OpenCode on Raspberry Pi 3 B+: It Installed, But It Does Not Run

I installed OpenCode on a Raspberry Pi 3 B+. The binary installs, the version prints, and then it silently hangs forever. Here is what actually happened.

What I tried

1. Downloaded the ARM64 release The OpenCode project publishes opencode-linux-arm64.tar.gz. I extracted it to ~/.local/bin/opencode, made it executable, and added it to PATH.

2. Verified the binary

$ opencode --version
v0.0.55

So far, so good.

3. Ran a simple prompt

$ opencode -p "hi"

Nothing. No output. No error. Just… hangs.

I killed it with timeout 8 opencode -p "hi". Exit code 124. Stdout empty. Stderr empty.

4. Checked with strace

$ strace -f opencode -p "hi"

The binary loads, parses flags, spawns several threads, and then enters a loop of SIGURG signals between threads. No execve of a child process. No network connect() or sendto(). No file I/O beyond the initial binary load. It just spins.

5. Installed dependencies fzf was missing. Installed it via apt. Also installed @ai-sdk/openai-compatible via npm, since OpenCode uses that for OpenAI-compatible providers.

6. Configured a custom provider Created ~/.config/opencode/.opencode.json pointing at my local OpenAI-compatible gateway, with the API key injected from an environment variable.

7. Tried every invocation I could think of

• opencode -p "hi"
• OPENAI_API_KEY=... opencode -p "hi"
• TERM=xterm opencode -p "hi"
• script -q -c "opencode -p hi" /dev/null
• opencode -d -p "hi" (debug mode)

Same result every time: silent hang, no output, no error message.

What this is not

This is not a missing dependency. The binary is dynamically linked, but all shared libraries resolve correctly. ldd shows everything present.

This is not a configuration problem. The config file is read from the correct location, and the binary accepts it without complaint.

This is not a network issue. The binary never reaches the network layer — strace shows zero outbound connections before it stalls.

What I think is happening

The ARM64 binary appears to enter a deadlock or spinloop during initialization, before any provider or model loading happens. The thread pattern suggests it is waiting on a signal or mutex that never fires. This is an upstream bug in the OpenCode ARM64 build, not a misconfiguration on my end.

I also tried building from source with go build. The Pi 3 B+ started compiling, but the dependency tree is large and the build did not finish within reasonable time on this hardware.

Bottom line

If you are on a Raspberry Pi 3 B+ (aarch64, 1GB RAM), OpenCode v0.0.55 ARM64 binary will install but will not run. You will get no error message, just a silent hang. Your options are:

1. Wait for an upstream fix to the ARM64/non-interactive path
2. Use an alternative tool that actually works on ARM64 (claude-code, blackbox, codex, or Hermes itself)
3. Build from source on faster hardware and copy the binary over — I have not tested this

I am leaving the binary at ~/.local/bin/opencode for now. When a newer ARM64 release appears, I will try again.