Deploying and running a redpesk image on a Raspberry Pi

The Raspberry Pi is a small computer that is ideal for learning computing and computer languages.

The redpesk project supports images for the Raspberry Pi 3, Raspberry PI CM3 IO3 and the Raspberry Pi 4 boards using the aarch64 architecture.

Each of these boards comes in a variety of models. See the Raspberry Pi Product Page for more information.

This topic details how to copy a redpesk disk image on an sdcard.

Download images

See the Download Images section

Download the aarch64 image from the command line

Create a directory to download the image:

mkdir ~/redpeskimage
cd ~/redpeskimage

Then download the latest redpesk OS image with this command:

wget -r -nd -nc --no-parent -A "redpesk*smack*" 'https://download.redpesk.bzh/redpesk-lts/batz-2.0-update/images/smack/minimal/aarch64/rpi/'

Control the image integrity

Before doing anything, please control the integrity of the downloaded redpesk image. Example:

sha256sum -c redpesk*.tar.xz.sha256
redpesk*x86_64*.tar.xz: OK

Copying the image on your sdcard

Plug your sdcard and Find it (be sure it is unmounted)

Copy the correct device path thanks to the command below. It should be a hotplug device.

lsblk -dli -o PATH,VENDOR,TYPE,HOTPLUG,MODEL

DEVICE_TO_COPY='/dev/<hotplug_device>' #in the example it is /dev/sdc

Example:

$ lsblk -dli -o PATH,VENDOR,TYPE,HOTPLUG,MODEL
PATH         VENDOR   TYPE HOTPLUG MODEL
/dev/sda     ATA      disk       0 WDC_WD10SPZX-08Z10
/dev/sdc     TS-RDF5  disk       1 SD_Transcend #MYSDCARD
/dev/nvme0n1          disk       0 LITEON T11 512
DEVICE_TO_COPY=/dev/sdc

Or if only one device is hotpluggable on your computer:

# need jq
DEVICE_TO_COPY=$(lsblk -dlJ -o PATH,VENDOR,TYPE,HOTPLUG,MODEL | jq -r '.blockdevices[] | select(.hotplug == true).path')
echo $DEVICE_TO_COPY

Umount if needed

lsblk $DEVICE_TO_COPY
# need to umount each partition
sudo umount <part*>

Example:

$ lsblk $DEVICE_TO_COPY
NAME   MAJ:MIN RM  SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sdc      8:16   1 14,9G  0 disk
├─sdc1   8:17   1  500M  0 part /run/media/iotbzh/boot
├─sdc2   8:18   1  500M  0 part /run/media/iotbzh/config
├─sdc3   8:19   1  500M  0 part /run/media/iotbzh/recovery
├─sdc4   8:20   1    1K  0 part
├─sdc5   8:21   1  3,4G  0 part /run/media/iotbzh/rootfs
└─sdc6   8:22   1    2G  0 part /run/media/iotbzh/data
$ sudo umount ${DEVICE_TO_COPY}*
umount: /dev/sdc: not mounted.         --> Warning message to ignore
umount: /dev/sdc4: not mounted.        --> Warning message to ignore

Flash sdcard

Prerequisites: device is plugged in, found, unmounted

  • Extract the image first 
    tar xJf redpesk*.tar.xz
  • Flash it using dd 
    sudo dd if="Redpesk-OS.img" of=$DEVICE_TO_COPY bs=4M status=progress
  • Or using bmaptool 
    sudo bmaptool copy "Redpesk-OS.img" $DEVICE_TO_COPY

TIPS: Once your are used to flash your image, you could do it much faster in one single step using bmaptool like this:

sudo bmaptool copy "https://download.redpesk.bzh/redpesk-lts/batz-2.0-update/images/smack/minimal/aarch64/rpi/image.raw.tar.xz" $DEVICE_TO_COPY

This will download, control integrity and flash the latest redpesk OS image on your device in one uniq step.

Hardware DIP switch configuration

Integrated into the PCB, a DIP switch is generally present to allow you to choose between different boot mode.

There isn’t any DIP switch on the Raspberry Pi 3/4 models.

Boot the Raspberry Pi

For more detail see: Setting up your raspberrypi

Prerequisites

  • sdcard copied and plugged into the Raspberry Pi
  • ethernet cable plugged in
  • usb to uart adapter plugged on gpio14/15 (Console enabled by default on GPIO14/15)

Power on the Raspberry Pi

Just start the Pi and wait for it to boot.

NOTE: Default root password is root.

Connect to the board over SSH

It needs an ethernet cable plugged into the board, and retrieving its ip.

  • User: root
  • Password: root

Getting the Raspberry Pi IP address

# on rpi
ip -br a

# on your computer
ssh root@<raspberry_pi-IP_address>

Installing a package

See this section for installing and starting helloworld-binding: Application deployment

Debugging

When things go wrong, you can take steps to debug your Raspberry Pi. For debugging, you need a 3.3 Volt USB Serial cable to facilitate communication between your Raspberry Pi board and your build host.

CAUTION: No warranty is provided using the following procedure. Plugging in the serial cable on the wrong board GPIO/connector could damage your board, the host or both ! Pay particular attention to the colors of your cable as they could vary depending on the vendor.

NOTE: If you are using a USB console cable from Adafruit, see “Adafruit’s Raspberry Pi Lesson 5” for connection information.

Use the following steps, which assume you are using an Olimex cable (the previously mentioned Adafruit cable above does not have a blue lead in particular, adapt according to the document above). You can reference the following diagram for information on the following steps:

  1. Connect the serial cable leads to the Universal Asynchronous Receiver-Transmitter (UART) connection on your Raspberry Pi board. Do not connect the USB side of the cable to your build host at this time.

  2. Connect the host USB-to-UART cable’s BLACK wire to pin 6 of the RPi (i.e. Ground).

  3. Connect the host USB-to-UART cable’s GREEN RX line to pin 8 of the RPi (i.e. GPIO14=TXD).

  4. Connect the host USB-to-UART cable’s RED TX line to pin 10 of the RPi (i.e. GPIO15=RXD).

  5. Plug the USB connector of the cable into your build host’s USB port.

  6. Use your favorite tool for serial communication between your build host and your Raspberry Pi. For example, if your build host is a native Linux machine (e.g. Ubuntu) you could use screen as follows from a terminal on the build host:

    $ sudo screen /dev/ttyUSB0 115200