Experimental EV3dev Debian 12 Bookworm, 11 Bullseye, 10 Buster, 9 Stretch images

[Growflavor]

(WiP) Place to broaden the discussion started at #1554

& RE: "There is a desire to test approximately similar builds on Bullseye and Stretch" #1558 #1558 (comment)

Debian 12 Bookworm:

• on the 4.19.85 Kernel:
• Will Debian Bullseye come? #1554 (comment)
• boots but networking connections are difficult/intermittent
• processes tend to get killed (OOM?)
• 'tinkerable' but not currently 'useable'
• docker pull growflavor/ev3images:ev3dev12rpycbtbm3
• likely needs a more current kernel (requires people with skill with ARMEL kernels, EV3 drivers, & time):
• https://github.com/ev3dev/ev3-kernel/tree/ev3dev-bookworm
• Advantage would be that Python 3.11 runs remarkably faster on the EV3: see chart at Python 3.11 venv available -- Try out your favorite programs & run test programs for newer python features with the image at Discussion #1634! #1635 (comment)

Debian 11 Bullseye:

• on the 4.19.85 Kernel:
• Will Debian Bullseye come? #1554 (comment)
• appears useable for EV3dev
• precompiled pybricks-micropython packages NO longer work -- Bullseye uses several newer versions of the dependency libraries someone with programming experience could assess if a recompile using the newer libraries would resolve
• docker pull growflavor/ev3images:latest

Debian 10 Buster:

• on the 4.19.85 Kernel:
• appears very useful including able to build python 3.11, see discussion Python 3.11 venv altinstall in EV3dev Debian 10 'Buster' experimental image #1634 for details:
• https://github.com/orgs/ev3dev/discussions/1634
• docker pull growflavor/ev3images:ev3dev10imgv02b

Debian 9 Stretch:

• packages can be updated from the 'officially released version'
• here is an example, (note: I think this version had all available backports apt installed which could potentially lead to stability issues)
• Will Debian Bullseye come? #1554 (comment)

[Project516]

Hello, I am interested in helping with bookworm. How would I use the ev3dev kernel bookworm branch to build an image? I know brickstrap creates an image from a docker container but I am not sure how to use the repositories to make one. Could someone could give me an overview for manually compiling everything? Thank you!

[Muresan73]

I built a kernel successfully from your branch @Project516 ( i had to manually set LOADADDR=0xC0008000 in local-env )
but i was not able to successfully get it to boot. With your test img before systemd could start it hangs.

Then i tried with the last "offical" release ev3dev-stretch-ev3-generic-2020-04-10 image with boot.scr and u-boot.bin in boot partition but now it does not even load the new kernel uImage :/ ( it boots normally to v4.14), i tried the Custom Locations trick also.

What is the right approach? Do you guys have some advice?
I would love to help out with the testing and debugging if needed :)

[dlech]

When I'm working on the kernel, I usually edit the uEnv.txt to boot from a uImage and .dtb in the BOOT partition. This way, if I break something, it can easily be fixed by just deleting those files.

It has been quite a while since I did this though, so I don't remember the changes I made to uEnv.txt off of the top of my head.

[Muresan73]

The problem was that i used a preexisting boot.scr ( the build-boot-src mentioned in the readme does not exist anymore) which pointed to the wrong location.
I managed to make it work by adding these to my uEnv.txt

mmcdev=0         # select sd drive
bootpart=0:1     # select BOOT partition which is the first one
bootdir=/        # path to the boot folder
bootfile=uImage  # name of the image file
fdtfile=da850-lego-ev3.dtb

[Project516]

@Muresan73 Did you get the 6.12 kernel to boot with the stretch image? What steps did you take? I haven’t tested the kernel yet.

[Muresan73]

I needed to add the bootloader from the stretch image to the boot partition ( maybe i should just flash a newer uboot to the ev3 at this point )

I got the errors in the boot process:

ev3-board board: Failed to get hw-id nvmem -2
ev3-board board: probe with driver ev3-board failed with error -2

I fixed it with updating the dts file for the eeprom, now it just hangs with no specific error.

If i manage to get somewhere more tangible i will add more details.