RPi 2 fails to startx / xinit maybe via libunwind-1.8.1

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RPi 2 fails to startx / xinit maybe via libunwind-1.8.1

Postby t_h_x_1138 » Mon Mar 10, 2025 9:02 pm

Hello,
installed a Raspberry Pi 2 with 32-bit according to the wiki. Arch Linux ARM 6.12.17-2 boots up successfully to tty1 console.
In /boot/config.txt the line dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d is enabled.
lsmod shows multiple lines with vc4.
dmesg shows
[ 16.372339] vc4-drm soc:gpu: bound 3fc00000.v3d (ops vc4_v3d_ops [vc4])
[ 16.386397] [drm] Initialized vc4 0.0.0 for soc:gpu on minor 0
[ 16.481379] Console: switching to colour frame buffer device 160x50
[ 16.514979] vc4-drm soc:gpu: [drm] fb0: vc4drmfb frame buffer device
[ 16.642614] bcm2835_vc_sm_cma_probe: Videocore shared memory driver
[ 16.649394] [vc_sm_connected_init]: start
[ 16.658859] [vc_sm_connected_init]: installed successfully
[ 16.686122] bcm2835_mmal_vchiq: module is from the staging directory, the quality is unknown, you have been warned.

However, when trying to startx or xinit, the following error appears:
(EE)
(EE) Backtrace:
xinit: giving up
xinit: unable to connect to X server: Connection refused
xinit: server error

Initially I assumed that maybe an older kernel version would work. However, after a lot of googling I accidentally stumbled upon a post from this forum about a different SBC, the Odroid XU4, but probably not a coincidence that it's running armv7h just like the Raspberry Pi 2 usually:
https://archlinuxarm.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=16823
(April 2024)
and another one
https://archlinuxarm.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=57&t=16802&start=10
(August 2024)

According to these posts startx apparently fails on multiple platforms (xu4, rpi2,3,4) running the armv7h kernel because of libunwind-1.8.1.
Downgrading to xf86-video-fbdev to 0.5.0-3 and libunwind to 1.7.2-1 maybe can "fix" the issue of not being able to startx.

I downgraded to xf86-video-fbdev to 0.5.0-3 but for libunwind I could only find an old package libunwind-1.6.2-1. After this downgrade indeed X seems to start, however my screen stays black after that and the RPI2 requires a reboot.
Tried compiling libunwind 1.7.2-1 by adapting the new PKGBUILD from this page but it failed.
https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/packaging/packages/libunwind/

Could someone provide libunwind-1.7.2-1-armv7h.pkg.tar.xz so I can test if that "solves" it?
Also what exactly is causing these shenanigans on armv7?

Greetings and thank you
t_h_x_1138
 
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Joined: Mon Mar 10, 2025 8:13 pm

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