Gentoo on pinephone
#1
Got my pinephone convergence version a couple weeks ago, so I decide to see how it goes with gentoo installed on it, I created the pinephone specific packges in my local ebuild repository ( https://gitlab.com/bingch/gentoo-overlay.git ) from various sources and finally I got gentoo running on it.

It turns out pinephone is quite usable as a normal linux desktop too, I installed gdm on it and hooked it up with an external monitor and mouse and keyboard, then launched gnome wayland session, running firefox, watching youtube etc inside gnome shell is quite smooth Smile
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#2
Seems promising. I'd imagine most people are going to need some more pointers to get started though - I certainly do! I guess the process is similar to https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Raspberry_P...it_Install but without the vfat /boot and with u-boot.
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#3
(10-06-2020, 01:35 PM)wibble Wrote: Seems promising. I'd imagine most people are going to need some more pointers to get started though - I certainly do! I guess the process is similar to https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Raspberry_P...it_Install but without the vfat /boot and with u-boot.
Yeah right, I put up some basic steps in the https://gitlab.com/bingch/gentoo-overlay.../README.md
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#4
Thanks for the update. It's in the wiki now, in case anyone interested misses this thread.
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#5
(10-07-2020, 01:26 PM)wibble Wrote: Thanks for the update. It's in the wiki now, in case anyone interested misses this thread.
Thanks on posted in wiki. Thumbs up!
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#6
(10-06-2020, 06:37 AM)bingch Wrote: Got my pinephone convergence version a couple weeks ago, so I decide to see how it goes with gentoo installed on it, I created the pinephone specific packges in my local ebuild repository ( https://gitlab.com/bingch/gentoo-overlay.git ) from various sources and finally I got gentoo running on it.

It turns out pinephone is quite usable as a normal linux desktop too, I installed gdm on it and hooked it up with an external monitor and mouse and keyboard, then launched gnome wayland session, running firefox, watching youtube etc inside gnome shell is quite smooth Smile

bingch,
I have been following your git overlay for the Pinephone and I have a few questions for you. Is there anyway to compile Gentoo on the device itself as I have no computer currently running Gentoo (I use mostly ARM based workstations)? I understand that this would take a considerably longer amount of time. I've been trying to use the Aarch-minimal bootable SD image as it includes the newer gcc-10.2 and most of the packages for needed for building Gentoo/P-Boot etc. Thanks in advance for any tips you can give me and all your work on the repository.
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#7
(10-07-2020, 03:22 AM)bingch Wrote:
(10-06-2020, 01:35 PM)wibble Wrote: Seems promising. I'd imagine most people are going to need some more pointers to get started though - I certainly do! I guess the process is similar to https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Raspberry_P...it_Install but without the vfat /boot and with u-boot.
Yeah right, I put up some basic steps in the https://gitlab.com/bingch/gentoo-overlay.../README.md
bingch, wibble, Thanks so much for your efforts here! Gentoo was my favorite OS a decade ago but, more recently, I've not had the Internet bandwidth or personal free time to download full Gentoo source code. Now I'm enjoying 3mbit/sec down Internet service which I think is enough. I just need to dedicate the time.

If I may rant a little (Linux politics)...The loss of mtp on Mobian has really irritated me. Given the security realized by maintaining physical possession of my PinePhone hardware and also given that my confidence in PinePhone (an "alpha" level system under intense development offering insufficient security confidence for usage that's truly security-critical anyway), I think I should be able to easily re-enable my preferred method of file transfer on Mobian. Sadly mtp was de-featured and I've spent hours trying to re-enable it to no avail, as has exhoplex, I suspect: https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=12633&pid=88146#pid88146

Instead, I think I'll spend my time bringing up a clean slate of Gentoo now, thanks to your motivating work!

I've been a Linux user since the early Slackware days (and UNIX on minis and mainframes before that). I agree with Linux reviewer dedoimedo's rants:

"I've already talked about this in my Kubuntu review, but here's a recap. Security zealots are doing their best to make computer usage hard if not impossible. Restrictions that possibly make sense in the corporate world are copied blindly into the home environment (SELinux, Samba, etc), and you end up with unusable systems. Which defeats the purpose of these security mechanisms. Security is only good if it does not impede functionality."

Quoted from here: Ubuntu 18.04 - Samba shares problem fix

and, more generally, here:

The Year of the Linux dissatisfaction

Okay, I've ranted enough (or nearly enough Wink, but I think my rant is very much on-topic here because Gentoo is the solution to a problem that's been growing in Linux communities (and far more "communities" in all walks of life, really) for a long time. Yes--Gentoo requires significant user investment, but a user can much more easily "own" their Linux system through the investment and their significantly enhanced knowledge and competencies that are most assuredly obtained in doing so.

BTW, I did get samba and ftp working on my MX-Linux server but not name service and it's a pain authenticating or dealing with other hurdles every time I wish to share files (like punching a hole in my MX-Linux firewall each time). Simply keeping Megi's mutiboot installed on an SD card to reboot and run JumpDrive is a much better method for me than dealing with Samba or ftp after Mobian de-featured mtp. Mobian's mtp was literally completely "plug (USB cable) and play (Nemo GUI)"--quick and painless.
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#8
Everyone, 
Along with bingch's Git listed above here's a few other links I've been using to try and get Gentoo (and P-Boot) running on the Pinephone. Hopefully these help and maybe we can consolidate the info into one document?

https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/PinePhone
https://github.com/richardanaya/pine64-kernel-gentoo
https://megous.com/git/p-boot/tree/README
https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Talk:PinePhone ***Currently going through this process on my phone, it seems exactly like what I want***

And finally because the pi3 uses the same cpu as our pinephone I've been trying to use the Pi3 64 bit Gentoo install guide as a reference. 

https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Raspberry_P...it_Install

Again, my personal goal is probably a bit ambitious for a Gentoo noob like me but I would like a way to compile and install Gentoo on the device itself and not rely on a desktop computer already running Gentoo for the cross compilation.
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#9
Hello all,

I've been working on Gentoo on the pinephone aswell and wrote a blog about it
https://stealthgun.tweakblogs.net/blog/1...-pinephone

Also I created an overlay with some extra apps and small fixes:
https://github.com/stealthgun/gjdwebserver-overlay

It seems to be working fine but alot of dependencies are not in the ebuilds so espect errors that you are missing some applications.
Also I highly recommend distcc since else you are gonna be compiling for a while Smile
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#10
Nice work. From past experience with old i586 I'd say distcc can be a great help, but the bottleneck then becomes linking, and can have memory issues of its own. Have you looked at building binary packages on a more powerful ARM system, or emulated arm, to speed it up further?
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