EasyOS 0.9.6.3 64-bit on Raspberry Pi

Yep, EasyOS has been compiled for ARM aarch64 and is now running on the Raspberry Pi3. This is the "Pyro" series, compiled from source in 'oe-qky-src', my fork of OpenEmbedded (OE). The binary packages are then used in woofQ, to build EasyOS.

First, I built Quirky Linux in OE and created SD-cards for both RPI3 and Rock64 boards. Quirky is the same binary packages as used to build EasyOS, the difference is that Quirky is designed as a conventional "full" installation.

As the Rock64 has 4GB RAM and a USB3 socket, it is more suitable as a compiling platform. I compiled the kernel for the Pi -- I had to compile my own kernel, as it requires aufs patch, and aufs and squashfs drivers to be builtin.

I also compiled SeaMonkey, Scribus, and some other apps.

The aarch64 compile in OE is generic, without any particular optimization for video hardware acceleration. Therefore, we cannot expect stellar performance when playing videos.

Version 0.9.6.3 is the first build for the Pi, and has had cursory testing. I checked the main apps, and they are OK. Well, mostly. Going to youtube.com with SeaMonkey is not a good experience -- it can't play much more than 360p, and I locked the browser a few times.

Interesting to contrast with the Rock64, which played up to 720p, but it looked like some frames were getting dropped.

If anyone takes a liking to EasyOS on the Pi, you are welcome to have a go at tweaking it. Just click the "sfsget" icon at top of screen to download the "devx" file, which will turn Easy into a complete compiling environment. There is also a kernel source SFS file, if you want to compile a kernel module.

There are some features of EasyOS that are works-in-progress, especially EasyShare and EasyContainers. On the desktop, there is an icon labeled "desk", which is a complete desktop in a container -- this works, though playing with it on the Pi I did manage to crash the file manager.

Read more about EasyOS here:

http://bkhome.org/easy/

Also tagged posts in my blog:

http://bkhome.org/news/tag_easy.html

Download the image file for SD-card:

http://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/aarch64/releases/pyro/0.9.6.3/

The image file is gzipped, which Windows apps such as Etch understand. Here is information how to write the file to a SD-card:

http://bkhome.org/easy/how-to-write-easyos-to-a-flash-drive.html

The file is only 641MB when uncompressed, and at first bootup will expand to fill the entire SD-card. Any card from 2GB up will work, though 8GB or more is recommended for ongoing usage.

If you want to directly download the SFS files, they are here:

http://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/aarch64/packages/sfs/pyro/

Kernel source, patches and build scripts are here:

http://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/source/kernel/4.14.67/

I intend to start a Forum thread for feedback, and post the link here. That's if anyone is interested!

Tags: easy