Ports/aarch64

AArch64 (ARMv8) Sisyphus port

Status

Initial port as of 2015/2016; available through FTP, can be used with apt by means of this line in /etc/apt/sources.list:

rpm http://ftp.altlinux.org/pub/distributions/ALTLinux/Sisyphus aarch64 classic

Testing

The further assumes ALT Linux Sisyphus being used as a host system (a recent qemu with qemu-system-aarch64 is required, one can use a LiveCD); other possibilities might require some tweaks to the procedure.

Preparations

Install qemu-system >= 2.0.0-alt1:

$ apt-get update && apt-get install qemu-system

Download the archive and unpack it to a convenient location having 4Gb of free space or more:

$ wget -c http://beta.altlinux.org/aarch64/sisyphus-aarch64-20151215.tar.xz
$ tar -C ~ -xf sisyphus-aarch64-20151215.tar.xz

From now on the path to that location is supposed to be ~/virt64 which should be inscribed into the wrapper script:

$ sed -i "s,/srv/tftpboot/virt64,~/virt64," ~/virt64/qbox0

network

Bring up a bridge interface using a spare ethernet (the archive means eth1, fix up as needed within options file):

# cp -a /home/USER/virt64/etc.net.ifaces.qbox0 /etc/net/ifaces/qbox0
# ifup qbox0
# chown USER /dev/tap$(< /sys/class/net/qbox0/ifindex)

Starting up

Time to run the emulator:

$ ~/virt64/qbox0

This prompt should occur upon successful boot:

Welcome to ALT Linux 1.9.3 Server Light beta (confutuere et ratio) / ttyAMA0
virt64 login: 

Log in as root (no password), add your public ssh key to /root/.ssh/authorized_keys if you like to, have a stroll around. apt should work if the network is up.

Next

One can run the installed samba-DC server or install e.g. Xfce:

# apt-get update; apt-get install xfce4-minimal fonts-ttf-dejavu glibc-locales

to add an unprivileged user and run the desktop correspondingly:

# useradd user
$ ip addr show dev eth0 | grep inet

and connect from within X session on an external host:

$ ssh -Y user@IP_AARCH64 xfce4-about

One might need to add a route via the interface that differs from the one specified as the base for macvtap (HOST within /etc/net/ifaces/qbox0/options) and used to access the same network (e.g. wlan0 on one's laptop) when connecting from the same host that runs qemu with aarch64 environment:

# ip ro ad IP_AARCH64 dev OTHER_IFACE