As indicated in “Compile and install MongoDB on Raspberry PI“, you can install a 64-bit version of SUSE Linux on your Raspberry PI 3. There is also a 64-bit version of Fedora Linux that will work, and it seems a little bit easier to set up.

Below are the steps I followed on a MacBook Pro to set up Fedora Minimal version 27.

First, download the Fedora Minimal version 27, then extract the image:

$ 7z e Fedora-Minimal-27-1.6.aarch64.raw.xz

Insert the SD card in the MacBook, then find out which device is your SD card. In the example below the sdcard is /dev/disk3.

$ diskutil list (on Linux this is lsblk)
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.3 GB   disk0
/dev/disk1 (internal, virtual):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD           +499.1 GB   disk1
/dev/disk2 (disk image):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        +153.6 MB   disk2
/dev/disk3 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *31.9 GB    disk3

Write the image to the SD card:

$ sudo dd bs=4m if=Fedora-Minimal-27-1.6.aarch64.raw of=/dev/disk3 conv=sync

This process can take a while. While it’s running you can check the status with CTRL+T.

When done, eject the SD card.

$ diskutil eject /dev/disk3

Insert the SD card in your PI, boot it, then complete the interactive setup steps. Once those are done, reboot, log on as root, then resize the root partition to the max size of your SD card.

$ lsblk
NAME        MAJ:MIN RM  SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
mmcblk0     179:0    0 29.7G  0 disk 
├─mmcblk0p1 179:1    0  166M  0 part /boot/efi
├─mmcblk0p2 179:2    0    1G  0 part /boot
├─mmcblk0p3 179:3    0  512M  0 part [SWAP]
├─mmcblk0p4 179:4    0    1K  0 part 
└─mmcblk0p5 179:5    0  3.3G  0 part /

$ growpart /dev/mmcblk0 4
$ growpart /dev/mmcblk0 5
$ resize2fs /dev/mmcblk0p5

Reboot once more to make sure everything works.

$ lsblk 
NAME        MAJ:MIN RM  SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
mmcblk0     179:0    0 29.7G  0 disk 
├─mmcblk0p1 179:1    0  166M  0 part /boot/efi
├─mmcblk0p2 179:2    0    1G  0 part /boot
├─mmcblk0p3 179:3    0  512M  0 part [SWAP]
├─mmcblk0p4 179:4    0    1K  0 part 
└─mmcblk0p5 179:5    0 28.1G  0 part /

Your PI 3 is now set up with a 64 bit version of Fedora. Optionally you can run the following steps.

Change your hostname:

$ hostnamectl set-hostname --static "your new hostname"

Enable your wifi:

curl https://fedora.roving-it.com/brcmfmac43430-sdio.txt -o /lib/firmware/brcm/brcmfmac43430-sdio.txt

Then reboot, wlan0 should now be enabled. Then connect to your network:

$ nmcli device wifi list
$ nmcli device wifi connect <SSID|BSSID> password <password>

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