I've

Yes, it's one, there's a bunch of others, the kernel now should be
mostly upstream, it's on my list (it's very long) to enable this and
test it. We also need to be able to use u-boot so that we can do
standard kernel upgrades/rollbacks as well as deal with the fact the
firmware needs a VFAT partition without having to have the
confusion
and QA of twice the amount of images produced

What do we miss, besides this BZ, to get Fedora running on the
Rappberry Pi 2?

u-boot fixes are needed to build/run the board. All likely
to be included in 2016/03 upstream:

* http://lists.denx.de/pipermail/u-boot/2016-February/245385.html
To fix the uboot-tools build

* 89ca1000 ARM: rpi: set fdt_high in the default environment
This, to load fdt where VMSPLIT_3G kernel can reach it.

* http://lists.denx.de/pipermail/u-boot/2016-February/245402.html
Alike, for the ramdisk.

That is the bare minimim to get the system to boot.
There's a couple of known flaws and likely some unknown:

* Some drivers are missing: http://elinux.org/RPi_Upstreaming

* The ethernet MAC address is random. Fix headed for 4.6.

* VC4 is not bound to the device tree. And the configfs interface to
the overlays is not yet here. This could possibly be worked around by
an userspace tool that would generate a desired dtb from fragments.

* Not sure if simplefb works. It certainly does not for my DSI display.
Didn't try with newer firmware or HDMI, will look into that.

Post by JÃ©rÃ´me Fenal
With also Eric Anholt's new VC4 driver[1], that should get us closer
and closer from a fully-supportable Pi 2.
If needed, I just received a bunch of Pi 2 (5 of them), that I'll be
happy to use to test, either within Red Hat premises, or from my
personal internet connection.

I'll try to share an image you could run tomorrow.

Post by JÃ©rÃ´me Fenal
That way, we could have Fedora-based Ceph or Gluster (or Hadoop)
demonstrators. Which wouldn't need the VC4 driver anyway.
Regards,
J.
[1] http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Raspbian-Feb20
16-Update

Lubo

Jérôme Fenal

2016-02-15 19:34:14 UTC

Post by Peter Robinson
Hi Lubomir,

Hi all,

Post by Lubomir Rintel
Seems like there's not much that's left to be done for stock Fedora to
boot on Raspberry Pi 2 successfully [1].

There's not much, I've

Yes, it's one, there's a bunch of others, the kernel now should be
mostly upstream, it's on my list (it's very long) to enable this and
test it. We also need to be able to use u-boot so that we can do
standard kernel upgrades/rollbacks as well as deal with the fact the
firmware needs a VFAT partition without having to have the
confusion
and QA of twice the amount of images produced

What do we miss, besides this BZ, to get Fedora running on the Rappberry Pi 2?

u-boot fixes are needed to build/run the board. All likely
* http://lists.denx.de/pipermail/u-boot/2016-February/245385.html
To fix the uboot-tools build
* 89ca1000 ARM: rpi: set fdt_high in the default environment
This, to load fdt where VMSPLIT_3G kernel can reach it.
* http://lists.denx.de/pipermail/u-boot/2016-February/245402.html
Alike, for the ramdisk.
That is the bare minimim to get the system to boot.
* Some drivers are missing: http://elinux.org/RPi_Upstreaming
* The ethernet MAC address is random. Fix headed for 4.6.
* VC4 is not bound to the device tree. And the configfs interface to
the overlays is not yet here. This could possibly be worked around by
an userspace tool that would generate a desired dtb from fragments.
* Not sure if simplefb works. It certainly does not for my DSI display.
Didn't try with newer firmware or HDMI, will look into that.

I'll try to share an image you could run tomorrow.

Thank you, I'll try it later this week-end, my week is almost full.

--
Jérôme Fenal

Lubomir Rintel

2016-02-24 18:06:48 UTC

Post by Peter Robinson
Hi Lubomir,

Hi all,

Post by Lubomir Rintel
Seems like there's not much that's left to be done for stock Fedora to
boot on Raspberry Pi 2 successfully [1].

There's not much, I've

Yes, it's one, there's a bunch of others, the kernel now should be
mostly upstream, it's on my list (it's very long) to enable
this
and
test it. We also need to be able to use u-boot so that we can do
standard kernel upgrades/rollbacks as well as deal with the
fact
the
firmware needs a VFAT partition without having to have the confusion
and QA of twice the amount of images produced

What do we miss, besides this BZ, to get Fedora running on the Rappberry Pi 2?

I'll try to share an image you could run tomorrow.

Thank you, I'll try it later this week-end, my week is almost full.

Here's what I have now. Mostly stock Fedora + kernel configuration and
patches to make ethernet mac address stable (would work without them
too):

https://pignus.computer/pub/experimental/armv7hl/

Jérôme Fenal

2016-02-24 20:07:54 UTC

Post by Peter Robinson
Hi Lubomir,

Hi all,

Post by Lubomir Rintel
Seems like there's not much that's left to be done for stock Fedora to
boot on Raspberry Pi 2 successfully [1].

There's not much, I've

Yes, it's one, there's a bunch of others, the kernel now should be
mostly upstream, it's on my list (it's very long) to enable
this
and
test it. We also need to be able to use u-boot so that we can do
standard kernel upgrades/rollbacks as well as deal with the
fact
the
firmware needs a VFAT partition without having to have the confusion
and QA of twice the amount of images produced

What do we miss, besides this BZ, to get Fedora running on the Rappberry Pi 2?

I'll try to share an image you could run tomorrow.

Thank you, I'll try it later this week-end, my week is almost full.

Here's what I have now. Mostly stock Fedora + kernel configuration and
patches to make ethernet mac address stable (would work without them
https://pignus.computer/pub/experimental/armv7hl/

Excellent!

I'm giving it a try in a few minutes! :)

--
Jérôme Fenal

Jérôme Fenal

2016-02-24 23:27:31 UTC

Post by Peter Robinson
Hi Lubomir,

Hi all,

Post by Lubomir Rintel
Seems like there's not much that's left to be done for stock Fedora to
boot on Raspberry Pi 2 successfully [1].

There's not much, I've

Yes, it's one, there's a bunch of others, the kernel now should be
mostly upstream, it's on my list (it's very long) to enable
this
and
test it. We also need to be able to use u-boot so that we can do
standard kernel upgrades/rollbacks as well as deal with the
fact
the
firmware needs a VFAT partition without having to have the confusion
and QA of twice the amount of images produced

What do we miss, besides this BZ, to get Fedora running on the Rappberry Pi 2?

I'll try to share an image you could run tomorrow.

Thank you, I'll try it later this week-end, my week is almost full.

Here's what I have now. Mostly stock Fedora + kernel configuration and
patches to make ethernet mac address stable (would work without them
https://pignus.computer/pub/experimental/armv7hl/

Excellent!
I'm giving it a try in a few minutes! :)

Not booting.
The green LED is steadily on, not flashing, so it does not even boot.
I also added files from the firmware rpi githup repo, did not help:

# insert SD card in my F23 laptop
cd /run/media/jfenal/__boot/
cp /home/jfenal/dev/firmware/boot/{bcm270*,bootcode.bin,fixup*,start*} .
mkdir overlays
rsync -av /home/jfenal/dev/firmware/boot/overlays/ overlays/

Didn't work either.

I've ordered a serial console cable, it will arrive when it will arrive...

If you have any ideas... ?

--
Jérôme Fenal

M A Young

2016-02-25 22:52:55 UTC

...

Here's what I have now. Mostly stock Fedora + kernel configuration and
patches to make ethernet mac address stable (would work without them
https://pignus.computer/pub/experimental/armv7hl/

Excellent!
I'm giving it a try in a few minutes! :)

Not booting.
The green LED is steadily on, not flashing, so it does not even boot.

It boots for me, however my USB wireless doesn't work.

Michael Young

Lubomir Rintel

2016-02-15 16:07:05 UTC

Hello Peter,

Post by Peter Robinson
Hi Lubomir,

Post by Lubomir Rintel
Seems like there's not much that's left to be done for stock Fedora to
boot on Raspberry Pi 2 successfully [1].

There's not much, I've

Yes, it's one, there's a bunch of others, the kernel now should be
mostly upstream, it's on my list (it's very long) to enable this and
test it.

Is there anything I could do to help with that?

Post by Peter Robinson
We also need to be able to use u-boot so that we can do
standard kernel upgrades/rollbacks as well as deal with the fact the
firmware needs a VFAT partition without having to have the confusion
and QA of twice the amount of images produced

Post by Lubomir Rintel
It seems to have a license [2] that's not compatible with Fedora's
"Redistributable, no modification permitted" license for binary

We spoke with the RPi foundation about this years ago to get some
adjustments made for distro distribution, and then Legal and got the
appropriate exceptions, then the board (as it was then) to get the
approval there. Basically the work has been done already and firmware
has been packaged in Fedora since last June [1].
[1] http://pkgs.fedoraproject.org/cgit/rpms/bcm283x-firmware.git

* This software may only be used for the purposes of developing for,
running or using a Raspberry Pi device.

[2] https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware/blob/master/boot/LICENC
E.broadcom
The way to go now seems to be to spin a remix with the firmware added.
Does it make sense to talk to Broadcom or Raspberry Pi
Foundation/Ltd
and asking them to lift the restriction? I doubt it would cause any
practical difference to them. Does anyone have a contact at
Broadcom or
Raspberry Pi I could talk to?

We had those conversations well over 2 years ago long before the v2
was announced.

This is excellent news!

Please pardon my ignorance; last time I checked the package was not
there; but I surely haven't re-checked for a couple of months.

We're doing a Fedora rebuild for the older BCM2835-based Raspberry Pi
boards and this will help us shorten the diff to Fedora. (Didn't
announce a release yet yet, and are still getting the infrastructure
done, but have some bootable images ready).

https://pignus.computer/

Post by Peter Robinson
Peter

Peter Robinson

2016-02-15 17:30:43 UTC

Post by Lubomir Rintel
Seems like there's not much that's left to be done for stock Fedora to
boot on Raspberry Pi 2 successfully [1].

There's not much, I've

Yes, it's one, there's a bunch of others, the kernel now should be
mostly upstream, it's on my list (it's very long) to enable this and
test it.

Is there anything I could do to help with that?

Post by Lubomir Rintel
It seems to have a license [2] that's not compatible with Fedora's
"Redistributable, no modification permitted" license for binary

We spoke with the RPi foundation about this years ago to get some
adjustments made for distro distribution, and then Legal and got the
appropriate exceptions, then the board (as it was then) to get the
approval there. Basically the work has been done already and firmware
has been packaged in Fedora since last June [1].
[1] http://pkgs.fedoraproject.org/cgit/rpms/bcm283x-firmware.git