[NTG-context] Install Problems with 64 bit ARM Linux

[Hans Hagen]

On 11/28/2020 10:52 AM, Mojca Miklavec wrote:
> Dear Christian,
> 
> On Fri, 27 Nov 2020 at 20:50, Christian Prim wrote:
>>
>> Is there a reason why the arm binaries for ARM Linux use version 2.29 of glibc?
> 
> They are being compiled on a Raspberry PI which kind of lacks
> first-class 64-bit support (or at least that was the case when we set
> up a builder on our build farm, about 9 months ago). I don't remember
> seeing anyone even request those binaries before, and this is the
> first complaint I see about the glibc-too-new issue on aarch64 (it was
> common on the Intel platform, but there we can easily build on Debian
> 8 or 9).
> 
> I believe the RPI is currently running some recent version of Ubuntu
> (it was set up by Hans; I would need to check to be sure, but it could
> well be that it's 20.04).

Indeed, because older 64 bit made the machine freeze after a while. We 
run from usb (3) which is kind of evolving on the pi (at least we can 
now reboot the machine).

> Judging from (random google hits)
>      https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=243985
>      https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/latest-raspberry-pi-os-update-may-2020/
> it could be that May 2020 (which is precisely 6 months ago, in any
> case later than when the builder was set up) has brought some better
> news, an OS image that wouldn't require so much hacking to get it set
> up and running.

Given the nature of these tiny machines running the latest greatest 
makes sense.

> It's a pity that you didn't ask this question a few days ago, I
> believe that Hans just reinstalled everything on that tiny device (SD
> cards are a pain and like to wear out rather quickly if you keep
> running build jobs and rewriting the same memory cells over and over
> again; I thought we had set up an external disk properly, but well
> ...)

We have and previous versions then demansed some reflashing of the boiot 
eeprom and such (which effectively means that one has a os -- to do that 
-- on the tiny card and the external disk that we run the farm 
compilation on (I need to displace the machine and connect it to 
keyboard, screen etc to do that. Not really optimal for a headless 
approach.)

> We could try again to get Debian 10 running on the RPI.

Not worth the trouble. I ran into too many hit for troubles with 64 bit 
while for ubuntu it sounded better.

One reason for doing the 64 bit was to see how well it works (4GB mem, 
performance, etc) just in case i want to use it for real.

> Alternatively we could cross-compile, of course, but that's a bit more
> painful to set up, and RPI 4 is certainly amazingly fast.

Or the user could update (can't one just symlink some lib to an older 
one? we only use simple stuff)

>> My actual debian buster installation is still on glibc-2.28. The x86_64 Linux binaries also use the older 2.28-version which is widely used among many distros. I would be very happy if I could install a 2.28-version on my ARM Linux box. Else I have to compile my own glic... or my own mtxrun...
> 
> A luametatex binary is needed.
> 
> Out of curiosity: what hardware do you run your linux distro on?
(btw, i think a 32 bit arm bij should run on the 64 right, and the 32 
bit is still old debian)

Hans

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