About ARM64 On RPi4

  • After looking at the project files on GitHub and compiling the firmware, it turns out that for RPI4 systems that only support ARM 32-bit, when is the plan to support 64-bit?

  • Hi matthuo - search for “widevine 32” in the forum. But a good response from one of the posts is:

    “arm" is 64-bit kernel and 32-bit userspace for compatibilty with add-ons that need software widevine (DRM) support, and aarch64 is 64-bit kernel and 64-bit userspace which means no widevine support (as only 32-bit libs are sourceable).

    There are a number of community members / builds that build aarch64 user space. But not in the main, so as to support the widevine.

  • In theory we could switch to the same 64/32 arrangement we run on other ARM SoCs, but since the current 'arm' kernel still allows access to 4/8GB RAM on larger RPi4 models (not that LE needs it) and the Pi Foundation development focus remains on arm (which is highly optimised) there's no rush/need - although I expect it will happen at some point.

  • Hi matthuo - search for “widevine 32” in the forum. But a good response from one of the posts is:

    “arm" is 64-bit kernel and 32-bit userspace for compatibilty with add-ons that need software widevine (DRM) support, and aarch64 is 64-bit kernel and 64-bit userspace which means no widevine support (as only 32-bit libs are sourceable).

    There are a number of community members / builds that build aarch64 user space. But not in the main, so as to support the widevine.

    Got it.

    For compilation, after selecting ARCH=arm, the kernel will be configured as ARM 32 bits, and then the generated firmware, After query, is running on armv7.

    Is there a problem with my choice?

    My purpose is to modify network related Settings through menuconfig, so as to make the application available.