It's Pi all the way down... - Dave Jones

Pull yourself up by your bootstraps

Dave Jones — Wed, 09 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0100

Some fairly radical changes to the way Ubuntu boots on the Raspberry Pi

D0!

Dave Jones — Fri, 04 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0100

A look at how new hardware and lengthy dependency chains combine to make trouble!

Loading the Deck

Dave Jones — Thu, 27 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

A cautionary tale of SD cards and online reviews

How Noble in reason

Dave Jones — Sun, 02 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

A look at the trials and tribulations of the current LTS release, Noble Numbat (24.04 LTS)

I ain’t got NBD

Dave Jones — Tue, 03 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The final part of the NBD netboot series, where we solve our issues with the coherence of the boot partition

NBD Does it Better

Dave Jones — Mon, 30 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

An alternative means of net-booting a Pi, using NBD instead of NFS to permit block-layer manipulation (docker overlays, snaps, etc.)

NBD Knows

Dave Jones — Fri, 27 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0100

The problems with NFS as a netboot system, and what the alternatives are

Building Blocks

Dave Jones — Tue, 24 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0100

In which we finally cover what a block device is

Making Mantic Magic

Dave Jones — Thu, 12 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0100

Everything you (don’t) need to do on Mantic to get the most out of the Pi 5

Dealing the (SD) Cards

Dave Jones — Tue, 12 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0100

A brief guide to finding reliable SD cards for the Pi

The Ubuntu Desktop

Dave Jones — Wed, 09 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0100

Comparing the official desktop with the cloud-init baked flavours

The Ubuntu Studio

Dave Jones — Tue, 08 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0100

Baking an Ubuntu Studio Lunar desktop with cloud-init

The Kubuntu Flavour

Dave Jones — Sat, 05 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0100

Baking a Kubuntu Lunar desktop with cloud-init

The Ubuntu Unity Flavour

Dave Jones — Fri, 04 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0100

Baking an Ubuntu Unity Lunar desktop with cloud-init

The Ubuntu Budgie Flavour

Dave Jones — Thu, 03 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0100

Baking an Ubuntu Budgie for Pi desktop with cloud-init

The Xubuntu Flavour

Dave Jones — Wed, 02 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0100

Baking a Lubuntu Lunar desktop with cloud-init

The Lubuntu Flavour

Dave Jones — Tue, 01 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0100

Baking a Lubuntu Lunar desktop with cloud-init

We Serve All Flavours!

Dave Jones — Mon, 31 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0100

More tricks with cloud-init for baking ready-made desktops, and the index for the forthcoming look at each of the Ubuntu flavours

Desktop on a Stick

Dave Jones — Fri, 30 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0100

Construct a variety of desktop flavours using cloud-init on the Raspberry Pi

4K 60Hz on a Pi

Dave Jones — Fri, 23 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0100

In which Dave attempts to read text on a high-DPI display, fails, and solves the problem in the most basic way possible

Playing with Blocks - ReLUKS

Dave Jones — Thu, 20 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0100

Making a Pi desktop with encrypted root storage (again!)

Wherefore UART Thou?

Dave Jones — Fri, 21 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0100

Methods of working with MicroPython, old and new

Hyping pixels

Dave Jones — Tue, 18 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0100

Getting the Pimoroni Hyperpixel display working on Ubuntu

The One Where Dave Breaks Stuff

Dave Jones — Mon, 10 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0100

What’s happening to RPi.GPIO (and GPIO handling more generally) in kinetic, why it’s happening (now), and how to avoid (some?) breakage

Playing with Blocks - It’s All Connected

Dave Jones — Thu, 08 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0100

Making a Pi image with encrypted volume-managed root storage

Making Jammy less Dodgy

Dave Jones — Fri, 22 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0100

Fixing some of the post-release “fun” with Jammy (22.04 LTS)

The Pi Zero 2

Dave Jones — Thu, 28 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0100

How to run existing Ubuntu images at the launch of the Pi Zero 2

Playing with Blocks - LUKS

Dave Jones — Tue, 19 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0100

Making a Pi desktop with encrypted root storage

Playing with Blocks - LVM

Dave Jones — Mon, 18 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0100

Making a Pi server with root under LVM

Making Impish Impier

Dave Jones — Fri, 15 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0100

Speeding up flash-kernel and update-initramfs on Ubuntu

Common Sense (HAT)

Dave Jones — Thu, 14 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0100

A quick run-down of the new Sense HAT support in Ubuntu

When HDMI freezes over

Dave Jones — Wed, 13 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0100

On the teething pains of the Impish desktop release, and the joys of owning old monitors

You boot — no, u-boot first!

Dave Jones — Wed, 05 May 2021 00:00:00 +0100

Bypassing U-Boot to enable USB boot on Ubuntu Focal

The Pins They Are A-Changin’

Dave Jones — Tue, 20 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0100

A look at the kernel level changes in accessing the GPIO pins on the Raspberry Pi

6 Months with the Pi Desktop

Dave Jones — Sat, 17 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0100

A run-down of using a Pi as my only desktop for an entire release cycle

A Week with the Pi Desktop

Dave Jones — Thu, 22 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0100

The ups and downs of a week using the Pi as my only desktop

Groovy Boot Modes

Dave Jones — Wed, 21 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0100

Adding or removing U-Boot in Ubuntu Groovy

Installing the new Pi Ubuntu Desktop

Dave Jones — Mon, 12 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0100

Installing the official Ubuntu desktop for the Raspberry Pi

Boot configuration with pibootctl

Dave Jones — Wed, 16 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0100

Changing stuff with pibootctl

Using pibootctl

Dave Jones — Wed, 20 May 2020 00:00:00 +0100

The how of pibootctl

Introducing pibootctl

Dave Jones — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0100

The what and the why of pibootctl

Ubuntu Desktops on the Pi

Dave Jones — Fri, 17 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0100

A quick review of the Ubuntu desktop flavours on the Raspberry Pi

Package configuration

Dave Jones — Thu, 16 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0100

Installing packages on first boot

Network configuration

Dave Jones — Fri, 10 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0100

How cloud-init talks to netplan to configure the network

Setting up users

Dave Jones — Wed, 08 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0100

A deeper look at user creation in cloud-init’s user-data file

Securing your Ubuntu Pi

Dave Jones — Thu, 02 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0100

Using cloud-init configuration to secure your first boot.