When running the Open Energy Playground on a Raspberry Pi, we have to do some things in a special way.

Why?

Because the microprocessor used in Raspberry Pi is of a special kind of processor architecture called ARM. And because when we download a normal docker container, it is specifically compiled for another type of architecture, called Intel/AMD.

Considerations

This means that we have to take 2 things into consideration:

  1. We cannot install docker according to the general linux install instructions on https://docs.docker.com/engine/installation/
  2. We have to use docker images that are specifically built for/on Raspberry Pi if we get a container from Docker Hub.

The details will be covered below.

Installation

At first, installation of Docker on Raspberry Pi can seem like a complicated task.

But, the Hypriot Docker Pirates have already done all the hard work for us! :)

Head over to http://blog.hypriot.com/getting-started-with-docker-on-your-arm-device/ to download an image that you can write to your SD card. Then you're good to go!

Or, if you already have an operating system that you don't want to loose (like Raspbian), you can also download a special install package.

Special Images

We have to use images that are built for ARM. These images on the Docker hub often start with the name rpi to indicate that they are built for Raspberry Pi.

For the image that are maintained by Open Energy, we often have a folder called rpi in the git repository, containing special instructions and considerations required for running on Raspberry Pi.

These images include: