Fedora 36 Workstation - XU Edition

[MastaG]

Fedora 36 Workstation - XU Edition
Let's give it one more roll lol
I believe RedHat decided to drop support for 32bit ARM for version Fedora 37 anyways.
This time around it was built from scratch instead of a "system-upgrade" from the previous release.
It's very clean and stable.






- Download -

Features / Highlights:
- Completely built from scratch (vanilla armhfp image):
* Not a single dev package installed
* Only dependencies for Kodi, Chromium etc
- (still) Running on Linux 5.8.18
- Switch to ext4 for better performance
- Many crash fixes
- Now ships with a custom repository hosted at mdrjr.net, every night it will check for upstream changes, compile and push to the repository:
* Widevine patched glibc
* Custom gnome-shell and mutter fixes: https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs ... e-patched/
- Chromium:
* Bumped to version 101.0.4951.54
* Now using Google's bundled libc++
* Split Wayland and X11 versions to save on memory
* Update Widevine CDM to 4.10.2449.0
- Kodi:
* Bumped to 19.4 (9bc14d0c11)
* Recompiled all binary addons from source
* Made sure to build all screensavers and visualisation addons for OpenGLES
- RetroArch:
* Update to latest version
* Update and fix ParaLLEl N64 Core (no more crash on exit)
* Switch Flycast to libretro
* Bump other important cores (mostly Snes and Genesis)
- Re3 / ReVC
* Bump to latest version
* Enable texture compression
- Update mali drivers with injector from RockChip linux (thx JeffyCN)
* See: https://github.com/JeffyCN/rockchip_mir ... ee/libmali
- Full SElinux support
- PPSSPP emulator with good performance
- Update custom SDL2 (gles enabled)
- Update DOSBOX-staging
- ODroid XU3 analog headphone jack output working
- ODroid XU3 OTG-port is configured to be used as a regular USB 3.0 host
- HDMI-CEC working
- Custom scripts for installing to external storage and setting up kernel sources

Getting started: (please read all of it!)
Default user: odroid
Password for odroid: odroid

- Unpack the downloaded archive and use your favourite tool to write the image to your eMMC/sd-card (Etcher/win32diskimager/dd).
- Insert it into your ODroid and power it up, you should be prompted by the Gnome Display Manager (logon screen).

If your eMMC / sd-card is larger than 16GB, you can extend the root-filesystem by issuing:

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sudo extend_rootfs.sh

If you would like to install the OS to your external storage device:
sudo install_to_hdd.sh <dev>
<dev> should be the device node of your device including the partition number.
For example:

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sudo install_to_hdd.sh /dev/sda1

I have not tested raid devices, but it should (hopefully) work as I'm already passing: rd.auto=1 to dracut in /media/boot/boot.ini
Please note that you'll still need your eMMC/sd-card plugged to boot your ODroid, so I recommend to use your cheapest sd-card if you're planning on installing to external storage.


Tips and known issues:

- The first login to Gnome desktop will be slow because of the repositories will be synced.
This might take some time (e.g. gnome-software, PackageKit etc..)

- Chromium's V4L2 video decoder requires working eglCreateImageKHR, which seems broken on the mali driver.
However the ODroid XU4 can software decode h264 just fine (especially when rendering using OpenGLES).
Please install the h264ify addon for Chromium to enjoy youtube!



Grand Theft Auto 3 / Vice City:
Both Grand Theft Auto 3 (re3) and Vice City (reVC) have been pre-installed and pre-configured.

For best performance:
- The games do not support setting a custom resolution, so set your desktop resolution to something like 720p for best performance.
- Disable the vsync and framerate limiter in graphics options
- Lower the draw distance a little bit in display options

Technical information:
- If you would like to update the dracut initramfs image and re-generate the uInitrd image, you can issue the following command:

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sudo gen-uinitrd

This is useful after changing (or blacklisting) module parameters (changes to /etc/modprobe.d or /etc/modules-load.d etc).

- If you would like to setup and compile the kernel sources, you can do so by issuing the following command:

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sudo kernel_compile.sh

This will take care of downloading, patching and installing the kernel (including generating and installing of the uInitrd image).
You now have the full source installed, so you're able to compile your own drivers/kernel-modules.
You can also go into the source directory: /usr/src/kernels/linux-5.8.18/ and change it by running make menuconfig.
Then simply re-run the sudo kernel_compile.sh and it will re-install using your changes.

That's about it
Enjoy!

[stellarforce]

Thank you so much for the release! I haven't played around with Fedora before but I'm really liking it. This performs so well. My only issue so far is getting my wifi adapter to work. I bought the odroid wifi module 5bk which is a combination Bluetooth and wifi 600 Mbps dongle. In Fedora, the Bluetooth works, but it says there is no wifi adapter. The same adapter works in the latest odroid Ubuntu release. I have an Edimax dongle that works in everything including Fedora, but it is only 150 Mbps and much older. I used that to update packages. I assume it involves patching the kernel to get my faster dongle working. I'm not experienced in that, but willing to learn.

[MastaG]

Thank you so much for the release! I haven't played around with Fedora before but I'm really liking it. This performs so well. My only issue so far is getting my wifi adapter to work. I bought the odroid wifi module 5bk which is a combination Bluetooth and wifi 600 Mbps dongle. In Fedora, the Bluetooth works, but it says there is no wifi adapter. The same adapter works in the latest odroid Ubuntu release. I have an Edimax dongle that works in everything including Fedora, but it is only 150 Mbps and much older. I used that to update packages. I assume it involves patching the kernel to get my faster dongle working. I'm not experienced in that, but willing to learn.

Did you check the kernel logs with "dmesg" after plugging in your adapter?
It could be missing firmware.

Regarding the kernel you're correct yes.
I get this a lot and I'll edit the post a bit when I have time.

It's best to always run the "sudo kernel_compile.sh" command because it sets up the kernel sources.
It will take a while and requires some free space.
But when it's done you can easily compile your own drivers.
It's like installing the kernel-devel package but instead it's for for our specific odroid xu4 kernel we're using.

I've enabled all Wifi drivers (except for PCI ones) in the kernel, but you can check the drivers with "make menuconfig" after it's done setting up the kernel sources.

[stellarforce]

DMESG does see the wifi adapter. I tried to run the kernel compile script, but I run out of room on my 16GB EMMC and it errors out. I even tried re-flashing the EMMC from a fresh install, did dnf upgrade, and then the kernel compile script and it still ran out of space. I wish I could get it to work because I really like what you've done here.