Chapter 5 Installation and Availability

Table of Contents

You can download a full Oracle Linux 7.5 (aarch64) installation media image from the Oracle Software Delivery Cloud at https://edelivery.oracle.com/linux. You can also obtain the latest Oracle Linux 7 packages from the Unbreakable Linux Network (ULN) and the Oracle Linux yum server.

Oracle Linux 7.5 (aarch64) is made available in two forms:

  • rpi3-ol7.5-image.img.xz : A disk image that can be installed onto an SD Card and used on a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B or Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ single-board computer. This image includes the necessary firmware to boot the Raspberry Pi 3 directly into Oracle Linux 7. This image is made available for developers who may not have access to alternate Arm hardware.

    Note

    The disk image for the Raspberry Pi is available as a technology preview for developer use only. Oracle does not provide support for Oracle Linux on Raspberry Pi systems. Oracle recommends that developers assist each other on the Oracle Linux for Arm community forum at https://community.oracle.com/community/technology_network_community/server_%26_storage_systems/linux/oracle-linux-for-arm

  • OracleLinux-R7-U5-Server-aarch64-dvd.iso : An ISO image that can be used for a standard installation on generic 64-bit Armv8 hardware. This ISO has been tested on Arm hardware and is engineered for use with Ampere™ eMAG™-based EVK platform and the Cavium ThunderX2® processor. For the latest hardware validated for Oracle Linux 7.5 (aarch64) please refer to the Hardware Certification List at https://linux.oracle.com/hardware-certifications. Hardware is listed as it becomes available.

    This ISO image can be loaded from local media, such as DVD-ROM or USB flash drive, or can be used to perform a network-based kickstart installation via PXE. If you perform a network-based installation and you wish to access the graphical interface for the installer, you must change kernel boot parameters to enable VNC and to set the network address at boot.

You can install additional software for Oracle Linux 7 by subscribing to the different channels on ULN or by enabling the required repositories within your yum configuration. To explore the channels that are available to you on ULN, log in to https://uln.oracle.com/ and view the Channels option. To view the Oracle Linux yum repositories that are available for Oracle Linux 7, visit https://yum.oracle.com/oracle-linux-7.html.

Note

The Oracle Linux yum server does not provide equivalent repositories for some channels that are available on ULN. These channels provide non-open source packages.

UEK R5 is the default boot kernel for fresh installations of Oracle Linux 7.5 (aarch64). UEK R5 is the only supported kernel available for the aarch64 platform. For more information, see Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel: Release Notes for Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 5.

5.1 Installation of ISO

The installation process to install Oracle Linux 7.5 (aarch64) does not differ substantially from the installation process to install Oracle Linux 7.5 on an x86 platform. The instructions and information provided in Oracle® Linux 7: Installation Guide apply.

The recommended installation process is as follows:

  1. Obtain the ISO image from the Oracle Technology Network (https://www.oracle.com/linux/products.html)

  2. Configure a Network Installation Server to perform the installation. See Oracle® Linux 7: Installation Guide for more information.

  3. Create a kickstart file to automate your installation. See Oracle® Linux 7: Installation Guide for more information on the contents of this file and how to use it when booting the installer.

  4. Connect your target Arm hardware to the network and configure the firmware to network boot or to boot from PXE. Refer to your hardware documentation for instructions.

  5. Boot the target hardware and wait for the installation to complete.

Exceptions and additional information that may be required to complete the installation are provided in this section.

Graphical network-based installation

If you are performing a manual installation over the network and intend to use the remote graphical installer over VNC by setting the inst.vnc boot option, you must also set the boot options to configure the network, or the graphical installer fails to load and the installation reverts to text mode.

To ensure that the VNC server starts at boot, append the appropriate ip option to your kernel boot command. Typically, for a DHCP configuration, this may look similar to the following: ip=eth0:dhcp.

Software Selection Groups

Note that the available Software Selection Groups in the installer may differ slightly from the groups available in the x86 installer.

Software Sources

Note that unlike the x86 installer, there are no alternate Software Source repositories provided on this ISO.

5.2 Installation of Raspberry Pi™ 3 Image

Note

The disk image for the Raspberry Pi is available as a technology preview for developer use only. Oracle does not provide support for Oracle Linux on Raspberry Pi systems. Oracle recommends that developers assist each other on the Oracle Linux for Arm community forum at https://community.oracle.com/community/technology_network_community/server_%26_storage_systems/linux/oracle-linux-for-arm

Oracle provides an installation image of Oracle Linux 7.5 (aarch64) specifically designed to run on Raspberry Pi 3 Model B or Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ hardware. The provided installation image is a default installation of Oracle Linux 7.5 (aarch64) into a raw disk image that can be cloned block-by-block to an SD Card for immediate boot. The default file system used in the image is Btrfs. Raspberry Pi is a trademark of the Raspberry Pi Foundation. More information on installing a Linux image onto the Raspberry Pi is available at:

https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/installation/installing-images/linux.md

In summary, the recommended installation process is as follows:

  1. Obtain the Raspberry Pi 3 disk image from the Oracle Technology Network (https://www.oracle.com/linux/products.html). You should unzip the disk image once you have downloaded it.

  2. On an existing Oracle Linux system, insert the SD Card into an SD Card reader connected to the system. The image is 5 GB in size, so your SD Card must have the capacity to store this image at minimum. An 8 GB SD Card is the recommended minimum.

  3. Identify the device name for the SD Card. You can use this using the output from dmesg when you connect the device, using the lsblk or by using fdisk -l to list device names and device information.

  4. Use the dd command to perform a block copy of the image file to the SD Card device. For example: 

    # dd if=/path/to/img of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=4M

    Replace /path/to/img with the relative path to the image file, and replace /dev/mmcblk0 with the device name for the SD Card. This operation is destructive and will overwrite any data on the device that you have specified. Ensure that you have specified the correct device name. The operation may take some time to complete.

  5. When the operation is complete, eject the SD Card from the reader, insert it into the SD Card reader on the Raspberry Pi and boot into Oracle Linux 7.

  6. Log into the image as the root user with the password oracle. Change the password immediately after you login.

If your SD Card is larger than the image (5 GB) you can grow the partition size to maximize disk usage. You can do this by running the following commands after installation is complete and once you have logged into the system on the Raspberry Pi: 

# yum install -y cloud-utils-growpart
# growpart /dev/mmcblk0 4 
# btrfs filesystem resize max /

Copyright © 2017, 2021 Oracle and/or its affiliates. Legal Notices