ARM64 support for Commodore OS Vision

[fuzzysb]

I have a Rock 5 ITX board which is a very powerful ARM board with 24GB Ram. https://radxa.com/products/rock5/5itx/ this board has been seeking a project and i currently have ubuntu 24.04 installed.

I would love to get ARM supported with this OS, however is calls a hard dependancy on x64 based CPU's only.

What is the blocker, i am wondering if its worth trying to look at getting it working, or if someone knows where the hard stop would be. do we think that using CHROOT on my existing OS would not work also?

[LeoNigro]

Welcome.
Can you get MX-Linux running on the board?
I know MX-Linux is available for Pi.
Failing that perhaps Debian?
It's gonna be a quite a bit of work though and I don't have the time at the moment.

[RussellCofIdaho]

This is what I am interested in.

I am currently running PiMiga on a CrowPi2 Raspberry Pi 4 laptop. Photo in avatar

I would like to tinker with Vision OS too though my experience with Linux ends with basic building an OS from source.

I was fluent in 6502 machine language and assembler back in the day, but that was many days ago…

[RussellCofIdaho]

My only x64 system in my MacBook Pro so I will try out C=OS Vision 2.0 on that.

Checking out what C=OS Vision 2.0 consists of:
Debian
MX Linux re-spin (xfce)
Compiz window manager

All these components are compatible with ARM and Raspberry Pi so I am wanting to build this Linux on my Pi, see how it looks and feels.

This Italian site via Google translate lists all the fonts, etc used in C=OS Vision:

https://www.robology.eu/commodore/

I am familiar with and donate to PiMiga so will look into using that over this base OS and window manager to see what it looks like, but really interested in doing a full C=OS Vision 2.0 on ARM because it looks so cool.

[LeoNigro]

Well, you could do some preliminary investigation for me in regard to compatibility with the desktop technologies used.
I have a pi4 here waiting for something to do, but I can't get around to doing a thorough job on a potential port until some time next year.

No, it's not the Xfce desktop, I think only the Mate desktop is compatible with Compiz.
If you want the effects you need Mate, Compiz and Emerald.
Your best bet would be to either install the ARM version of MX-Linux, Raspbian or Debian on which they are both based.
Then check if you can install Mate, Compiz and Emerald.
You will probably need a startup command to initiate this.

But that's just the start of things, and lots can go wrong.
Everything hangs together by a thread, and if you pull it too much.....

[RussellCofIdaho]

Thanks for the reply and tips.

I just discovered Vision today so trying to put together in my head what it consists of. It looks really well put together and seems to have a cohesive ’look and feel’ from reviews I’ve watched.

I will find some time his week to install it on my Intel MacBook and play with it some before I try it on the Pi.

[munecito]

Well, you could do some preliminary investigation for me in regard to compatibility with the desktop technologies used.
I have a pi4 here waiting for something to do, but I can't get around to doing a thorough job on a potential port until some time next year.

No, it's not the Xfce desktop, I think only the Mate desktop is compatible with Compiz.
If you want the effects you need Mate, Compiz and Emerald.
Your best bet would be to either install the ARM version of MX-Linux, Raspbian or Debian on which they are both based.
Then check if you can install Mate, Compiz and Emerald.
You will probably need a startup command to initiate this.

But that's just the start of things, and lots can go wrong.
Everything hangs together by a thread, and if you pull it too much.....

I was intending to test this in an Orange Pi 5 16gb. But there was a spanner in the works.

I am currently running Ubuntu 24.02 LTS in server mode.

I was going to install Debian to test but the Orange Pi has an internal emmc in which the u-boot resides. Although I am not using the M2 drive to run the board, it is not possible to use a different SD card without breaking the installation as the uboot points to a device partition to boot from.



As you can see it is one of the SD card partitions:

Code: Select all

/dev/mmcblk1p1: LABEL_FATBOOT="opi_boot" LABEL="opi_boot" UUID="C3D0-CA4F" BLOCK_SIZE="512" TYPE="vfat" PARTLABEL="bootfs" PARTUUID="8dee1f9b-170e-a043-b9ea-dd31c4600fa5"
/dev/mmcblk1p2: LABEL="opi_root" UUID="ec56f205-bdfa-4230-9997-257258897b54" BLOCK_SIZE="4096" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="b1309e8f-5a61-e442-a925-957fb7647c64"
/dev/zram1: LABEL="log2ram" UUID="72ea4352-ce88-43bf-8f7a-23f5a1223088" BLOCK_SIZE="4096" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/zram0: UUID="96b58d51-551b-4d60-9a6a-061a796e6376" TYPE="swap"
/dev/mtdblock0: PTUUID="37d7bac3-4ad1-45d0-aa18-ea6e02294925" PTTYPE="gpt"

Anyway. Seeing that Ubuntu is related to Debian.

Do you want me to try to install Mate, Compiz and Emerald to see if they run?

Should I install a desktop GUI beforehand?

I can test things for you in this board. I am not Linux expert but I am a fast learner.

I tried to see if I could get Commodore OS Vision 2.0 to run from the image after copying with Rufus but the uboot stopped me from even trying.

By the way. The hardware specs for Orange Pi 5 are in the webpage:

http://www.orangepi.org/html/hardWare/c ... -Pi-5.html

Hardware seems to be Ok but I have read many debs complaining that support is rubbish so they tend to abandon it (See Joshua Riek's reply to a question in his Ubuntu-Rockchip github)



Will

[LeoNigro]

If you can't even run Debian, I'm afraid we're going to get ourselves into a pickle.
Ubuntu isn't quite the same thing as Debian any more.
That said, you can try out the various desktop technologies to see what may be done in the future.
I think your best bet, might well be to run Commodore OS within VirtualBox, if that works on your ARM hardware.
It's possible to auto run VirtualBox with Commodore OS from Ubuntu's start up.
Maybe give the host OS a C= wallpaper for the transition.
On PC, running Commodore OS within VirtualBox is not really a drag, and practically indistinguishable from native usage these days.
You also wouldn't have to worry about drivers or most other things if they work on the host OS.

[munecito]

If you can't even run Debian, I'm afraid we're going to get ourselves into a pickle.
Ubuntu isn't quite the same thing as Debian any more.
That said, you can try out the various desktop technologies to see what may be done in the future.
I think your best bet, might well be to run Commodore OS within VirtualBox, if that works on your ARM hardware.
It's possible to auto run VirtualBox with Commodore OS from Ubuntu's start up.
Maybe give the host OS a C= wallpaper for the transition.
On PC, running Commodore OS within VirtualBox is not really a drag, and practically indistinguishable from native usage these days.
You also wouldn't have to worry about drivers or most other things if they work on the host OS.

I can run Debian.

I didn't explain myself properly.

If I delete the emmc partition I can do a clean install.

I can just gdisk and nuke the partitions.The only thing stopping me is that I managed to update the kernel and the whole OS from Jammy to Noble but I don't have a installation image. If I go to clean and decide to go back to Ubuntu I have to manually update the system again.

I can do it if it helps. I am not tied to Ubuntu, I just like the idea of LTS.

EDIT: These are the Orange Pi official Debian images in server and desktop:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... mOJlFgM-dZ

They have Bookworm and Bullseye variants with kernel 5.10.160 and 6.1.43