[SOLVED] Reinstall on Debian Bullseye Raspberry Pi 4

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1

I had Freedombox even before but it got problems with held packages, apps didn’t install anymore. I decided to reinstall and got FreedomBox 21.8. The problem is that installation doesn’t complete, it stops with: “Please wait for FreedomBox to finish installation. You can start using your FreedomBox once it is done.” I have Debian Bullseye on Raspberry Pi 4.

Freedombox seemingly doesn’t like Raspberry Pi’s :frowning:

2

I do test FreedomBox Raspberry Pis once in a while, including Raspberry Pi 4B. We used to have to ship non-free, proprietary bits with FreedomBox images for Raspberry Pi images. That is no longer the case, and we found a workaround to that issue. Given the popularity of the Pis, we certainly would like have good support for FreedomBox on them.

Hope you have followed this approach to installing on the Pi. FreedomBox/Hardware/RaspberryPi4B - Debian Wiki . Or did you start with another OS, say Raspbian, and install freedombox via Debian package?

Further steps:

  • Try using the recommended installation method (it is slightly more cumbersome).
  • Try to collect and post logs. If you already have console access or SSH access to the device, sudo to root user and run journalctl -u plinth. The last lines should tell us where the installation process is stuck.
  • Make sure you have given at least 10 minutes at the installation step (SD cards are slow and sometimes this takes time).
3

I have been using images from https://raspi.debian.net/ and then downloading Freedombox with sudo DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive apt-get install freedombox. It worked but with several problems later on. This last time the process stalled and didn’t complete.

end of my journalctl -u plinth:
– Journal begins at Wed 2021-02-03 16:11:40 UTC, ends at Wed 2021-09-08 12:48:42 UTC. –
Mar 04 14:55:26 localhost systemd[1]: Started FreedomBox Service (Plinth).
Mar 04 14:55:29 localhost /usr/bin/plinth[17819]: AXES: BEGIN LOG
Mar 04 14:55:29 localhost /usr/bin/plinth[17819]: AXES: Using django-axes version 5.4.3
Mar 04 14:55:29 localhost /usr/bin/plinth[17819]: AXES: blocking by IP only.
Mar 04 14:55:31 localhost /usr/bin/plinth[17819]: FreedomBox Service (Plinth) version - 21.3
Mar 04 14:55:31 localhost /usr/bin/plinth[17819]: Script prefix - /plinth
Mar 04 14:55:32 localhost /usr/bin/plinth[17819]: Initializing apps - users, upgrades, cockpit, ssh, storage, backups, apache, firewall, names, config, da>
Mar 04 14:55:32 localhost /usr/bin/plinth[17819]: Added domain localhost.local of type domain-type-local with services all
Mar 04 14:55:32 localhost /usr/bin/plinth[17819]: # dynamicdns status
Mar 04 14:55:32 localhost sudo[18920]: plinth : PWD=/ ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/usr/share/plinth/actions/dynamicdns status
Mar 04 14:55:32 localhost sudo[18920]: pam_unix(sudo:session): session opened for user root(uid=0) by (uid=115)
Mar 04 14:55:32 localhost sudo[18920]: pam_unix(sudo:session): session closed for user root
Mar 04 14:55:32 localhost /usr/bin/plinth[17819]: $ ikiwiki get-sites
Mar 04 14:55:33 localhost /usr/bin/plinth[17819]: Checking if any Let’s Encrypt certificates got renewed.
Mar 04 14:55:33 localhost /usr/bin/plinth[17819]: # letsencrypt get-status
Mar 04 14:55:33 localhost sudo[19050]: plinth : PWD=/ ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/usr/share/plinth/actions/letsencrypt get-status
Mar 04 14:55:33 localhost sudo[19050]: pam_unix(sudo:session): session opened for user root(uid=0) by (uid=115)
Mar 04 14:55:34 localhost sudo[19050]: pam_unix(sudo:session): session closed for user root
Mar 04 14:55:34 localhost /usr/bin/plinth[17819]: Running first setup.
Mar 04 14:55:34 localhost /usr/bin/plinth[17819]: Running setup for modules, essential - True, selected modules - None
Mar 04 14:55:34 localhost /usr/bin/plinth[17819]: Started new thread for glib main loop.
Mar 04 14:55:34 localhost /usr/bin/plinth[17819]: Setting up CherryPy server
Mar 04 14:55:34 localhost /usr/bin/plinth[17819]: Creating network manager client
Mar 04 14:55:34 localhost /usr/bin/plinth[17819]: Running module setup - users
Mar 04 14:55:34 localhost /usr/bin/plinth[17819]: D-Bus connection acquired: org.freedombox.Service
Mar 04 14:55:35 localhost /usr/bin/plinth[17819]: Running step for module - users, step - post
Mar 04 14:55:35 localhost /usr/bin/plinth[17819]: # users first-setup
Mar 04 14:55:35 localhost /usr/bin/plinth[17819]: D-Bus connection lost: org.freedombox.Service
Mar 04 14:55:35 localhost /usr/bin/plinth[17819]: Created Network manager client
Mar 04 14:55:35 localhost sudo[19440]: plinth : PWD=/ ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/usr/share/plinth/actions/users first-setup
Mar 04 14:55:35 localhost sudo[19440]: pam_unix(sudo:session): session opened for user root(uid=0) by (uid=115)
Mar 04 14:55:35 localhost /usr/bin/plinth[17819]: [04/Mar/2021:14:55:35] ENGINE Listening for SIGTERM.
Mar 04 14:55:35 localhost /usr/bin/plinth[17819]: [04/Mar/2021:14:55:35] ENGINE Listening for SIGHUP.
Mar 04 14:55:35 localhost /usr/bin/plinth[17819]: [04/Mar/2021:14:55:35] ENGINE Listening for SIGUSR1.
Mar 04 14:55:35 localhost /usr/bin/plinth[17819]: [04/Mar/2021:14:55:35] ENGINE Bus STARTING

4

“Make sure you have given at least 10 minutes at the installation step (SD cards are slow and sometimes this takes time).”

I gave it much longer time, half an hour or more.

5

I did install on existing Debian box which is an alternative given in the manual.
What didn’t work was the reinstall. I have updated Debian11 in the box.

Freedombox will never reach the masses if it so difficult to install but ok. there are the readymade boxes one can buy on Internet for plug and play experience.

I know that Raspberry Pi’s are not the favorites of debianites, but it is a thing I can walk to a shop and buy anytime with cash.

6

I am convinced that the difficulty of installing a “free” arm64 image on a Raspberry Pi 4B is prohibitive for most people’s skill level. Given the popularity and easy availability of this SBC, it is worth publishing an image that can be easily flashed on a microSD card, just like we did for the previous versions of Raspberry Pi.

Created an issue for this:

7

I installed Freedombox with a new Raspberry Pi Debian image from https://raspi.debian.net/ and then did “sudo DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive apt-get install freedombox”,
got version 21.4.4, how do I get the newest 21.8?
some problems with dns, no Matrix Synapse…
this is one more experiment with Freedombox with Raspberry Pi, I have done two three before.

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8

I got it up to version 21.8 by enabling bullseye-backports in /etc/apt/sources.list

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9

During the initial setup of FreedomBox did you answer “yes” to “Enable frequent feature updates”? After this did you find that backports were not enabled /etc/apt/sources.list?

10

that was it

I gladly installed Matrix when it was available on this newest version and got this message: 500 This is an internal error and not something you caused or can fix…

11

Could you post the logs as displayed on the 500 error page?

15

I got Matrix back by reinstalling, everything is green in Diagnostics, I didn’t need to do a completely new install. Everything works.
There was nothing wrong with Matrix, I must have done something stupid during the installation.

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