Question about getting a bitcoin/altcoin wallet onto a Raspberry Pi

[The Sceptical Chymist]

As some of you know, I'm technically challenged and this may sound like a basic question, but here it is.

I bought a Stakebox for PIVX staking not too long ago, and never got it working because my local wi-fi isn't strong enough.  In any case, the PIVX wallet that was installed on the SD card is an old version and I've no idea how to update it to the format it's in.  However, my question isn't about PIVX, it's about how to "flash" a bitcoin (or any coin) wallet onto a SD card.  If I'm not mistaken, that has to be done in order for it to work.  

Or is it possible to use the Raspberry Pi browser to download whatever wallet I want?  I feel stupid asking this, but I'm really not familiar with the fundamental workings of the Raspberry Pi.  Thanks in advance for any advice.

Edit:  It was this topic that got me thinking about this whole issue.

[Rath_]

Or is it possible to use the Raspberry Pi browser to download whatever wallet I want?  I feel stupid asking this, but I'm really not familiar with the fundamental workings of the Raspberry Pi.  

Every Raspberry Pi is powered by an ARM CPU which means that software has to be slightly modified. For example, if you look closely at the Bitcoin Core download page, you can see that there are three different downloads for Linux. Raspberry Pi owners should download the ARM one. Also, if you decided to compile it yourself, you would have to use a dedicated guide which would instruct you how to download ARM compatible software.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

For example, if you look closely at the Bitcoin Core download page, you can see that there are three different downloads for Linux. Raspberry Pi owners should download the ARM one. Also, if you decided to compile it yourself, you would have to use a dedicated guide which would instruct you how to download ARM compatible software.

OK, I don't totally understand that, but your comments educated me a little bit and I appreciate it.  For other coins, I'm not sure there's an option to download an ARM format, but maybe I'll take a look around at some wallet sites and see.  

Edit:

I have just checked PIVX for you and it does have ARM pre-compiled version of its software.

That does help, thanks again for the advice.

[Rath_]

OK, I don't totally understand that, but your comments educated me a little bit and I appreciate it.  For other coins, I'm not sure there's an option to download an ARM format, but maybe I'll take a look around at some wallet sites and see.  

I have just checked PIVX for you and it does have ARM pre-compiled version of its software. The following quote from this website might help you understand it a bit.

ARM and Intel chips have different processor architectures and instruction sets. This means that you can’t run an application compiled for the Intel architecture on an ARM computer, and you can’t run code compiled for ARM on Intel computers.

[jackg]

OK, I don't totally understand that, but your comments educated me a little bit and I appreciate it.  For other coins, I'm not sure there's an option to download an ARM format, but maybe I'll take a look around at some wallet sites and see. 

Technically you don't need to have an arm distribution of the software, if compiling from source, just install the dependencies necessary (which will be in the source code and can be found in the readme normally).

Compiling from source, especially with the low memory of the pi1 and 2 in my experience has just made the compiler give up.. But there are commands you can use to avoid this...

Perhaps, if there aren't any arm builds of the node software, you could open an issue on github to ask for them to compile one, if you can compile for 8086 or 8664, you can compile on arm just as easily unless there's any asm as that needs translating... (arm is better than Intel and amd).