Bullseye for the Pi

Yesterday the Raspberry Pi foundation released Raspberry Pi OS based upon Debian bullseye. Debian released bullseye on the 14th of August 2021 and its taken a while for the foundation to get their release ready. The official announcement is HERE if you want to get the details straight from the horses mouth.

I've been running bullseye on my x64 based machines since August so its pretty much the same. Behind the scenes the foundation have reworked the desktop and switched to using mutter so some apps may not work correctly.

There is a possible speed boost if you have a newish Pi4. For the SoC (System on a Chip) that have the last 3 characters C0T of the Broadcom part number it will now boost to 1.8GHz, but those of you with the B0T part will only boost to 1.5GHz as before, unless you've already over clocked the Pi. The Pi400 uses the C0T part and it was already boosting to 1.8GHz.

A couple of quirks I found:

1. iptables isn't in the arm64 "lite" image. I had to installed the iptables package.

2. The boinc-client service is disabled by default so you have to start it manually. If you want it to start automatically type in the command "sudo systemctl enable boinc-client".

3. Bullseye now uses systemd-timesyncd for time syncing. Its a simple SNTP service that doesn't have much one can configure. Fortunately if you install ntp or ntpsec it will uninstall timesyncd.

 

Download links

The Raspberry Pi OS download page can be found HERE

ARM64 full version (beta): Here

ARM64 lite version (beta): Here

The arm64 versions are still considered beta, even though they have been available since 2020.

7th of November

Marks Rpi Cluster continues running 24/7. Although there isn't much to report they are still processing work as best they can.

The Pi3's run Einstein@home on 3 out of 4 cores. They don't have enough memory to run 4 at a time using the optimized app.

The Pi4's run Einstein@home and Rosetta@home on all 4 cores in a 50/50 split between the two BOINC projects.


Rpi Foundation news
There is still no news from the Raspberry Pi foundation around transitioning to Debian bullseye. They are still on the prior version of Debian. There has been some recent updates to the kernel which might be them preparing to update.

The Raspberry Pi foundation have resumed making the 1GB version of the Pi4 due to chip shortages. The 1GB version was discontinued when they introduced the 2GB model. 1GB isn't enough memory for number crunching and if running Rosetta@home its best to have 8GB.

The foundation also announced the Pi Zero 2 W. Its an updated version of the Pi Zero W but now has a quad-core ARM Cortex A53 CPU (like the Pi3). The older version had a single core ARM v6 CPU. This also means it can run a 64 bit operating system.


Transitioning out of lock-down
As we come out of the 2nd COVID-19 lock-down I may be able to sort out the 3D printed Pi cases and I need enclosures for the power supplies so I can stop using so many power adapters and power strips.

Applying updates

Marks Rpi Cluster continues to run 24/7. At the time of writing the cluster consists of:

4 x Pi3 as compute nodes
3 x Pi4 (2GB) as support nodes
9 x Pi4 (8GB) as compute nodes


Applying updates
Yesterday we got a bunch of updates that needed a reboot. Usually that is the kernel and/or bootloader. Most Linux updates don't require a reboot.

With the Pi3's I can simply stop the BOINC client, apply the updates and reboot when done. With the Pi4's I finish off any work they have running and then apply the updates. The Pi4's are running Rosetta@home which has work units that don't like to be interrupted.

Assuming the need for a reboot my usual command to update a Pi, after I have ssh'ed into each one, is:

sudo systemctl stop boinc-client && sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y && sync && sudo reboot

It is actually 5 separate commands. The && separates each one.

1. The systemctl command tells the boinc-client (daemon) to stop.


2. The apt update tells apt to update its list of available packages.


3. The apt upgrade tells apt to download and install any available updates.


4. The sync command tells the system to make sure everything is written to the micro SD card (or hard disk or SSD if you are using one). Its always a good idea to do this just before a reboot to prevent the SD card getting corrupted.


5. The final command tells the Pi to reboot.

These commands work on the original Pi through to the Pi4 and it doesn't matter if its running the 32 or 64 bit version of Raspberry Pi OS.


Update: 10th of October
Debian did a point release so there is a bunch of important fixes again this week.

We're still waiting on the Raspberry Pi foundation to move to a Debian Bullseye code base. At the moment Raspberry Pi OS is based on the previous version of Debian known as Buster.

12th of September

Marks Rpi Cluster continues to run, although it was idle yesterday and again today due to hot weather.

I took the opportunity to clean the Pi's and fans while they weren't doing any work. I have 40mm fans for each Pi, except the support nodes. While they do a good job of cooling it means the fans and Pi itself end up quite dusty. The fans also manage to get fluff on their blades. Its easily fixed by a paint brush and a can of air. Rather than using aerosol I have one called the "O2 Hurricane" which is good at blowing the dust out.

While I was doing that I found a spare Pi4 power supply so added another Pi4 8GB to the cluster. I also have a number of spare Pi3 power supplies. While I have spare 40mm fans I don't have any more 2 pin to 3 pin fan header cables. I only need these for the free-standing Pi's. If I use the Pi^4 case the fans are plugged into a couple of Y splitter cables and a USB charger.

The cluster is now up to:

9 x Pi4 (8GB) compute nodes
4 x Pi3 compute nodes
3 x Pi4 (2GB) support nodes

Its probably about time to start replacing the micro SD cards, particularly in the Pi4's as they run Rosetta@home which uses large files leading to them wearing out faster. I keep some spares on hand but not enough to do all of the Pi4's. I was hoping the Raspberry Pi foundation would update Raspberry Pi OS, then I could clean-install onto new SD cards but there hasn't been any mention of when we're likely to see it.