krvprashanth (Posts about debian)

FOSS Activity 2026Q1

krvprashanth — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 18:30:00 GMT

Hello everyone! Quarterly post about the contributions I’ve made or things I found interesting in collaborative Free and Open Source Software development.

Debian GNU/Linux

linux:

Merge Requests
!1844: [arm64,armhf] Enable SND_SOC_WM8731_I2C and COMMON_CLK_SI5351 as module
!1846: [armhf] drivers/gpu/drm/v3d: Enable DRM_V3D as module
!1847: [armhf] Enable Config for Device Tree Overlays

flash-kernel:

Merge Requests
!82: Add: Support for TI AM67A BeagleY-AI
!83: Add: Support for TI K3 AM62x based BeagleBoard.org boards
!84: debian/changelog: Add Closes
!85: Add: Support for D-step version of BCM2712 Raspberry Pi 5

optee-os:

Merge Request
!2: Build optee-os for TI K3 J721E/TDA4VM BeagleBone AI-64

extrepo:

Merge Requests
!533: Add: Arduino repository
!534: Mozilla: enable repository for arm64
!535: Mobian: enable repository for forky
!536: BeagleBoard: use templating, add repositories and GPG key
!537: Add: LinuxCNC repository

Raspberry Pi / linux

Pull Request
#7223 configs: enable Si5351 i2c common clock driver

Kernel workflow Tool

Pull Request
#1261 documentation/content/installanduninstall: add Debian to package install

KiCad / kicad-website

Merge Request
!676: [Debian] content/download/linux-distro: update to current stable release

Meshtastic

Pull Request
#2309 docs: Add installation instructions for Debian using extrepo

RISC-V / learn

Pull Request
#77 Add: RISC-V Vector (RVV) Primer to learning resources

Ending Thoughts

That’s all for Q1 of 2026. I hope to post quarterly updates and I guess this will keep people informed about my foss activity and possibly attract potential contributors.

FOSS Activity 2025 (Q3 & Q4)

krvprashanth — Tue, 30 Dec 2025 18:30:00 GMT

Hello everyone! I ended up skipping 2025Q3 since there was not much to post about, so this combines both Q3 & Q4 updates about the contributions I’ve made or things I found interesting in collaborative Free and Open Source Software development.

Debian GNU/Linux

arm-trusted-firmware:

Merge Request
!9: d/rules: enable rpi5 target

flash-kernel:

Merge Request
!77: Add: Support for Raspberry Pi 5 and 3A+

live-build:

Merge Request
!445: Add: Splash screen for hamradio blend

Debian images: installer images, live images, cloud images

Merge Request
!8: Live: Add Debian Hamradio blend

Debian Pure Blends

Merge Request
!1079: debian.org/blends: add downloads quick link of Debian Jr. blend

extrepo:

Merge Requests
!445: Add: Debian ROCm repository
!453: Add: Meshtastic repository

Debian ROCm Team - APT Archive

Merge Request
!1: Add: Instructions to install ROCm packages using extrepo

Linaro / tuxsuite

Opened issue #204

@stylesen updated the respective project documentation to include installation with extrepo. Following are the relevant docs:

TuxSuite - https://docs.tuxsuite.com/#install-using-debian-extrepo
TuxMake - https://docs.tuxmake.org/install-deb
TuxRun - https://tuxrun.org/install-deb/#install-using-debian-extrepo
TuxLAVA - https://tuxlava.org/install-deb/#install-using-debian-extrepo

RISC-V / learn

Pull Requests
#61 Add: BeagleV RISC-V Boards
#62 Add: operating-system-in-1000-lines to learning resources

Ending Thoughts

That’s all for Q3 & Q4 of 2025. I hope to post quarterly updates and I guess this will keep people informed about my foss activity and possibly attract potential contributors.

FOSS Activity 2025Q2

krvprashanth — Mon, 30 Jun 2025 18:30:00 GMT

Hello everyone! I’m starting a series of quarterly posts about the contributions I’ve made or things I found interesting in collaborative Free and Open Source Software development. I will try to post one every quarter - let’s see how this goes.

Debian

Debian Installer / flash-kernel

Debian Raspberry Pi Maintainers wanted to explore whether they should still be building one image per family, or they could instead switch to one image per architecture (armel, armhf, arm64) and also the available set of images for running Debian on Raspberry Pi computers using/require some necessary platform-specific changes primarily in the early boot sequence and firmware handling. Unlike typical Debian systems, Raspberry Pi devices depend on proprietary bootloader and uses non-free firmware (raspi-firmware) closed-source GPU bootloader which is tightly coupled to Raspberry Pi hardware-specific differences in the initialization process. These differences are largely confined to the early boot and hardware initialization stages. Once the system boots, the userspace remains closely aligned with a typical Debian install, using Debian packages.

I was trying to build architecture-specific Raspberry Pi Debian images by integrating flash-kernel, and replacing the proprietary Raspberry Pi bootloader with an open-source boot loader U-Boot. This still depends on the Raspberry Pi non-free firmware to start, but it loads U-Boot, not Linux kernel directly and the image building process will be closer to how official Debian images boots ARM devices and flash-kernel knows how to install u-boot, device-tree blobs and Linux kernel images and initrds for various ARM boards. It's a glue between Debian and the firmware, Integrates with the kernel package with hook and U-Boot needs a script (boot.scr) to boot. This will be installed to /boot by flash-kernel during the install process (the default script /etc/flash-kernel/bootscript/bootscr.uboot-generic is used).

So, added not yet supported Raspberry Pi models and a BeagleBone Blue in flash-kernel packages even though upstream support and DTBs exist in the Debian kernel but are missing entries in the flash-kernel.

Hardware support changes: Filed bug reports to see support for Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W (#1107524), 4 Model B (#1106381), Compute Module 4 (#1108236) and TI AM335x BeagleBone Blue (#1108366) in flash-kernel package.

Merge Requests
!71: Add: Support for Raspberry Pi 4 Model B
!73: Add: Support for Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W
!74: Add: machine db entry for Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4
!75: Add: Support for TI AM335x BeagleBone Blue

Debian Raspberry Pi

Tested U-Boot package: u-boot-rpi (2023.01+dfsg-2+deb12u1) current version stable/bookworm on Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W, 4 Model B & Compute Module 4.
- Listed the boards I tested on https://wiki.debian.org/U-boot/Status
Wrote an Ansible playbook to migrate the existing Debian Raspberry Pi build infrastructure from UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México) to one of server managed by the Debian Installer team to daily auto-built Raspberry Pi Debian images and up running.
- https://salsa.debian.org/krvprashanth/raspi-debian-build-farm
https://salsa.debian.org/krvprashanth/raspi-arch-image-specs

Merge Requests
!21: Boot Media (Software Image): Flashing Instructions using Raspberry Pi Imager
!22: Fix: build errors and Ruby 3.3+ compatibility issues

Debian External repositories

I came across Extrepo, a super handy Debian utility for managing external repositories securely. Before this, adding external repos usually meant editing APT configs manually or running unsigned scripts - not ideal. With Extrepo, one can just search, enable, or update repos and install packages. Surprised it's not talked about more and it definitely deserves more attention!

And, I added extrepo entries for BeagleBoard.org, SatNOGS, Armbian, TuxMake, TuxSuite, TuxRun, TuxLAVA, and Texas Instruments. Enabled repository support for Raspberry Pi and Mobian targeting the upcoming Debian release, trixie and fixed outdated GPG keys for Slack, ProtonVPN, and Mobian, and also updated the issue tracker URL for Mobian.

Filed bug report to extrepo package version:0.14 to add entry for repositories (BeagleBoard.org, Texas Instruments, TuxSuite, Armbian & SatNOGS)(#1106660) and fixed (#1106363).

Merge Requests
!355: Slack: update GPG key
!356: Add SatNOGS repositories
!359: Add Armbian repository
!361: RaspberryPi: enable repository for trixie
!362: Add: TuxMake and TuxSuite repository
!366: Add: Texas Instruments repository
!367: Add: TuxRun and TuxLAVA repository
!369: Add: BeagleBoard.org repository
!370: ProtonVPN: update GPG key
!377: Mobian: update GPG key and enable repository for trixie
!381: Mobian: update issue tracker URL

TexasInstruments / ti-debpkgs

Opened issue #4

Duckietown

The different NVDIA SBCs that Duckiebot uses have different compatibility strings. Fixed the Front bumper of Duckiebot to work on all NVDIA Jetson Nano Dev boards.

Pull Request
#489 Fix: address-cells placement and reorder mux@70 properties

Awesome Volunteer Computing

Pull Request
#2 Add: multicortex-exo in platforms & Infrastructure

/var/log/misc 😉

I have Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W, 4, CM4 and 5 devices. I'm grateful to Gunnar Wolf (@gwolf) for mentoring me to adopt and update the Raspberry Pi images creation and the Debian Project Leader has approved funding for me to purchase the rest Raspberry Pi hardware (Zero W/1/2/3) to test daily auto-built Raspberry Pi Debian images.

And, I attended Bangalore Linux Kernel Meetup (April 26, 2025, hosted at Linux Technology Center, IBM) and the Zephyr Project Meetup (May 17, 2025, hosted at Texas Instruments), both held in Bengaluru, India. Thanks to Duckietown Robotics for sponsoring my travel to attend the Kernel Meetup.

P.S. Duckiebot and Duckiedrone hardware runs on Debian GNU/Linux

Ending Thoughts

That’s all for Q2 2025. From now onwards, I hope to post quarterly updates and I guess this will keep people informed about my contributions and possibly attract potential contributors.

Consider supporting me if you like my work.

krvprashanth (Posts about debian)

FOSS Activity 2026Q1

Debian GNU/Linux

linux:

flash-kernel:

optee-os:

extrepo:

Raspberry Pi / linux

Kernel workflow Tool

KiCad / kicad-website

Meshtastic

RISC-V / learn

Ending Thoughts

FOSS Activity 2025 (Q3 & Q4)

Debian GNU/Linux

arm-trusted-firmware:

flash-kernel:

live-build:

Debian images: installer images, live images, cloud images

Debian Pure Blends

extrepo:

Debian ROCm Team - APT Archive

Linaro / tuxsuite

RISC-V / learn

Ending Thoughts

FOSS Activity 2025Q2

Debian

Debian Installer / flash-kernel

Debian Raspberry Pi

Debian External repositories

TexasInstruments / ti-debpkgs

Duckietown

Awesome Volunteer Computing

/var/log/misc 😉

Ending Thoughts

Helpful links