Architectures/ARM/Raspberry Pi

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The Raspberry Pi 3 and 4 are supported in in all stable Fedora releases. Please report issues to the ARM mailing list or IRC channel

Introduction

The Raspberry Pi is a credit card-sized ARM based single board computer (SBC). Fedora supports the the Raspberry Pi 3-series of devices including the 3B, 3B+, 3A+, 3CM and 3CM+ and the Raspberry Pi 4 in Fedora 37 and later releases. This documentation describes how to get started, and includes a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) about what is supported and what isn't.

Supported Hardware

We currently support the Raspberry Pi 3-series of devices (3B, 3B+, 3A+, CM3, CM3+) and the Raspberry Pi 4-series (4B, 400, CM4, CM4s) and the Zero2W.

Fedora IoT lists the Raspberry Pi 4 as one of its Reference Platforms.

Official support for the Zero 5B is under review.

UEFI support

The Pi Firmware Task Force is working to create a fully featured SystemReady-ES UEFI port for the RPi3 and RPi4. That project is rapidly evolving. As of version 1.5, Fedora 31+ will boot in ACPI mode on the Raspberry Pi 4 with gradually improving device support as one moves to newer kernels. Given a system running a Linux 5.7+ based kernel, the onboard NIC, PCI/XHCI, Graphics, etc, work. RPi3+DT support in the project is quite complete and mature. Firmware install guides for the RPi4 and RPi3 are found on that project's github. From there the fedora installer DVD [ISO https://getfedora.org/] for aarch64 should be used, or the fedora process for setting up PXE/HTTP boot.

Prerequisites

• A Raspberry Pi 3-series device or 4.
• Good quality SD Card (eLinux hosts a compatibility list)
• HDMI Monitor or TV, a USB keyboard and mouse
• A decent power supply. You'll want at least 2.5A. details here.

For preparation of the SD card:

• Computer running Windows/MacOS/Linux
• SD card reader

Downloading the Fedora ARM image

Official images for the supported Raspberry Pi devices can be found at the usual location Get Fedora. The various different options are linked from the various Edition, Spins, Labs and other artifact pages.

Preparing the SD card

You can quite easily prepare the image on the SD card on Fedora or any Linux distribution, MacOS or Windows. The default settings will provide the user interface on a HDMI monitor with keyboard and mouse support. If you wish to have output over a serial console please see Section in the FAQ.

Fedora or other Linux Distributions

Scripted

To install using arm-image-installer:

dnf install -y arm-image-installer

To write the image out use the following:

$ sudo arm-image-installer

Usage: arm-image-installer <options>

   --image=IMAGE    - xz compressed image file name
   --target=TARGET  - target board
   --media=DEVICE   - media device file (/dev/[sdX|mmcblkX])
   --selinux=ON/OFF - Turn SELinux off/on as needed
   --norootpass     - Remove the root password
   -y		    - Assumes yes, will not wait for confirmation
   --version	    - Display version and exit
   --resizefs	    - Resize root filesystem to fill media device
   --addconsole     - Add system console to extlinux.conf
   --addkey=        - /path/to/ssh-public-key

Example: arm-image-installer --image=Fedora-Rawhide.xz --target=Bananapi --media=/dev/mmcblk0

For list of supported boards please check SUPPORTED-BOARDS file.

For the Raspberry Pi 3 or 3+ use

--target=rpi3

, and for the Raspberry Pi 4 use

--target=rpi4

.

Manual

 xzcat Fedora-IMAGE-NAME.raw.xz | sudo dd status=progress bs=4M of=/dev/XXX # Location of your media (will be sdX or mmcblkX depending on hardware)

MacOS

The Raspberry Pi foundation provides some nice instructions for image copying using a Mac here. Simply replace any image file references with the name and path of the image downloaded in the step above.

Microsoft Windows

The Raspberry Pi foundation provides some nice instructions for image copying using a Windows here. Simply replace any image file references with the name and path of the image downloaded in the step above.

Resizing the root partition

The root partition is shrunk to the smallest size possible to ensure a small download. You currently need to resize it manually. Ideally we would like this to happen automatically (great community project idea!).

Resize before first boot

The easiest way to do this is using the arm-image-installer detailed above, otherwise before boot on a Linux system is with gparted:

gparted /dev/XXX

Resize after initial-setup

The other mechanism for doing it is once you've booted the Raspberry Pi and completed the initial setup to create accounts.

# enlarge the 3rd partition (this example uses mmcblk0)
growpart /dev/mmcblk0 3
# grow the volume to take up the rest of the disk
resize2fs /dev/mmcblk0p3
# resize root partition for the armhfp server image (which uses xfs)
xfs_growfs -d /

# Steps for the AArch64 Server image

# enlarge the 3rd partition (this example uses mmcblk0)
growpart /dev/mmcblk0 3
# resize the physical volume
pvresize /dev/mmcblk0p3
# extend the root filesystem to take up the space just added to the volume that it is in
lvextend -l +100%FREE /dev/fedora_fedora/root
# resize root partition for the server image (which uses xfs)
xfs_growfs -d /

Booting Fedora on the Raspberry Pi for the first time

• Insert the SD card into the Raspberry Pi.
• Make sure you have a keyboard, mouse, network cable and monitor connected.
• Power on the Raspberry Pi.
• You will see Fedora booting and eventually the "Initial setup wizard" will appear.
• Follow the wizard to set language, timezone and create users.
• You should be presented with a login prompt or a getting started guide (depending on which Desktop/SPIN you're using).

Applying updates and installing software

There are no special ways or procedures necessary to install or update the software so you just use standard Fedora installation and update mechanisms such as dnf, gnome-software or any of the other GUI update systems as supported in the various desktop environments.

Getting help and reporting issues

So where can you get help if it’s not working? The usual Fedora support forums are:

• Ask Fedora
• Fedora ARM mailing list
• Fedora Chat on Matix via the #arm:fedoraproject.org room

Frequently Asked Questions

Why do I get a rainbow display when I try and power on my Raspberry Pi?

There's a number of different reasons you might get rainbow output on the display when you're trying to boot as Raspberry Pi. The three common ones we see are:

• The power supply isn't strong enough. See Prerequisites above.
• There's no OS installed. Check the SD card is properly in place and you've followed the instructions to write out the card.
• Wrong edition of the Raspberry Pi. If you try and use Fedora on a Raspberry Pi 1 or Zero you'll get this as we don't support ARMv6 SoCs.
• Unsupported version of Fedora, eg releases older than Fedora 37 on the RPi 4

Power Supplies

The biggest single support issue is generally not a powerful enough PSU. The Raspberry Pi 3 Series needs a 2.5A PSU, this is especially important with Fedora where we support higher CPU frequencies which draws more power. PSUs that seemingly worked in the past have been seen to cause issues with Fedora due to this.

What desktop environments are supported?

Both 3D/2D work out of the box on Raspberry Pi 3/4 and most lightweight desktops as shipped in Fedora should work just fine. There is an open source fully accelerated driver for the Video Core IV GPU.

Will there be more enhancements to the hardware support?

Yes. New enhancements will be delivered when, and as soon as, they are ready via the standard Fedora updates mechanism. New significant features will be blogged about as they arrive either via Fedora Magazine or the Fedora Planet.

What about support for the Raspberry Pi Models A/A+, B/B+ (generation 1), Zero/ZeroW and Compute Module?

THESE ARE NOT SUPPORTED!!!

Fedora doesn't, and NEVER will, support ARMv6 processors. There's been a number of attempts to support these over the years, none are currently active.

What USB devices are supported on the Raspberry Pi?

You should be able to use most USB-2 compatible devices that are supported in Fedora on other devices. There are some limitations to the USB bus of the Raspberry Pi hardware as documented here.

Is the onboard WiFi and Bluetooth supported on the Raspberry Pi 3?

WiFi

WiFi on the Raspberry Pi 3-series devices works out of the box with Fedora. WiFi on the Raspberry Pi 4 model B works. WiFi on the Raspberry Pi Zero 2W and Raspberry Pi 400 is currently unsupported.

Using Wi-Fi on CLI

To use Wi-Fi on minimal and server images you can configure the device using command line:

# list of networks
nmcli device wifi list
# connect
nmcli device wifi connect $SSID --ask

Bluetooth

Bluetooth works quite well and seems to be quite stable. The device sometimes has a generic bluetooth address but should over all work just fine without any configuration.

Do VLANs work on the onboard wired interface?

Yes, although you might need to tune the interface either with

ethtool -K eth0 rx-vlan-filter off

or something like

nmcli connection modify "Wired connection 1" ethtool.feature-rx-vlan-filter off

Does sound work?

HDMI audio output is included Fedora however the analog port is not yet supported. Audio output via a USB audio interface should also work fine.

Does the camera add-on work?

Yes. You need to ensure you're running bcm283x-firmware from 2019, ensure the latest config.txt is in place (no .rpmnew) and edit /boot/efi/config.txt and adjust the gpu_mem setting to be gpu_mem=80.

Does accelerated media decode work?

No. There's no upstream kernel support and it relies on code from a number of kernel subsystems to be supported. This is unsupported on all Raspberry Pi platforms 3/4 and Zero 2W.

Does HDMI-CEC work?

Yes. It's supported using the upstream CEC support. There's a /dev/cec0 character device, it can be accessed using any application that supports the IR remote using the rc-cec keymap in the v4l-utils package, there's also a cec-ctl util for use via the command line.

Is the Raspberry Pi Touch Display supported?

Yes.

Is the composite TV out supported?

The support should be present in current versions of the Fedora kernel, but this is untested. Note composite output on the Raspberry Pi 4 is disabled by default for performance reasons; it can be enabled with {{{1}}} in config.txt.

Are the expansion HATs supported?

Yes, most HATs are supported in Fedora- for instructions visit this page. Once you've successfully got your HAT working, please update the wiki with the details and any additional notes.

The use of config.txt

The config.txt is only used for basic configuration at the moment. Because of the the use of the opensource vc4 GPU driver most of the video configuration is done within Linux.

The configuration of HATs using config.txt is currently unsupported but is being actively worked on.

Are Device Tree Overlays supported?

We support Raspberry Pi overlays via the config.txt option the same as the Raspberry Pi OS. Details can be found on the HAT page.

Is GPIO supported?

GPIO is supported with the use of libgpiod and associated bindings and utilities. RPI.GPIO is not currently supported.

Is SPI supported?

Yes, basic SPI is supported. It will need to be enabled using Device Tree.

Is I2C supported?

Yes, basic I2C is supported.

How do I use a serial console?

The serial console is disabled by default on the Raspberry Pi because it requires the device to run at significantly slower speeds. To wire up the USB to TTL adapter follow this guide from Adafruit. You'll need a 3.3 volt USB to TTL Serial Cable like this one from Adafruit

To enable the serial console follow the specific steps:

Raspberry Pi 3

• connect the install media (micro SD card or HDD/SSD over USB) into a PC
• on the VFAT partition edit the config.txt file and uncomment the enable_uart line:

enable_uart=1

• on the boot partition edit the loader/entries/*-<kernel-version>.aarch64.conf file adding "console=tty0 console=ttyS0,115200" in the "options console" line:

options console=ttyS0,115200 console=tty0 root=/dev/mapper/fedora-root ro rd.lvm.lv=fedora/root rhgb quiet

• Safely unmount your install media (sdCard or HDD/SSD over USB)
• Insert install media into Raspberry Pi, connect serial console, power on
• Note: in recent versions of arm-image-installer if you specify the option --addconsole the installer will automatically add the above console settings for you on the VFAT and boot partitions.

It waits too long before GRUB

lan78xx_eth Waiting for PHY auto negotiation to complete...

That happens without ethernet cable plugged in. You can interrupt the waiting by CTRL+C.