Raspberry Pi 4 Noob Trying for the first time to download Bitcoin Core

[stw@stw]

Hi Guys, Hopefully you can help!

I've downloaded bitcoin-24.0-x86_64-linux-gnu.tar.gz

From bitcoincore.org/bin/bitcoin-core-24.0/

Carefully followed the instructions for Linux on the Bitcoincore & Bitcoinorg webpages.  Run the security checks and all the way to the end, passed sudo install stage. Just can't seam to get the bitcoin-qt to work to start off the magic and run Bitcoin core GUI.

Error message:
bitcoin-qt: cannot execute binary file: Exec format error

I'm wondering if the original download is wrong?

Kit: Rapsberry Pi 4 (8GB Ram), running Ubuntu latest version with an external ssd ready to go.

Any ideas would be a massive help... I'm in a google / youtube tutorial doom spiral

stw

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[jackg]

Did you install ALL the dependencies and checked they actually installed properly? (some might need tiny modifications, like Berkeley DB and might not have installed correctly).

If you try to reattempt installs, I'd recommend trying to run bitcoind before you do to see if it can run or detect where an error might be.

[DaveF]

IIRC that is a 32 vs 64 bit error. Are you running 64 bit Ubuntu? It's been a while but I was chasing something similar a while ago.
Another possibility is a dependency like jackg said.
Did you check chmod +x on the file?

-Dave

[BitMaxz]

If you are running Raspi I suggest install Bitcoin core with Snapd enabled to make bitcoin core work in Raspberry Pi.

There is a guide on Google if search it but you can check the guide below.

- https://snapcraft.io/install/bitcoin-core/raspbian

[odolvlobo]

I've downloaded bitcoin-24.0-x86_64-linux-gnu.tar.gz

From bitcoincore.org/bin/bitcoin-core-24.0/

Raspberry Pi 4 is not x86. It is ARM, so you want to download bitcoin-24.0-aarch64-linux-gnu.tar.gz assuming that your version of Ubuntu is 64-bit (otherwise bitcoin-24.0-arm-linux-gnueabihf.tar.gz).

I recommend that you follow this guide: https://raspibolt.org/

Note that the guide assumes that you are using RPi OS Lite 64-bit which is derived from Debian 11. There might be slight differences in the commands.

[NotATether]

Exactly what @odolvlobo said. But in case you don't know whether your Ubuntu is 32-bit or 64-bit, you could check it by either checking filename of Ubuntu ISO you download or running command uname -a. If your Ubuntu is 64-bit, you should able to see keyword "64-bit", "arm64", "aarch64" or "armv8".

You mean not all recent-gen Raspberry Pis run arm64 OSes?

[stw@stw]

Wow! - thank you all very much for the replies!!! Legends!

With all your help it worked!

The main breakthrough was:
@ETFbitcoin uname -a worked perfectly and let me know it was a 64-bit set-up. Which gave me the confidence to follow @odolvlobo advice regards the alternative file name for the download, you were spot on with recommending aarch64-linux-gnu.tar.gz

Thanks everybody! ...just 11 years of sync to go 
stw

[DaveF]

in your bitcoin.conf file try setting dbcache=3000 it should help with the IBD speed.
Since you have an 8GB pi you should have enough free ram if you are just running bitcoin.
If you have other things open / running setting it to 2000 will also help a lot.

You will have to stop and start it for the change to take effect.

-Dave

[NeuroticFish]

You mean not all recent-gen Raspberry Pis run arm64 OSes?

From what I know at least the Raspberry Pi Zero variants, although new, are only on 32bit. But they also are low on RAM and (by far) not suitable for Bitcoin core.

[n0nce]

Exactly what @odolvlobo said. But in case you don't know whether your Ubuntu is 32-bit or 64-bit, you could check it by either checking filename of Ubuntu ISO you download or running command uname -a. If your Ubuntu is 64-bit, you should able to see keyword "64-bit", "arm64", "aarch64" or "armv8".

You mean not all recent-gen Raspberry Pis run arm64 OSes?

The full-sized Raspberry Pis are 64-bit and I'm pretty sure you can't even install 32-bit Linux on a 64-bit ARM chip. Meanwhile it should be possible to do so by mistake on x86.

Thanks everybody! ...just 11 years of sync to go 

Kit: Rapsberry Pi 4 (8GB Ram), running Ubuntu latest version with an external ssd ready to go.

With 8GB of RAM and external SSD, it should go fairly quickly. In my experience on low-end x86 hardware, with good memory setup like yours, it took only a couple days.

Memory upgrade from 4GB to 8GB happened where you see the curve go straight up! Good on you that you were able to snatch an 8GB Pi.

[vv181]

You mean not all recent-gen Raspberry Pis run arm64 OSes?

The full-sized Raspberry Pis are 64-bit and I'm pretty sure you can't even install 32-bit Linux on a 64-bit ARM chip. Meanwhile it should be possible to do so by mistake on x86.

Pretty much all Raspberry Pi models are supports 32-bit, and it is still being as a recommended OS, https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/operating-systems/#raspberry-pi-os-32-bit.

[NeuroticFish]

The full-sized Raspberry Pis are 64-bit and I'm pretty sure you can't even install 32-bit Linux on a 64-bit ARM chip. Meanwhile it should be possible to do so by mistake on x86.

It's the other way around: both 32bit and 64bit CPUs support 32bit OS, just in case of 32bit you have some RAM limitations, and only the 64bit CPUs support 64bit OS.
But I am sure you knew that. So I don't know if it was a mistake or you wanted to say/express something else.

[n0nce]

The full-sized Raspberry Pis are 64-bit and I'm pretty sure you can't even install 32-bit Linux on a 64-bit ARM chip. Meanwhile it should be possible to do so by mistake on x86.

It's the other way around: both 32bit and 64bit CPUs support 32bit OS, just in case of 32bit you have some RAM limitations, and only the 64bit CPUs support 64bit OS.
But I am sure you knew that. So I don't know if it was a mistake or you wanted to say/express something else.

I know, I know - in theory and also in practice; such as issues with only 4GB of RAM being detected, when 64-bit started to become mainstream and people continued installing 32-bit Windows...
It's just that I remembered that ARM64 chips don't run 32-bit OS, since ARM64 is not a direct superset of ARM32. But it seems I was wrong about this.

Regarding backwards compatibility: the way-to-go is installing 32-bit binaries on a 64-bit OS ^{[on a 64-bit chip]}; not installing a 32-bit OS on a 64-bit chip. There's not really a reason to install 32-bit Linux on a 64-bit chip.