Release v1.5.1

This is a bugfix release to v1.5.0. If you are already on v1.5.0, you can upgrade by following the instructions below (or wait for the automated weekly update to do this for you; note however, that due to a required genup upgrade during this process, it will take two weekly runs to fully update your system, so you may wish to follow the manual route anyway to speed things along).

Changes in this release (see main project page for further details):

• Fixed a pulseaudio problem that was causing glitchy audio playback on some systems (by setting tsched=0 in /etc/pulse/default.pa; credit: Darksky). Thanks to Gazzy for reporting.

• Reversed a change to the default /boot/config.txt that was causing monitor autodetection problems for some users (hdmi_drive=2 was uncommented in v1.5.0, my fault ><). Thanks to Gavinmc42 for reporting / testing the fix.

• Upgraded the shipped kernels, to bcm{rpi3,2711}-kernel-bis-bin-4.19.67.20190827, and boot firmware, to sys-boot/rpi3-64bit-firmware-1.20190819 (which inter alia should hopefully also solve a number of HDMI issues; thanks to derders and MamiyaOtaru for reporting). The shipped RPi4 kernel contains a PR which fixes a rather serious under-load WiFi problem for >1GiB systems (thanks to jfikar for reporting / testing, and also to pY4x3g for testing).

• Changed the pyconfig_gen WiFi regulatory domain setup code, so that it also sets cfg80211 ieee80211_regdom via an entry in /etc/modprobe.d/ (the original iw reg set approach is retained also, but it is reportedly not sufficient in all locales). Thanks to Gazzy for suggesting. The combination of this fix and updated kernel should hopefully address the WiFi connection problems that some have reported on the RPi4 (thanks to roylongbottom for providing diagnostic information on this, and to Mrsell for testing).

• Fixed an (unrelated) bug in pyconfig_gen, which prevents it starting up if the framebuffer display driver was specified (by omission of an vc4-{f,}kms-v3d entry in /boot/config.txt).

• Improved the build settings for dev-lang/python, by adopting the Debian approach of using -O3 and turning on profile-guided optimisation. This should significantly improve performance of e.g. emerge. For more details, please see this post. Thanks to ejolson for drawing the relatively poor Python performance on the v1.5.0 image to my attention, and to InBetweenNames for the pgo-enabled ebuilds.

• Added python3_7 to PYTHON_TARGETS, and unmasked for arm64. Following upstream, retained python:3.6 as the default interpreter for now (although you can easily change this if you wish, via eselect python list / sudo eselect python set <...>).

• Various minor ebuild tidy-ups (including the addition of USE-flag control for a number of RPi-specific patches e.g. rpi-v3d to media-libs/mesa etc.).

• Split out the core USE-controlled package group in rpi-64bit-meta, into the new innercore and a now-reduced core. This is to allow a minimal image to be more easily specified.

• All packages brought up-to-date against the Gentoo tree, as of 24 August 2019.

Pi-Top Image EOL; CLI-Only 'Lite' Image Added

Unfortunately, I have had to drop support for the Pi-Top specific image as of this v1.5.1 release. My Pi-Top v1's hub has recently suffered a hardware failure, leaving me unable to charge the internal battery, or boot an RPi3 in its chassis. As such, I am unable to test this variant of the image going forward - and I am not comfortable releasing images I haven't tested myself. You should still be able to bring up the Pi-Top specific drivers by setting the pitop USE flag globally, and then re-emerging rpi-64bit-meta however. My apologies for the inconvenience to users on this platform ><

On a happier note, as of v1.5.1, a 'lite' 64-bit Gentoo image is also provided (as requested here). This contains only the innercore (see above) package set and @system set plus deps, and boots to a CLI. No desktop environment is provided by default, nor are any of the heavyweight applications (Chromium etc.) bundled. The same dual (-bis) kernels and Pi-specific startup services as the main image are used.

Note that for ease of binhost maintenance, this image still derives from the custom (desktop) profile as the 'full-fat' version, and as such contains quite a few more packages than a truly minimal stage 4 would do. But hopefully it should still be a useful starting point for those who want to e.g. build up a headless server. Feedback welcome.

Miscellaneous Hints

Updated EEPROM Firmware

If you are using a Pi4, don't forget to update your EEPROM firmware; there's an official fix released (version 0137a8) that will allow your system to use ~300mW less power. For more information, please see here.

Pimoroni Fan SHIM

If you are using the Pimoroni Fan SHIM with your RPi4, note that you can easily have it turn on and off in a temperature-controlled manner. To do so, simply add the following to /boot/config.txt:

 dtoverlay=gpio-fan,gpiopin=18,temp=65000

The temp parameter controls the point at which the fan comes on (in the above, 65°C). Adapt as appropriate. The driver has a built-in 10°C hysteresis, so using the parameters above for example, it will switch off again at 55°C automatically. Thanks to PeterO for the hint.

Upgrading from an Earlier Release of the Image

Users downloading this v1.5.1 image directly can of course omit the instructions below; as all settings have been correctly set up for you already.

Users on releases earlier than v1.5.0 should follow the manual upgrade instructions to 1.5.0 below; the final step genup therein will actually bring you to v1.5.1 now.

To upgrade manually (from v1.5.0), simply issue (working as root):

pi64 ~ # emaint sync --repo sakaki-tools
pi64 ~ # emerge -v --oneshot --update app-portage/genup
pi64 ~ # genup

Let this run to completion. Once done, reboot to start using the updated kernel, and once back up again run:

pi64 ~ # dispatch-conf

to review any modified configuration files. If in doubt, press u when prompted, to use the new copy of the file (you can learn more about using the dispatch-conf tool here).

Once that's done, verify you are on >=v1.5.1, by issuing:

pi64 ~ # eix rpi-64bit-meta