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First fully functional 64-bit OS for the Raspberry Pi 4

44 points by chrisys 7y ago

correct_horse 7y ago
This is good news. I had assumed that raspbian was 64 bit by now. It seems weird, since the Raspberry Pi v2.1 (second revision of Raspberry pi 2) launched with a 64-bit processor. I can't find a date for that launch, but the pi 3 launched in February 2016. The Pi foundation was forthcoming about Raspbian being 32 bit in the pi3 announcement article, but the timescale they laid out for making it 64 bit was "the next few months". I guess the reason anyone bothered porting to 64 bit is the fact that the pi4 has a 4GB of RAM option (you can't address the full 4GB with 32 bits).
- Wowfunhappy 7y ago
  > you can't address the full 4GB with 32 bits Sure you can, you use page tables.
  - voxadam 7y ago
    Exactly, didn't Arm add support for Large Physical Address Extension (LPAE) back in the v7 days?
- praseodym 7y ago
  Debian arm64 works fine on the Raspberry Pi 3 (https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi). The Pi 4 changed the boot sequence so that Debian doesn’t work any more, making this the first 64-bit OS for the Pi 4.
  - weare138 7y ago
    They didn't say it is the first 64bit OS that runs on the Pi 4. The key phrase is "fully functional" which has no definitive definition. It's just some clickbait, marketing jargon.
Vogtinator 7y ago
> All these fixes were pushed upstream and are available in the main Raspberry Pi Linux repository. Well that's just highly misleading. "upstream" in this case refers to the outdated downstream kernel provided by the RPi foundation. Mainline does not have support for brcmstb at all current.y
- Fnoord 7y ago
  That's an upstream, and it is defined right afterwards: > and are available in the main Raspberry Pi Linux repository Hardly misleading. It clearly says "Raspberry Pi" and it doesn't say "main Linux repository". They could've added the word 'kernel' but then again I suppose it is a general Raspberry Pi git repo. Merging the Raspberry Pi Linux kernel repo with Torvalds' mainline isn't their responsibility. That's not to say this whole thing isn't an advertisement though. This whole balenaOS and balenaCloud thing is some kind of frontend for Docker and the like, but have you seen the Pricing? I'll just patiently wait for Raspbian Aarch64/ARM64 version instead :)
  - ksaj 7y ago
    It already is a huge improvement. So when it goes full 64 bit and all the memory is accessible, it'll give a second bump to that experience of improvement.
aap_ 7y ago
The first? Plan 9 (9front to be specific) had support for it for a few weeks now.
jtenniswood 7y ago
There are already builds of Ubuntu 64bit that are very solid... https://jamesachambers.com/raspberry-pi-4-ubuntu-server-desktop-18-04-3-image-unofficial/ https://jamesachambers.com/raspberry-pi-4-ubuntu-server-desk...

44 points by chrisys 7y ago

This is good news. I had assumed that raspbian was 64 bit by now. It seems weird, since the Raspberry Pi v2.1 (second revision of Raspberry pi 2) launched with a 64-bit processor. I can't find a date for that launch, but the pi 3 launched in February 2016. The Pi foundation was forthcoming about Raspbian being 32 bit in the pi3 announcement article, but the timescale they laid out for making it 64 bit was "the next few months". I guess the reason anyone bothered porting to 64 bit is the fact that the pi4 has a 4GB of RAM option (you can't address the full 4GB with 32 bits).

Wowfunhappy 7y ago
> you can't address the full 4GB with 32 bits Sure you can, you use page tables.
- voxadam 7y ago
  Exactly, didn't Arm add support for Large Physical Address Extension (LPAE) back in the v7 days?
praseodym 7y ago
Debian arm64 works fine on the Raspberry Pi 3 (https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi). The Pi 4 changed the boot sequence so that Debian doesn’t work any more, making this the first 64-bit OS for the Pi 4.
- weare138 7y ago
  They didn't say it is the first 64bit OS that runs on the Pi 4. The key phrase is "fully functional" which has no definitive definition. It's just some clickbait, marketing jargon.

Vogtinator 7y ago

> All these fixes were pushed upstream and are available in the main Raspberry Pi Linux repository. Well that's just highly misleading. "upstream" in this case refers to the outdated downstream kernel provided by the RPi foundation. Mainline does not have support for brcmstb at all current.y

Fnoord 7y ago
That's an upstream, and it is defined right afterwards: > and are available in the main Raspberry Pi Linux repository Hardly misleading. It clearly says "Raspberry Pi" and it doesn't say "main Linux repository". They could've added the word 'kernel' but then again I suppose it is a general Raspberry Pi git repo. Merging the Raspberry Pi Linux kernel repo with Torvalds' mainline isn't their responsibility. That's not to say this whole thing isn't an advertisement though. This whole balenaOS and balenaCloud thing is some kind of frontend for Docker and the like, but have you seen the Pricing? I'll just patiently wait for Raspbian Aarch64/ARM64 version instead :)
- ksaj 7y ago
  It already is a huge improvement. So when it goes full 64 bit and all the memory is accessible, it'll give a second bump to that experience of improvement.

aap_ 7y ago

The first? Plan 9 (9front to be specific) had support for it for a few weeks now.

jtenniswood 7y ago

There are already builds of Ubuntu 64bit that are very solid... https://jamesachambers.com/raspberry-pi-4-ubuntu-server-desktop-18-04-3-image-unofficial/ https://jamesachambers.com/raspberry-pi-4-ubuntu-server-desk...