Introduction
The Raspberry Pi is a credit card-sized ARM based single board computer (SBC). Fedora supports the the Raspberry Pi Model B versions 2 and 3 in Fedora 25 Beta and later without any requirement of third party kernels or scripts to adjust offical images. This documentation describes how to get started, and includes a Fequently Asked Questions (FAQ) about what is supported and what isn't.
Supported Hardware
We currently only support the Raspberry Pi Model B versions 2 and 3.
Prerequisites
- Raspberry Pi 2 or 3
- Good quality SD Card (eLinux hosts a compatibility list)
- HDMI Monitor or TV, a USB keyboard and mouse
- A decent power supply. You'll want at least 2A for the RPi2 and 2.5A for the RPi3.
For preparation of the SD card:
- Computer running Windows/MacOS/Linux
- SD card reader
Downloading the Fedora ARM image
As the support for the Raspberry Pi is coming with Fedora 25 currently we have nightly images. The Fedora 25 Beta will support it.
The latest nightly images can be downloaded here:
Preparing the SD card
You can quite easily prepare the image on the SD card on Fedora or any linux distribution, MacOS or Windows. The default settings will provide the user interface on a HDMI monitor with keyboard and mouse support. If you wish to have output over a serial console please see the FAQ.
Fedora or other Linux Distributions
MacOS
Microsoft Windows
Booting Fedora on the Raspberry Pi for the first time
- Insert the SD card into the Raspberry Pi
- Make sure, you're having a keyboard and monitor connected
- Power on the Raspberry Pi
- If everything was done correctly, you will see Fedora booting into the "Initial setup wizzard"
- Finish the wizard and reboot, to boot into your Fedora ARM installation
Applyin updates and installing software
There are no special ways or procedures necessary to install or update the software so you just use standard Fedora installation and update mechanisms such as dnf, gnome-software or any of the other GUI update systems as supported in the various desktop environments.
Getting help and reporting issues
So where can you get help if it’s not working? The usual Fedora support forums are:
Frequently Asked Questions
What desktop environments are supported?
The open source VC4 driver supports accelerated 3D graphics through an upstream mesa/libdrm/kernel driver stack. The support for 2D acceleration is via mesa/glamor. Both 3D/2D work out of the box and add desktops as shipped in Fedora should work just fine.
Will there be more enhancements to the hardware support
Yes. New enhancements will be delivered when, and as soon as, they are ready via the standard Fedora updates mechanism. I (User:Pbrobinson) intend to blog about them as they arrive either via Fedora Magazine or my blog
Support for the Raspberry Pi Models A, A+, B (generation 1), Zero and Compute Module
Fedora doesn't support ARMv6 processors. There's been a number of attempts to support these over the years. The current best effort is Pingus based on Fedora 23. More information can be found at the Pignus site. We will support the new Compute Module 3 based on the same SoC as the Raspberry Pi 3 when it starts to ship.
When will support for Fedora 24 or 23 arrive?
It likely won't. With the little time I (User:Pbrobinson) have to work on this in my own time I'm focused on the new Fedora 25 development version and later. While possible to do there is not a small amount of work to back port all the fixes that have gone into Fedora 25 and rawhide. Fedora 25 is Releases/25/Schedule due in mid November and is already very stable on the Raspberry Pi.
Why doesn't the WiFi and Bluetooth work on the Raspberry Pi 3 work?
There's a number of reasons for this:
- Initially the firmware required for the device wasn't redistributable. This was resolved on September 14th when the firmware landed upstream in the linux-firmware repository!
- The SDIO interface which the WiFi module uses to connect to isn't yet upstream.
- Some other support patches are missing.
It initially wasn't a focus due to the inability to redistribute the firmware. With the work now complete for initial support for the overall Pi now complete this will be easy to deliver as a standard Fedora update.
Why doesn't sound work?
Not upstream.
Does the add-on camera work?
No
Does accelerated media decode work?
No.
Does HDMI-CEC work?
Yes. It current is supported using libcec packaged in Fedora.
Are display outputs other than HDMI supported?
Not currently
Are the expansion HATs supoorted?
Nor currently (insert vast amounts of information).
Raspberry Pi 3 aarch64 support
The focus for Fedora 25 with the limited time and resources available, was to provide a polished experience with a single disk image for both the Raspberry Pi 2 and 3. At the time the work started it wasn't clear whether the aarch64 kernel support would land upstream in time. The intention is to officially support the Raspberry Pi 3 as an aarch64 device in Fedora 26. There has been significant enabling work in Fedora 25 but there is still quite a bit more work to do to finish the aarch64 support at time of writing.
How do I use a serial console?
The serial console is disabled by default on the Raspberry Pi 2 and 3 because it requires the device to run at significantly slower speeds. To enable the seria console follow the specific steps for the Raspberry Pi 2 or 3 as they both differ slightly:
- Raspberry Pi 2:
- Raspberry Pi 3: