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The Boot Order of the Raspberry Pi Is Unusual

patrickmccanna.net

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Re: The Boot Order of the Raspberry Pi Is Unusual

#11

Post by yunohn »

dmitrygr wrote: post #2

How can one "discover" something well documented in the datasheet, and on google https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=266130 , https://www.google.com/search?q=raspberry+pi+boot+chain

The blog post from OP is mostly AI generated - quite a few tells in the style of writing.

Re: The Boot Order of the Raspberry Pi Is Unusual

#12

Post by Joker_vD »

atoav wrote: post #3
dmitrygr wrote: post #2

How can one "discover" something well documented in the datasheet, and on google https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=266130 , https://www.google.com/search?q=raspberry+pi+boot+chain

As an electrical engineer: you'd be surprised how many people "discover" long held truths like that you can use the MPN ("Manufacturer Part Number") of a device to find it's documentation and that this documentation sometimes contains useful data.

It's everywhere. Just recently (a couple of months ago) on HN there was a story about an SQLite-but-rewritten-in-Rust [0], how they've discovered some peculiarity in SQLite file format by reading its source code. Except, of course, this peculiarity has been documented for decades, on SQLite's official site. How did they manage to write SQLite-compatible DBMS without reading the official documentation of the file format, I have no idea.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45059888

Re: The Boot Order of the Raspberry Pi Is Unusual

#14

Post by ValdikSS »

ValdikSS wrote: post #13

Well, "Traditional PC Boot" is also not like that on Intel, the booting is started from the chipset, from Intel ME. It boots the CPU.

And on many other platforms the CPU also does not boot itself. Many SoCs have a small core which configures and boots all the other cores (usually Cortex-M or similar).

Re: The Boot Order of the Raspberry Pi Is Unusual

#15

Post by nineteen999 »

Joker_vD wrote: post #12
atoav wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an electrical engineer: you'd be surprised how many people "discover" long held truths like that you can use the MPN ("Manufacturer Part Number") of a device to find it's documentation and that this documentation sometimes contains useful data.

It's everywhere. Just recently (a couple of months ago) on HN there was a story about an SQLite-but-rewritten-in-Rust [0], how they've discovered some peculiarity in SQLite file format by reading its source code. Except, of course, this peculiarity has been documented for decades, on SQLite's official site. How did they manage to write SQLite-compatible DBMS without reading the official documentation of the file form…

It does not bode well when you're writing a database engine and not revealing any bugs ... because all your test datasets are under 1GB.

Re: The Boot Order of the Raspberry Pi Is Unusual

#16

Post by joezydeco »

messe wrote: post #4

> This explains several Raspberry Pi oddities: > The Raspberry Pi has No BIOS / UEFI This isn't really that strange for an ARM SoC.

I've worked on bootloaders for multiple ARM SoCs and each one has their own charms, their own quirks, and their own hair-pulling features. I wouldn't touch Broadcom parts with a ten-foot pole but, thankfully, they don't want to work with me either so we're cool.

TI and NXP are probably the better choices. 3358/Beagle still looks for a IBM PC/MSDOS-era Master Boot Record at the start of flash when strapped the normal way, which is charming. Most allow for UART bootstrapping when nothing else is available, which is a lifesaver. I do wish more parts picked up the USB-UF2 bootloading method that Pico has created. THAT is awesome.

Re: The Boot Order of the Raspberry Pi Is Unusual

#17

Post by ChickeNES »

oddmiral wrote: post #6
baobun wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, there is UEFI firmware for it. https://0ink.net/posts/2024/2024-07-01-pi-uefi-boot.html

Can this UEFI firmware be ported to other ARM devices, e.g. phones, tablets, books?

Yes, it's just a port of the EDK2 UEFI reference firmware
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