Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo RPi boot to ram or read-only FS?
On 27/05/2020 01:44, William Kenworthy wrote: I have a few different pi's and similar Odroid arm systems running Gentoo on sdcards - the failure rate is a real and constant problem (and seems worse on pi's no matter what brand/type of sdcard so keep an up to date spare+backups) and I am thinking of doing a disk-less NFS using the a minimal sdcard image. Has advantages in centralised management and using small cheap sdcards with possibly better performance. Hmmm... The trouble from my point of view is it seems micro-SDs are unreliable. I've never had a full-size SD card fail on me, but I've binned several of the micro version. But apart from big hefty DSLRs, not much takes the full-size cards any more ... Cheers, Wol
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo RPi boot to ram or read-only FS?
On Wed, 27 May 2020 10:24:21 +0200, J. Roeleveld wrote: > > I'm moving over to using Balena on Pis wherever possible. N more > > keeping track of multiple different SD card backup images and easy > > centralised management. > > Do you have a simple howto for this? > What I see when I quickly check, it only mentions docker. It is Docker based, but there are a lot of ready to use images available. Simple howto: if image_is_available; then install_it else learn_docker :( fi Hence my use of "wherever possible". This may suit the OP https://www.balena.io/blog/put-friends-and-loved-ones-on-the-big-screen-with-this-instant-video-call-project/ -- Neil Bothwick Assembler: (n.) a minor program of interest only to obsessed programmers. pgpTuPhRY00rF.pgp Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo RPi boot to ram or read-only FS?
On Wednesday, May 27, 2020 9:39:06 AM CEST Neil Bothwick wrote: > On Wed, 27 May 2020 08:44:08 +0800, William Kenworthy wrote: > > I have a few different pi's and similar Odroid arm systems running > > Gentoo on sdcards - the failure rate is a real and constant problem (and > > seems worse on pi's no matter what brand/type of sdcard so keep an up to > > date spare+backups) and I am thinking of doing a disk-less NFS using the > > a minimal sdcard image. Has advantages in centralised management and > > using small cheap sdcards with possibly better performance. > > I'm moving over to using Balena on Pis wherever possible. N more keeping > track of multiple different SD card backup images and easy centralised > management. Do you have a simple howto for this? What I see when I quickly check, it only mentions docker. -- Joost
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo RPi boot to ram or read-only FS?
On Wed, 27 May 2020 08:44:08 +0800, William Kenworthy wrote: > I have a few different pi's and similar Odroid arm systems running > Gentoo on sdcards - the failure rate is a real and constant problem (and > seems worse on pi's no matter what brand/type of sdcard so keep an up to > date spare+backups) and I am thinking of doing a disk-less NFS using the > a minimal sdcard image. Has advantages in centralised management and > using small cheap sdcards with possibly better performance. I'm moving over to using Balena on Pis wherever possible. N more keeping track of multiple different SD card backup images and easy centralised management. -- Neil Bothwick Like an atheist in a grave: all dressed up and no place to go. pgpjZxqWMdBLz.pgp Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo RPi boot to ram or read-only FS?
On 27/5/20 3:26 am, Neil Bothwick wrote: > On Tue, 26 May 2020 20:13:29 +0100, antlists wrote: > >>> Mounting the card with sync will significantly reduce the likelihood >>> of corruption, at a cost of reduced life. >>> >> Well, compared to a dead card, a reduced life is a small price to pay >> :-) > A dead card is a reduced life ;-) > >> I think you're talking about a corrupted filesystem, I'm talking about >> a corrupt/dead card ... > I am. I still think the idea of a soft power button is the least complex > and most reliable approach. > I'll add a "me too" - soft power off rules. Look into a pi-juice Hat or similar - it has a battery and can turn off properly either at low battery, or when power is removed. Alternatively, a pi is very low power anyway ... why not just leave it on in a featureless "black box" with no lights showing and program the remote to to do a fake "standbay/off" that triggers a script to blank the video and or reset the screen to the entry menu? (if you are like me, playing with the gear is way more fun than using it as a media box! :) I have a few different pi's and similar Odroid arm systems running Gentoo on sdcards - the failure rate is a real and constant problem (and seems worse on pi's no matter what brand/type of sdcard so keep an up to date spare+backups) and I am thinking of doing a disk-less NFS using the a minimal sdcard image. Has advantages in centralised management and using small cheap sdcards with possibly better performance. BillK pEpkey.asc Description: application/pgp-keys
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo RPi boot to ram or read-only FS?
On Tue, 26 May 2020 20:13:29 +0100, antlists wrote: > > Mounting the card with sync will significantly reduce the likelihood > > of corruption, at a cost of reduced life. > > > Well, compared to a dead card, a reduced life is a small price to pay > :-) A dead card is a reduced life ;-) > I think you're talking about a corrupted filesystem, I'm talking about > a corrupt/dead card ... I am. I still think the idea of a soft power button is the least complex and most reliable approach. -- Neil Bothwick I've got a Mickey Mouse PC with a Goofy operating system. pgpoEikgneIc3.pgp Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo RPi boot to ram or read-only FS?
On 26/05/2020 19:27, Neil Bothwick wrote: On Tue, 26 May 2020 19:14:18 +0100, antlists wrote: That's the Gentoo version that I'm using. But I'm looking for a way to make it bullet-proof to having the plug pulled. Don't use an SD card? Seriously, pulling the power on an SD card has been known to corrupt it beyond recovery. BUT. Mounting the card with sync will significantly reduce the likelihood of corruption, at a cost of reduced life. Well, compared to a dead card, a reduced life is a small price to pay :-) I think you're talking about a corrupted filesystem, I'm talking about a corrupt/dead card ... Cheers, Wol
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo RPi boot to ram or read-only FS?
On 26/05/2020 19:27, Neil Bothwick wrote: This will mitigate the reduced life as you are hardly writing to the card. Booting from a read-only / has caused problems for me in the past, because of the inability to write to /etc. Well, if we can get a loopback into the boot sequence before you write to /etc (why did it want to write to it?), then it won't realise that it can't. You just have to accept that all writes will get lost on power-down. Cheers, Wol
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo RPi boot to ram or read-only FS?
On Tue, May 26, 2020 at 1:27 PM Neil Bothwick wrote: > On Tue, 26 May 2020 19:14:18 +0100, antlists wrote: > > > > That's the Gentoo version that I'm using. But I'm looking for a way > > > to make it bullet-proof to having the plug pulled. > > > > Don't use an SD card? Seriously, pulling the power on an SD card has > > been known to corrupt it beyond recovery. BUT. > > Mounting the card with sync will significantly reduce the likelihood of > corruption, at a cost of reduced life. > > > Is the big worry that the home directory will get corrupted etc etc? I > > don't know if you can partition an SD card, but look at doing a > > kiosk-style install with the OS protected and read-only. Then look at > > sticking a loopback device on top of home, so that any changes exist > > only in ram, and are lost on shutdown. Hopefully, that means you now > > have a system that can boot and run off a write-protected SD card :-) > > This will mitigate the reduced life as you are hardly writing to the > card. Booting from a read-only / has caused problems for me in the past, > because of the inability to write to /etc. > Consider a hybrid approach like how many embedded systems do things. E.g. openwrt. /root is actually a read-only squashfs image, and on top of that there's an overlay fs that uses a second partition as it's backing storage. This way, almost all of your system is purely read-only, but you have the ability to store changes to things you need to store changes for.
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo RPi boot to ram or read-only FS?
On Tue, 26 May 2020 19:14:18 +0100, antlists wrote: > > That's the Gentoo version that I'm using. But I'm looking for a way > > to make it bullet-proof to having the plug pulled. > > Don't use an SD card? Seriously, pulling the power on an SD card has > been known to corrupt it beyond recovery. BUT. Mounting the card with sync will significantly reduce the likelihood of corruption, at a cost of reduced life. > Is the big worry that the home directory will get corrupted etc etc? I > don't know if you can partition an SD card, but look at doing a > kiosk-style install with the OS protected and read-only. Then look at > sticking a loopback device on top of home, so that any changes exist > only in ram, and are lost on shutdown. Hopefully, that means you now > have a system that can boot and run off a write-protected SD card :-) This will mitigate the reduced life as you are hardly writing to the card. Booting from a read-only / has caused problems for me in the past, because of the inability to write to /etc. -- Neil Bothwick Politically Incorrect -- and damn proud of it! pgpeILno6FnDZ.pgp Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo RPi boot to ram or read-only FS?
On 26/05/2020 18:28, Frank Tarczynski wrote: That's the Gentoo version that I'm using. But I'm looking for a way to make it bullet-proof to having the plug pulled. Don't use an SD card? Seriously, pulling the power on an SD card has been known to corrupt it beyond recovery. BUT. Is the big worry that the home directory will get corrupted etc etc? I don't know if you can partition an SD card, but look at doing a kiosk-style install with the OS protected and read-only. Then look at sticking a loopback device on top of home, so that any changes exist only in ram, and are lost on shutdown. Hopefully, that means you now have a system that can boot and run off a write-protected SD card :-) Look at the raid wiki site https://raid.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Linux_Raid#When_Things_Go_Wrogn and especially the stuff on recovering a damaged raid for info about how to set up loopback. Cheers, Wol
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo RPi boot to ram or read-only FS?
That's the Gentoo version that I'm using. But I'm looking for a way to make it bullet-proof to having the plug pulled. Frank On Tue, May 26, 2020 at 1:19 PM Michael Jones wrote: > > > On Tue, May 26, 2020 at 12:16 PM Grant Edwards > wrote: > >> On 2020-05-26, Frank Tarczynski wrote: >> >> > I'm building a video conference appliance using a Raspberry Pi 4 for >> > my parents. >> >> Sorry, no advice running Gentoo on RPi. I run OSMC/Kodi on an older >> RPi, and it works fine, but I don't think there are any video >> conference apps for Kodi. >> >> But... >> >> For skype and zoom, I'd probably just buy them a 10" Kindle Fire. >> >> There are Zoom and Skype apps available for it. Main drawback: >> smallish screen and limited to 4 video windows at a time in >> zoom. However, it's portable: you can flip to the back camera and walk >> around the house/yard to show something to people. It's also nice in >> that you can just tap on a Zoom invite url in the email app, and it >> "just works". >> >> I haven't trie Skype on Fire. >> >> You can add hangounts/duo, but you've got to futz around sideloading >> the Google App store first. >> >> -- >> Grant > > > > FYI, this project exists: https://github.com/sakaki-/gentoo-on-rpi-64bit >
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo RPi boot to ram or read-only FS?
On Tue, May 26, 2020 at 12:16 PM Grant Edwards wrote: > On 2020-05-26, Frank Tarczynski wrote: > > > I'm building a video conference appliance using a Raspberry Pi 4 for > > my parents. > > Sorry, no advice running Gentoo on RPi. I run OSMC/Kodi on an older > RPi, and it works fine, but I don't think there are any video > conference apps for Kodi. > > But... > > For skype and zoom, I'd probably just buy them a 10" Kindle Fire. > > There are Zoom and Skype apps available for it. Main drawback: > smallish screen and limited to 4 video windows at a time in > zoom. However, it's portable: you can flip to the back camera and walk > around the house/yard to show something to people. It's also nice in > that you can just tap on a Zoom invite url in the email app, and it > "just works". > > I haven't trie Skype on Fire. > > You can add hangounts/duo, but you've got to futz around sideloading > the Google App store first. > > -- > Grant FYI, this project exists: https://github.com/sakaki-/gentoo-on-rpi-64bit
