Good morning,
I wanted to ask about installing IPFire on a Raspberry PI Zero 2W. I know it has limited RAM and no Ethernet ports, but it can connect to Ethernet ports via a USB OTG port. It also supports Wi-Fi.
Best regards, Alexander
It’s possible to run IPFire on the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W, but performance will be limited by its 512 MB RAM. IPFire requires at least two network interface, one for the internet-facing (WAN) to connect to the internet and one for the LAN. Since the Pi Zero 2 W lacks built-in Ethernet, you’ll need a USB OTG Ethernet adapter for one interface and can use Wi-Fi or a second USB Ethernet adapter for the other.
Edit: ensure your ether adapter is IPFire compatible.
( see also www.ipfire.org - PCI Express Mini WLAN Cards and www.ipfire.org - USB WLAN Adapter )
I think this is a really bad idea. The CPU is slow, too.
That list is not well maintained. You are better with checking the wifi card you want to use with the kernel version because of driver support.
Also as stated lately, only Qualcomm/Atheros cards are a good choise.
CPU of the Raspberry PI Zero 2WH is similar to the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B, except for the RAM.
I think the real limitation is the micro-USB (USB 2.0).
There’s a problem with booting the system (IPFire 2.29 - Core Update 195).
The serial console doesn’t show anything, and neither does the HDMI port.
The LED on the RPI flashes in a loop (7 times).
What am I doing wrong?
If you use IPFire the ways it’s meant to be used
Flashback
a RPI4 is already slow: Filtering, VPN…
If you want to use it as a router OS you may be fine.
Even thinking about running IPFire on a Zero W2 is strange 
.
You must have been watching Stranger Things 
IPFire on the RPI4 works very well over a 100Mbps internet connection. VPNs (OpenVPN, WireGuard) also work well.
This solution is intended for home use, not for a corporate network.
There’s a problem with booting the system (IPFire 2.29 - Core Update 195).
The serial console doesn’t show anything, and neither does the HDMI port.
The LED on the RPI flashes in a loop (7 times).
What am I doing wrong?
It is not supported.
Driver compatibility remains the core frustration with wireless adapters. You need drivers supporting essential features like AP mode, monitor mode, MUMIMO, VHT (not just HT), ideally wifi6 for better bandwidth, while Wifi 5 208.11ac suffice, plus bridging support, many criteria to check. The list indeed lacks maintenance with few adapter models or PCIs supporting ath9k or ath9k_htc. There is only one adapter on the list which is (a bit) interesting.
I struggled myself with an Intel Atom, 1GB RAM, 10" device running antix 32 bit arch. The system barely managed basic operations, one IPS tool nearly crashed everything. IPfire basics work, but it can’t handle additional load like add-ons. I wouldn’t recommend even my small Asus Eee anymore.
Some Linux distros have dropped support for older hardware entirely. Consider upgrading to at least a 2014+ laptop with better resources. I would recommend Lenovo as it has a better driver’s support, I lately found a used laptop online with USB C interfaces, touchscreen and all those modern things for only 60 euros. But I prefered the one costs 30 euro :).
Well I didn’t dare to install ipfire on that tiny laptop, good thing too, since I found out 32 bit support died in 2023. Dodged a bullet there
I actually wanted to build th firewall step by step. First tried braodcasting an SSID which worked beautifully with dnsmasq and hsotapd, but the moment I added IPS, the device had a meltdown.
Is there a plan to support IPFire for the Raspberry PI Zero 2 W ?
The processor is quad-core 64-bit, and Ethernet interfaces can be connected via USB-OTG.
If we’re not running advanced features, 512 Mbps should be sufficient.
It seems like a reasonable solution for things like firewall protection for remote surveillance cameras or other applications.
Best Regards, Alex
No as none of the IPFire developers has one of these.
I am pretty sure there will be no enthusiasm to try it out anyway as it only has 500MB of ram.
I have an old Prime system with 2GB RAM that is using, without the Intrusion Prevention System (IPS), around 350MB.
With the IPS installed then the available 2GB of memory is completely used and the system starts to use swap.
350MB usage is without any addons.
400MB to 450MB of ram usage with a few addons could take you to the point where upgrades fail to work as the download and decrypt activities are done in RAM.
This is why the minimum that is recommended in the IPFire documentation is 1GB but preferably 4GB if you don’t want to be restricted in what you can do with IPFire.
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Since the SoC seems to be identical (or even close) to the one in the Raspberry Pi 3, I would not be surprised if this is already working.
The CPU might be fine, but 512 MiB of RAM will definitely be a hugely limiting factor. So no IPS and probably not some of the other memory-hungry services. I agree though that it should be running well as a small firewall for some IoT applications.
I am sure that @arne_f is taking hardware donations 
With some strong storage and a swap partition, this could work, but it will be indeed very tight.