On Saturday 04 September 2021 13:08:42 Andrew M.A. Cater wrote: > On Sat, Sep 04, 2021 at 08:31:11AM -0700, Vagrant Cascadian wrote: > > On 2021-09-04, LinAdmin wrote: > > > The unnamed decision makers of Debian some unknown time ago > > > decided that Pi and Pine stuff won't be supported by Debian. > > > > I personally have added support in Debian for: > > > > Raspberry Pi 1 > > Raspberry Pi 2b > > Raspberry Pi 3b+ > > Pine64+ > > Pinebook > > Pinebook Pro > > RockPro64 > > Rock64 > > > > And other platforms... others have added support for other Raspberry > > PI and Pine64 platforms, as well as numerous other platforms... > > > > I used the Pinebook as my primary computer for over a year, using > > absolutely zero software from outside of Debian... > > I was going to point out that Vagrant was probably the person very > likely to be able to contribute most. I note from > https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Allwinner that the H64 from > Pine is supported in Bullseye. > > Sometimes it comes down to the fact that we haven't got the hardware - > most of the people who run ARM have at some point bought dead end > ARM projects that never actually went anywhere in an attempt to get > them supported. > > Sometimes it comes down to problems beyond Debian's control: most > often a vendor kernel with no source / with other issues / tied in to > hardware in obscure ways, a U-Boot similarly ... Often, if you contact > the vendor they have no real understanding of why a Debian person > would be asking. > > > Debian isn't a consumer product, it is a community project. It is > > largely a volunteer effort, suppored by the community, so... if you > > want something supported, please help to add the support. > > > > It pretty much comes down to submitting patches, bug reports, merge > > requests, etc. to enabled the appropriate kernel options, bootloader > > support, and debian-installer support. > > > > Debian doesn't generally support patches that wouldn't be acceptible > > in upstream projects, or support non-free binary blobs out of the > > box, so maybe the support isn't as good on a per-platform basis as > > some other targeted distros willing to use vendor forks or patches > > for various components. > > Armbian / DietPi / Raspberry Pi OS have different viewpoints, include > different amounts of vendor code / have different attitudes to > firmware. Things "based on" Debian do things differently and sometimes > it's hard to see what they've done. As a consumer: if there's > difficulty getting Debian to work on the board you bought, help us by > going back to the manufacturer/vendor and politely pointing this out > as a problem for you. > > Help the maintainers of the ARM64 and armhf installers by using them - > and using reportbug to tell people what went wrong where. > First, they have to be interested in your failure reports. Until now, such has not been the case. No interest...
> > The support isn't always perfect; maybe all features don't always > > work; I don't and can't personally test all combinations of features > > on all platforms, nor have the time to enable all features on all > > combinations of platforms. Thankfully, there are others in the > > community who test and improve what they can. > > > > Debian could always use more people helping with testing and perhaps > > more importantly, upstreaming of support to make sure it works for > > their use-cases... > > > > I know not everybody can dive in and fix all kinds of issues, but > > there is a pretty broad spectrum of ways to help out... sometimes > > things are even supported but undocumented. Documenting workarounds > > and filing bug reports appropriately is one angle that could > > potentially help. > > > > > I switched to Ubuntu LTS which made me (and many others) happy. > > > > Curious what exactly is different with Ubuntu that makes it work for > > you... > > Real Ubuntu LTS from Canonical or, to take the H64 from Pine example, > the Armbian based on Ubuntu Focal? https://www.armbian.com/pine64/ [or > any other third party rebuild similarly]. > > If you're on the Raspberry Pi4 - yes, you have Ubuntu LTS - but you > also have Debian https://raspi.debian.net. > > Strictly, discussion of other distributions is off topic here unless > you've documented issues of where XYZ distribution works and Debian > doesn't on the same hardware. I await these direct comparisons from > you with interest. > > All the very best, as ever, > > Andy Cater > > > live well, > > vagrant Cheers, Gene Heskett -- "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable. - Louis D. Brandeis Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>
