add page for nixos on raspberry pi 4
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3 changed files with 82 additions and 1 deletions
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@ -5,7 +5,7 @@
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}:
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stdenvNoCC.mkDerivation {
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pname = "wiki";
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version = "2023-12-04";
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version = "2024-07-02";
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src = ./.;
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buildInputs = [ mdbook mdbook-alerts ];
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buildPhase = ''
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[What's this?](./about.md)
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# Nix/NixOS
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- [NixOS on Raspberry Pi](./nix/nix-on-pi.md)
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- [Firefox + Nix](./nix/firefox.md)
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- [Adhoc development environments with Nix](./nix/nix-devshells.md)
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80
src/nix/nix-on-pi.md
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80
src/nix/nix-on-pi.md
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# NixOS on Raspberry Pi 4 over USB
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> **TL;DR;** The officially supported SD image[↗](https://wiki.nixos.org/wiki/NixOS_on_ARM/Raspberry_Pi_4) available in Hydra only works when booting off of SD cards, due to some bug in U-Boot. Here's a workaround to get the Pi to boot NixOS from a USB drive or an SSD.
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### Requirements
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- A Raspberry Pi 4 (duh!)
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- An SD card (it will be our installer)
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- A USB Drive (NixOS will be installed to it)
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### Preparing the Pi to boot from USB
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Write the `misc utility images -> Bootloader (Pi 4 family) -> USB Boot` image onto an SD card using Raspberry Pi Imager (`pkgs.rpi-imager`) and boot the Pi with it. Once booted, wait for 10-15 seconds and turn off the Pi. This will update the Pi's firmware to prefer booting from USB.
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### Preparing the installer SD card (installer)
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- Download a recent version of the aarch64 SD card image from [Hydra↗](https://hydra.nixos.org/job/nixos/trunk-combined/nixos.sd_image.aarch64-linux)
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- The image will be compressed with ZSTD, so it needs to be decompressed before being written to the SD card
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```sh
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zstd --decompress nixos-sd-image-24.11preblah.blahblah-aarch64-linux.img.zst
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```
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- Write the decompressed image to the SD card (we'll call it /dev/mmcblkN from now on)
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```sh
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dd if=nixos-sd-image-24.11preblah.blahblah-aarch64-linux.img of=/dev/mmcblkN
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```
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### Preparing the USB drive
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#### Disk Layout
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> [!NOTE]
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> We're make it work just like a normal UEFI machine so the partitions will resemble that
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- Partitioning the USB device (we'll call it /dev/sdN)
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- An EFI partition (FAT32) of reasonable size (will be mounted on /boot and the kernel/initrd will go in there)
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- A partition for / (ext4, btrfs or whatever's your choice)
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I'm going with a 1GiB EFI partition and the remaining space as a single btrfs partition
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- Format the partitions
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```sh
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mkfs.vfat -F32 -n NIXOS_BOOT /dev/sdN1
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mkfs.btrfs -L NIXOS_ROOT /dev/sdN2
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```
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#### Files
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- Download the latest release of the Raspberry Pi 4 UEFI firmware [↗](https://github.com/pftf/RPi4/releases)
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- Extract the contents onto the EFI partition on the USB disk
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```sh
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mkdir /tmp/efi
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mount /dev/sdN1 /tmp/efi
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unzip RPi4_UEFI_Firmware_v1.37.zip -d /tmp/efi/
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umount /tmp/efi
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```
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#### Optional: Download the Raspberry Pi device tree overlays
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> [!NOTE]
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> This is only required if you need a working GPIO, to use any HATs etc.
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> I need it because I power the Pi using the PoE+ HAT and the fans on the HAT doesn't work without this.
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- Download a recent version of the Raspberry Pi OS[↗](https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/operating-systems/). The 64-bit Lite version should be enough.
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- Extract the overlays
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```sh
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losetup /dev/loop0 2024-03-15-raspios-bookworm-arm64-lite.img
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partx -u /dev/loop0
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mkdir /tmp/firmware
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mount /dev/loop0p1 /tmp/firmware
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mkdir /tmp/efi
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mount /dev/sdN1 /tmp/efi
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mkdir /tmp/efi/overlays
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cp /tmp/firmware/overlays/* /tmp/efi/overlays/
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umount /tmp/efi
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```
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### Installing
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Use the installed SD card prepared above to boot the Pi. (Don't plug in the USB drive yet, otherwise the Pi will try to boot from it).
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Once it's successfully booted and shows the TTY, plug in the USB drive. At this point the USB drive can be mounted to `/mnt` or anywhere and NixOS can be installed to it with the `nixos-generate-config` and `nixos-install` scripts.
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If any HATs are to be used or if the GPIO is needed, make sure to change `boot.kernelPackages` to `pkgs.linuxPackages_rpi4` in the configuration.nix before doing nixos-install.
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### Post Install
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Once the installation is done, power off the Pi and remove the SD card. Now turning it on with the USB drive plugged in will show a screen with a big Raspberry Pi logo. Press <kbd>Esc</kbd> to go to the UEFI Firmware settings.
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Two things need to be changed here.
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1. There's a 3GB limit on the RAM due to a hardware bug in the Broadcom SoC. A Kernel version of 5.8 or later has a workaround for this so we can turn off the limit.
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Go to `Device Manager` → `Raspberry Pi Configuration` → `Advanced Settings` in the UEFI settings and disable the 3GB limit.
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2. **(Optional: only required if HATs/GPIO are used)** In the same `Advanced Settings` page, change the second item from `ACPI` to `ACPI + Device Tree`
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Hit <kbd>F10</kbd> to save and use <kbd>Esc</kbd> to go back to the main page. Use the `Continue` option to resume booting. It will ask to reset, press <kbd>Y</kbd>
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If everything went well, it should now boot into Freshly installed NixOS, booted from a USB device on the Pi 4 :)
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