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Raspberry Pi 4 can finally boot directly from USB

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Re: Raspberry Pi 4 can finally boot directly from USB

#121

Post by ar-jan »

scottlamb wrote: post #69
systemvoltage wrote: post #32

Not a fan of Raspberry Pi. It hides behind proprietary Broadcom chip, no DSI/MIPI support and you're at the mercy of Raspberry PI for any sort of commercial implementation (RPi Zero and independent module). They do guarantee upto 2026 availability for their DIMM modules which is nice. We wanted to build commercial device using RPi but its a no go due to its blackbox nature. What they should do is to leverage their po…

> If you want to support proper open source development ... buy Beagle board and other alternatives. What more open alternatives are there with similar price and performance? The Beagleboards are ridiculously underpowered compared to a Raspberry Pi 4. I like the ODROIDs but I don't think they're any more open than Raspberry Pi. They also tend to be more expensive. YMMV on all of this stuff: * Some folks are doing mic…

Orange Pi looks pretty good

Re: Raspberry Pi 4 can finally boot directly from USB

#122

Post by ComputerGuru »

systemvoltage wrote: post #93
Florin_Andrei wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Raspberry Pi is an ecosystem which is based on proprietary technologies and masquerading as an open source friendly thing. In a world increasingly more virtualized, multilayered, and interconnected, how would you ensure "purity" in that regard? And can you?

I think if they had the following done right, it would be pretty much on par with open source hardware/software expectations: 1. Hardware datasheets for all components 2. Bootloader available to view the source for, if not completely open source. I understand bootloader can be proprietary tech and they can use non-commercial compete license but allow people to hack them and at the very least view it. 3. All PCB and g…

> 2. Bootloader available to view the source for, if not completely open source. I understand bootloader can be proprietary tech and they can use non-commercial compete license but allow people to hack them and at the very least view it.

This is a bit of a nitpick, but assuming point one of your post, tbh as an embedded developer there’s nothing magical or worth protecting in a bootloader. It’s such boring and, in the case of embedded systems on a chip, specialized code that really has no commercial value if the hardware documentation is available except in letting you gatekeep what runs on your chip. As in, anyone with the datasheets can write a bootloader and the bootloader provides no value to someone that has their own (proprietary or knockoff) SoC.

All that is to say, the Broadcom bootloader is closed for the same reason the datasheets and documentation are: it’s to prevent revealing the internals of the chip for fear of making it easier to reverse engineer or clone.

Re: Raspberry Pi 4 can finally boot directly from USB

#123

Post by rainbowzootsuit »

joshspankit wrote: post #51
LeoPanthera wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two play music, one into my hifi, one into my home audio distribution system. One is setup for RetroPie. One has LibreELEC installed, showing TV from my HDHomeRun. One has a GPS hat and is a local NTP server. And one boots into an Amiga emulator because I'm very old and nostalgic.

(If you’re able to play to both simultaneously) Do the music playback devices stay in sync?

I successfully used shareport-sync and forked-daapd back a while ago with PogoPlugs and USB audio interfaces for multiroom audio. It worked without too much effort.

https://github.com/mikebrady/shairport-sync

http://ejurgensen.github.io/forked-daapd/

Re: Raspberry Pi 4 can finally boot directly from USB

#124

Post by salawat »

systemvoltage wrote: post #32

Not a fan of Raspberry Pi. It hides behind proprietary Broadcom chip, no DSI/MIPI support and you're at the mercy of Raspberry PI for any sort of commercial implementation (RPi Zero and independent module). They do guarantee upto 2026 availability for their DIMM modules which is nice. We wanted to build commercial device using RPi but its a no go due to its blackbox nature. What they should do is to leverage their po…

By datasheet, do you mean the equivalent of a document detailing all the innards and details of the IC's down to the Opcodes/datapath?

Because I've gotten basically down to apparently what you're to write drivers for OSes with, and I know there is the annoying "teehee, let's implement OpenGL calls in firmware so the open source software is a stupid passthrough interface to the IC" which is understandably frustrating given I'd hoped to use my Pi to finally get around to driving graphics hardware to do something useful I can grok, but it's far from documentationless unless I'm missing something fundamental.

Re: Raspberry Pi 4 can finally boot directly from USB

#125

Post by ComputerGuru »

jagger27 wrote: post #85
silicon2401 wrote: post #77

As a pi noob: does this make it more reliable/feasible to use a pi to run a home server/application/etc? I've read in the past that SD cards aren't good with repeated read/writes, which makes it somewhat unreliable in the long run. If a pi is configured to run via USB, does that make it as reliable as other consumer hardware like a pc/laptop?

Other commenters in this thread have mentioned netbooting their Pis to avoid that exact issue. A typical USB flash device won't be any more reliable than an SD card, though it might be better cooled.

> A typical USB flash device won't be any more reliable than an SD card, though it might be better cooled.

That’s not strictly true, as the USB storage controller abstracts away the NAND and can manage wear leveling and free blocks. There are also more “enterprise class” USB sticks than SD cards, and the USB3 interface to USB drives is much faster than pretty much any SD card interface.

Best SD cards and best USB drives are Sandisk Extreme Pro, built entirely differently from their other lines. While Samsung Evo SSDs are top-of-the-line in each budget class, stay far away from their Evo SD cards which shamelessly borrow off the SSD reputation then drive it to the ground. They all tend to go read-only after undergoing “extended” writes.

Suggestion: if you’re using Linux, stay away from the ext family of file systems when using SD cards. Use nilfs or f2fs, and XFS if you absolutely must use a journaled fs.

Re: Raspberry Pi 4 can finally boot directly from USB

#126

Post by ComputerGuru »

tzs wrote: post #90
sokoloff wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. I wonder what's with the dire warning about changing the OTP bits then? https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberry...

The dire warning is mostly for the 3A+, where enabling USB host boot mode (which allows booting from USB mass storage devices) will permanently prevent booting in USB device mode. (Maybe...see below). Device mode is only supported on the Compute Module, CM3, Zero, Zero W, A, A+, and 3A+, so if you don't have one of those there is nothing to worry about as far as this goes. It still deserves a warning on other models,…

Burning the OTP will prevent you from starting the 3A or 4 in OTG mode; you can still do that in software by dynamically loading the dwc2 overlay once Linux has booted up and specifying the mode=peripheral parameter (then loading the kernel module).

Re: Raspberry Pi 4 can finally boot directly from USB

#127

Post by ComputerGuru »

paines wrote: post #78
maxioatic wrote: post #50

Might be a silly question because I'm a noob in this area, but: Does this work with the official Ubuntu images or only Raspbian?

From the github page ( https://github.com/raspberrypi/rpi-eeprom/issues/28 ) you can see that this needs an updated firmware which you can install via rpi-update. Never used Ubuntu on the Pi only raspbian, but I am sure they also have those rpi tools. How does Ubuntu run on the Pi work? I never got passed installation, because after install the first boot just hangs. It seems to me it wants to install additional stuf…

It’s not clear what method you used but for the benefit of others: Don’t install Ubuntu, it doesn’t have the needed closed source firmware blobs and isn’t compiled with some of the kernel modules the Pi uses. Instead burn a copy of the preinstalled Ubuntu Raspberry Pi disk images to an SD card.

Downloads here: https://ubuntu.com/download/raspberry-pi

64-bit is only supported on newer 3B and 4 devices and is missing some Pi-specific features.

Re: Raspberry Pi 4 can finally boot directly from USB

#128

Post by ComputerGuru »

FullyFunctional wrote: post #19

It's nice but I'm honestly baffled that it's seen as such a big deal as it's pretty trivial to make grub boot off USB, leaving the SDcard only being used doing the initial boot. Is it just about the convenience?

Now you don’t need an SD card at all!

Re: Raspberry Pi 4 can finally boot directly from USB

#129

Post by salawat »

rektide wrote: post #71
colordrops wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Raspberry Pi is an ecosystem which is based on proprietary technologies and masquerading as an open source friendly thing It depends on what layer you care about. At the application layer it is completely open. Even if the chip designs and drivers were open source, you could claim that there are proprietary processes and supply chains for the hardware and material themselves. Unless amateurs could build one from sc…

> It depends on what layer you care about. At the application layer it is completely open. I'm not down with this injection of skepticism. This is slipperly language trying to make a pretty clearly contrasted situation murky. Sure, if you just need something to process instructions, maybe the well-defined cpu architecture is enough. But kernels need things like timers to run. They need USB hosts to attach keyboards &…

I've heard some of Broadcom's stingeyness with documentation may stem from the risks created by the perverse environment created by IP laws. With a patent troll only one manual away, I can somewhat understand to a degree holding things close to your chest if you want to continue to exist.

I mean it sucks massively, but I can at least understand it. It's part of why I strongly disagree with the "IP" side of semiconductor products, and believe that we really need to treat everything about computing as if it were straight up math. Doing anything else simply ensures that the knowledge will only very slowly percolate outward in the process of becoming a naturally endemic proficiency of the average modern human.

Re: Raspberry Pi 4 can finally boot directly from USB

#130

Post by pbalau »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #119
pbalau wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you are running your own router, like the op, most likely his setup won't help you. You should start by understanding all the components of the system and then figure out how to make it fit in your environment and maybe what changes you need to make. Start here [0] 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preboot_Execution_Environment

The Pi doesn't use PXE. It's different, but documented here: https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberry...

You probably should read that link, section "DHCP Request / Reply". Virtually the entire world uses PXE.

Anyway, I find it funny that we are arguing about the proper name for network boot in a thread about usb boot.

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