Best way to put FreedomBox on RBPi 4 2gb

#1

So I’ve been running a Raspberry pi 2 with FreedomBox for a little over two months now. I am very new to Linux in general (I just found out how to cd in the terminal, its not my fault it doesn’t start at a drive letter :smile: ). For some background, I have three years of java under my belt, i’m not new to the tech scene. However, I almost can’t survive without a UI and, the only way I knew how to install FreedomBox on my RBPi 2 is flashing the image y’all provide on the download page. I now have a RBPi 4 that I want to have FreedomBox on it too. Is there an easy fool proof way (literary one or two commands and, step by step) to install FreedomBox on my RBPi 4? Will there be an image that I can download in the future? I’ve gone as far as blindly shooting in the dark and putting a RBPi 2 image (testing) on my RBPi 4. Alas, no dice (not showing up on my router via network scan).

Unfortunately, I don’t have an micro HDMI to connect to a display. I can’t see the startup text (or even if there is any).

My RBPi 4 has the offical power supply connected. The red power indicator is on. Both network activity indicator lights are on. The RBPi 2 has been renamed from freedombox to RBPi2 in settings to avoid any problems (if there would be if there where two "freedombox"es on the network).

I am fairly confident the reason why the RBPi 4 is not showing up on the router is because i’m using a RBPi 2 image :neutral_face:. It was worth a shot though.

#2

:slight_smile: I understand. We are hoping that as FreedomBox gets better you won’t have to deal with command line at all.

Any feeback on how this went?

Yes, this is likely. I don’t think Raspberry Pi 4 provides compatibility for Raspberry Pi 2/3B/3B+ images as is. We are looking to provide a separate image for Raspberry Pi 4 in the future. However, support Pi 4 is slow coming in the Linux kernel and eventually to Debian. I could be a while before we have the images ready.

The best way I can see to run FreedomBox Raspberry Pi 4 is get Debian Buster image for it (as vanilla as possible). And then you can follow this guide: https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Hardware/Debian . Unfortunately, you will need to run a few commands to during this process.

Do report back on how it goes. We don’t have reports from users running FreedomBox on Raspberry Pi 4 yet.

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#3

As far as putting the FreedomBox image on my RBPi 2, it was seamless. I had it up and running in no time. About the RBPi 4, I brushed through the steps and that does look pretty easy to do. Unfortunately, I don’t have access to my hardware at the moment. I’ll go through the steps in less than a week and report back here with the results. When it comes to the “purest” Debian Buster image, I’ll try out what the official RBPi website has as it’s “no UI bare bones” version and hope that suffices. Thank you for the speedy reply!

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#4

OK! I have got my Raspberry Pi 4 working with FreedomBox! Sort of…
Right now, when I try to install a program from the plinth UI it says something about backports not being signed or something. That issue is for another thread and another day :sweat_smile:. For right now, I have an UNOFFICIAL GUIDE I can share to y’all that can get you to a user account in your FreedomBox.

My hardware, Raspberry pi 4 2gb, 128gb microSD card, official RBPi 4 USB C power supply.

Prerequisites
I connected my RBPi to the internet using the wired ethernet cable.
I have not bothered to buy a micro HDMI adapter, this setup is headless.

Steps
-Download or torrent the Raspbian Buster Lite image file at https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/raspbian/
-Flash the image to a freshly formatted MicroSD card (above 8gb using Etcher or a flashing alternative)
-When flashing has commenced, make a new .TXT file in the “boot” partition named “ssh”.
(The text file contains nothing, it’s just the name that we changed to “ssh”)
-Safely eject the MicroSD card from your computer and install it into the powered off RBPi 4
-Plug the RBPi 4 up to a power supply
(The pi may or may not run on 5V 1A, the power specifications have changed from last generation.)
-Using one of multiple methods, get the ip of the RBPi 4 on your network.
(One method includes using the app Fing on the App store or Play store to scan your network. The device should be named raspberrypi)
-SSH to the RBPi 4 using the ip
(A program you can use is called PuTTY.)
If the previous steps where done correctly, you will be asked for a username.
-The default username and password for Raspbian on the image is “pi” and “raspberry” respectively. Enter those in.
-IN THE TERMINAL WINDOW, (enter without quotation marks)
“sudo raspi-config”
(an old school like UI will appear)
-Using the arrow keys, go down to “advanced options” and press enter
-Press enter on “expand file system”
-Press escape to go to “Finish”
-You will be asked to reboot, select yes
(Close your PuTTY window, reopen it 30-40 seconds later or when the raspberry pi fully reboots)
-Start a new PuTTY window with the ip.
-IN THE TERMINAL WINDOW, (enter without quotation marks)
“sudo apt-get update”
(Wait until it finishes)
“sudo apt-get upgrade”
-You will be asked if you want to continue, enter “y”
(Wait until it finishes)
“sudo DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive apt-get install freedombox-setup”
-You will be asked if you want to continue, enter “y”
(Wait until it finishes)
“cd …”
“cd …”
“cd var/lib/plinth”
“sudo cat firstboot-wizard-secret”
(You will see a short string of random characters)
-Copy the string to a piece of paper
-Close the PuTTY window
-Open your Internet browser
-Enter your RBPi 4 ip into your browsers address bar
(Your browser could say this is un-safe, this is on my home network so I didn’t worry much about the consequences of not having the correct certificates set up, click more options and continue to site.)
-When the FreedomBox asks for your secret, enter what you wrote down.
-continue the setup. You are done!

Unfortunately, the first thing I did was dive right in with setting up a Syncthing node. This didn’t work because that backports thing mentioned above. I’ll have more time another day to find the solution for that. I am new to Raspbian and Linux, my guide works for me so that’s good enough :ok_hand:.

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#5

To resolve the problem with backports key see this solution: [Solved] buster-backports public key is not available Raspberry pi 1b

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#6

Nice, I’m installing Syncthing as I type. This thread is solved! Thank you Sunil!