Migrating from pi2 -> pi3

[kylek]

Hi all, I'm having an issue migrating an install from the pi2 to the pi3.

I have a quite old arch installation (3.18 kernel) that I have done a full upgrade on. This brings me up to 4.4.8

When I run this on the pi3, it fails with the rainbow screen and 7 green LED blinks. After digging in, it seems that at least kernel7.img and bcm2710-rpi-3-b.dtb weren't on /boot, so I manually copied them over from the latest firmware on the raspberrypi/firmware github repo. This lets me boot on the pi3, but the onboard wifi doesn't appear at all, there is no wlan0 device, etc. I also tried updating to 4.1.20 and 4.4.8 via Hexxeh rpi-update, but no luck.

If I grab the latest arch install from https://archlinuxarm.org/platforms/armv ... berry-pi-2 everything works as expected on the pi3 (this is currently the 4.1.20 kernel, and also 4.4.8 works after upgrade). However, I have a lot of customization and other things I'd like to maintain from my older install.

Is there a reason kernel7 isn't part of the linux-raspberrypi upgrade I get via pacman -Syyu?

What modules, drivers, etc are required for the pi3's onboard wifi to function -- basically what does the latest arch install download have that a full pacman -Syyu system upgrade doesn't?

Is there hope of me being able to gracefully port my old install to the pi3?

[graysky]

Dunno what kernel7 is but rpi3 runs on the same packages as rip2... you can even just swap a microsd card into the pi3 and it just works.

[kylek]

Unfortunately this doesn't appear to be the case, at least for my situation. If I take my existing 3.18 image, it works fine on the pi2, but not the pi3.

If I upgrade via pacman -Syyu to 4.4.8 it also still works on pi2, but not pi3. If I manually copy over the boot folder from the latest 4.4.8 firmware repo, it will boot on the pi3 but there is no wlan0 device.

The latest official armv7 4.1.20 arch install image works on pi3 but not pi2 (rainbow boot screen)
https://archlinuxarm.org/platforms/armv ... berry-pi-2
http://os.archlinuxarm.org/os/ArchLinux ... est.tar.gz

The armv6 version from here works on pi2 but not pi3:
https://archlinuxarm.org/platforms/armv6/raspberry-pi
http://os.archlinuxarm.org/os/ArchLinux ... est.tar.gz
https://gist.github.com/anonymous/131ba ... 9bc4974b8a

If the sd cards are supposed to be swappable, then upgrading from an image you used on a pi2 should allow you to use it on a pi3, right?

[kylek]

Sorry, nevermind, I'm an idiot...I'm starting from a B+ not a pi2

I guess these are not backwards compatible...and migrating from a B+ install to a pi3 would not be possible?

Edit: This guide was tremendously helpful and guided me successfully through upgrading from B+ -> pi3, big thanks to Pavel

https://pavelfatin.com/upgrade-arch-lin ... erry-pi-2/