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mvader (Victron Energy) avatar image
mvader (Victron Energy) asked

Venus OS image on Raspberry Pi Zero (W)

Hi,

Some questions here pertain to using our packages on a RaspberryPi Zero W running Rasbian OS Lite. This question is about something else: testing if the RaspberryPi Venus OS image runs on those Pi Zeros.

Our wiki states:

  • Raspberry Pi Zero: we don't know if this is supported (its a community project: please try and let us know!)
  • Raspberry Pi Zero W & WH: same thing: we don't know.

Is there any one out here that could look into that? Could be as simple as testing; and all works; and then we know and change the wiki.

Or not; and then more work is needed; for which we’ll need some outside / community help.

Venus OSRaspberry Pi
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buzzlightyear avatar image buzzlightyear commented ·

It does not boot. Comparing the files in the image with files from noobs it looks like its missing the definition for pi zero, which seems to have another model nr. Happy to partake in testing.

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7 Answers
markus avatar image
markus answered ·

If no one here has tried this, I am going to order a Pi Zero WH today in the evening. Should be in my hands by Tuesday then...

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markus avatar image markus ♦♦ commented ·

just ordered a PiZero W + LAN board + USB adaptor, we will see on Tuesday if a Venus Image will work out of the box...

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vicrvusr avatar image vicrvusr markus ♦♦ commented ·

Markus, did you get any good results with the Rpi Zero? This post keeps getting listed in the "Related Questions" so it would be good to get some closure.

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markus avatar image markus ♦♦ vicrvusr commented ·

Hi, no unfortunately not. I did not manage to get the Venus image running on my Pi Zero.

My Pi Zero does something else now.

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mvader (Victron Energy) avatar image mvader (Victron Energy) ♦♦ markus ♦♦ commented ·

Hi @VicRVUsr, see also my comments in a thread above: we (Victron) don't expect this to work. Its also documented to not work: https://github.com/victronenergy/venus/wiki/raspberrypi-install-venus-image .

Venus image (& packages) can for sure be made to work on a RaspberryPi Zero W, but at the moment we're not going to spend any time on that.

What we can do is help if someone (with the proper experience) shows up with a plan to do this him or herself.

Best! Matthijs

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damonz avatar image
damonz answered ·

Just got a Pi Zero WH v1.1 today and tried beta version 2.30~35 but the Pi failed to boot. Got a brief flash from the green LED and then everything seemed to stop working. I dont have a screen attached at the moment so I was unable to see if any messages were posted to the terminal. I have since flashed the card with stretch lite to confirm that the board, wifi and sd card all work properly as it should. Everything runs fine on Stretch lite. Please let everyone know how you go @Markus. I have only a little bit of knowledge of linux so I'd be very interested in your feedback once yours arrives.


Regards,

Damon

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mvader (Victron Energy) avatar image
mvader (Victron Energy) answered ·

Hi all, I’ve been looking into this last night; and it won’t work with now available image. Thanks for confirming with a real test @damonz.

A colleague explained that the main issue is that the zero and similars don’t have a FPU; whereas the 2 and 3 do have that.

I read through some config files, and found this:

Our raspberrypi2 (and 3) images are built using our `raspberrypi2.conf` machine file.

The zero hardware uses the BCM2835 SoC. [2] Which is the same SoC as the RaspberryPi Model A+ and B+. The models we do not support.

That SoC is ARMv6, which equals ARM11 [3].

I’m not an expert; at this, but looks like a separate version of the image is needed to make it work on the zero. The agherzan repo on github is has a raspberrypi0-wifi.conf file [4]; which has


DEFAULTTUNE ?= "arm1176jzfshf"

require conf/machine/include/tune-arm1176jzf-s.inc

include conf/machine/include/rpi-base.inc


[1] https://github.com/victronenergy/meta-victronenergy/blob/master/meta-bsp/conf/machine/raspberrypi2.conf#L8

[2] https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/faqs/#hardware

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture

[4] https://github.com/agherzan/meta-raspberrypi/blob/master/conf/machine/raspberrypi0-wifi.conf

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markus avatar image markus ♦♦ commented ·

Oh. OK.

So we have another Test Pi Zero available in the next days... :o) hopefully we get it working.

Regards,

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mreimer avatar image mreimer commented ·

I think these ARM11-based SoCs do have floating point support, just an older implementation. ARM calls it VFP. More info at [1]. It's possible that vedirect-interface was compiled with a toolchain that assumes a newer VFP.


[1] https://embeddedartistry.com/blog/2017/10/9/r1q7pksku2q3gww9rpqef0dnskphtc

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Warwick Bruce Chapman avatar image Warwick Bruce Chapman commented ·

Has there been any change in the status here over the past 9 months?

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mvader (Victron Energy) avatar image mvader (Victron Energy) ♦♦ Warwick Bruce Chapman commented ·

no; no time was spent on this, at all as far as I'm aware.

what we're currently lacking is some outside enthusiast knowledgeable on uboot, Open Embedded, and so forth to spend time on this. All internal people are too busy with other projects..

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Warwick Bruce Chapman avatar image Warwick Bruce Chapman mvader (Victron Energy) ♦♦ commented ·

Ok. Will add to the list and farm out to someone appropriate if I bump into them. I think I have someone in mind.

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daniele-debernardi avatar image daniele-debernardi commented ·

Any news about VenusOs on pi Zero ?! someone can do it? thx

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Dave van Dongen avatar image
Dave van Dongen answered ·

I tried it about a year ago. Out of the box it doesn't work. The RPi Zero doesn't seem to finish it's boot sequence. The screen output remains black. The LED on the Pi indicates the Pi is running, but nothing more. I tried 2 different Zeros, same result.

I was going to enter the question myself if anybody has find out how to modify the image to get it running on a Zero.

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l30n avatar image
l30n answered ·

Is there any one how have a solution already?

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dingaling avatar image
dingaling answered ·

Would be so epic to get the raspberry pi zero w up and running!

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pau1phi11ips avatar image pau1phi11ips commented ·

The Pi Zero 2W is working in a beta version:

https://github.com/victronenergy/venus/wiki/raspberrypi-install-venus-image

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wirmo avatar image
wirmo answered ·

I am also interested in getting the Pi Zero W or Pi 1 working, which both feature the same chip. I have taken the info of the OP and I am currently compiling an image on a linux machine. I will post more once it is done.

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wirmo avatar image wirmo commented ·

I made some progress on this and added a few files for building an image for the Pi 1, but I don't understand why the kernel config file `bcm2708_defconfig` is missing in the build output.

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wirmo avatar image wirmo wirmo commented ·

Okay I switched out `bcm2708` with `bcm2835`, which is the correct one for pi 1, but now I am having issues when compiling:

build.txt

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build.txt (11.1 KiB)
wirmo avatar image wirmo wirmo commented ·
@mvader (Victron Energy) do you have some ideas?
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mvader (Victron Energy) avatar image mvader (Victron Energy) ♦♦ wirmo commented ·
No sorry, I can't spend any time on this at the moment; neither can a colleague.


Other priorities, too little importance / too much complexity to the Pi Zero W

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bathnm avatar image bathnm wirmo commented ·
@wirmo take a look at earlier posts. The early PI's including the zero are a different instruction set, they are ARMv6, so not only will you need to find the right kernel configuration, but re-configure the entire build system to build ARMv6 compliant code. I do not believe anyone has done this, even the openembedded meta-raspberrypi layer from here has no ARMv6 support. Better get very familiar with Bitbake and openembedded if you want to make this work.
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