5 ms·

And it still crawls to boot. I don't know why, but my suspicion is that the Broadcom hardware is seriously gimped by being closed source. Seriously, just open

And it still crawls to boot. I don't know why, but my suspicion is that the Broadcom hardware is seriously gimped by being closed source. Seriously, just open source stuff already, and let us do the development for you!

jsheard 6y ago
I wouldn't be surprised if the Pi Foundation is in the process of transitioning away from Broadcom hardware They're already testing the waters of in-house silicon with the RP2040, an in-house Linux SoC would be the next step
- varispeed 6y ago
  Is RP2040 completely open though?
  - jsheard 6y ago
    As far as I know the RP2040 has no secrets, everything is documented in public: https://datasheets.raspberrypi.org/rp2040/rp2040-datasheet.pdf https://datasheets.raspberrypi.org/rp2040/rp2040-datasheet.p... Realistically a Pi Linux SoC would probably be more open than Broadcom hardware, but not completely open. IP blocks they license from 3rd parties (e.g. the GPU) may still have NDA strings attached, and the wireless firmware would still need to be an untinkerable black box to get regulatory approval. It would still be a step up from Broadcom who won't give you anything until you sign an NDA and commit to buying 10 million units and offer up your firstborn child.
LockAndLol 6y ago
Is there no open-source alternative to broadcom?
- wmf 6y ago
  Lots of other boards use Allwinner SoCs. I don't know if the RPi Foundation can escape their special relationship with Broadcom.
  - person_of_color 6y ago
    Eben has left Broadcom.
- sitzkrieg 6y ago
  libre computer le potato is a good example of amlogic board
Decabytes 6y ago
While the boot times across the different medias as disappointing for sure, Raspberry PI OS has better boot times then a lot of the other OSes I've tested on the PI4
coder543 6y ago
7.7s is not "crawling" to boot. I don't think I've owned a computer that boots faster than that, and I've owned a few fancy, expensive computers over the years. I remember spending a long time optimizing the boot sequence for one of my desktops years ago and I might have gotten close to that... but 7.7s is perfectly fine for something that is neither a microcontroller nor a cloud VM that has no real hardware to initialize. I just measured, and my M1 MacBook Air takes 32 seconds to boot to the unlock screen, and then a further 8 seconds after the password is entered before it reaches the desktop. As I'm sure you're aware, the M1 processor is no slouch, and Apple includes an NVMe SSD with respectable (though not mind blowing) performance in this laptop.
- bjt2n3904 6y ago
  Compared to your desktop / laptop? Sure. But this is the embedded world. I've got a minimalist image on a Beaglebone that takes just over 6 seconds to get to a shell from power on. But most of that is loading the kernel and U-Boot from the eMMC. From kernel to shell is 2.2 seconds. And the BeagleBone is long in the tooth, compared to the Pi4. NVMe absolutely screams for data transfer rates. And according to these tests, using NVMe adds 30 ms to the boot process. Something is wrong.
  - coder543 6y ago
    > Something is wrong. Really disagree. Loading a few megabytes of kernel would take way less than a second even on microSD. eMMC can be noticeably faster, yet you’re still saying it takes 6 seconds on your eMMC BeagleBoard. Hardware initialization takes time. Can it be faster? Probably, but you haven’t provided a compelling example by referencing the BeagleBoard being one second faster. 7.7 seconds isn’t mind blowing, but it’s not crawling. It’s more than adequate here. If they optimize it more in the future... cool. If you want open systems, the upcoming RISC-V SBC revolution seems likely to be much friendlier than Broadcom, but the Pi is already more open than most ARM platforms, in my opinion.
sitzkrieg 6y ago
the bootloader seems to have a long delay booting for no reason (on all boards), not hw bound but posts are going ignored so far

jsheard 6y ago

I wouldn't be surprised if the Pi Foundation is in the process of transitioning away from Broadcom hardware They're already testing the waters of in-house silicon with the RP2040, an in-house Linux SoC would be the next step

varispeed 6y ago
Is RP2040 completely open though?
- jsheard 6y ago
  As far as I know the RP2040 has no secrets, everything is documented in public: https://datasheets.raspberrypi.org/rp2040/rp2040-datasheet.pdf https://datasheets.raspberrypi.org/rp2040/rp2040-datasheet.p... Realistically a Pi Linux SoC would probably be more open than Broadcom hardware, but not completely open. IP blocks they license from 3rd parties (e.g. the GPU) may still have NDA strings attached, and the wireless firmware would still need to be an untinkerable black box to get regulatory approval. It would still be a step up from Broadcom who won't give you anything until you sign an NDA and commit to buying 10 million units and offer up your firstborn child.

LockAndLol 6y ago

Is there no open-source alternative to broadcom?

wmf 6y ago
Lots of other boards use Allwinner SoCs. I don't know if the RPi Foundation can escape their special relationship with Broadcom.
- person_of_color 6y ago
  Eben has left Broadcom.
sitzkrieg 6y ago
libre computer le potato is a good example of amlogic board

Decabytes 6y ago

While the boot times across the different medias as disappointing for sure, Raspberry PI OS has better boot times then a lot of the other OSes I've tested on the PI4

coder543 6y ago

7.7s is not "crawling" to boot. I don't think I've owned a computer that boots faster than that, and I've owned a few fancy, expensive computers over the years. I remember spending a long time optimizing the boot sequence for one of my desktops years ago and I might have gotten close to that... but 7.7s is perfectly fine for something that is neither a microcontroller nor a cloud VM that has no real hardware to initialize. I just measured, and my M1 MacBook Air takes 32 seconds to boot to the unlock screen, and then a further 8 seconds after the password is entered before it reaches the desktop. As I'm sure you're aware, the M1 processor is no slouch, and Apple includes an NVMe SSD with respectable (though not mind blowing) performance in this laptop.

bjt2n3904 6y ago
Compared to your desktop / laptop? Sure. But this is the embedded world. I've got a minimalist image on a Beaglebone that takes just over 6 seconds to get to a shell from power on. But most of that is loading the kernel and U-Boot from the eMMC. From kernel to shell is 2.2 seconds. And the BeagleBone is long in the tooth, compared to the Pi4. NVMe absolutely screams for data transfer rates. And according to these tests, using NVMe adds 30 ms to the boot process. Something is wrong.
- coder543 6y ago
  > Something is wrong. Really disagree. Loading a few megabytes of kernel would take way less than a second even on microSD. eMMC can be noticeably faster, yet you’re still saying it takes 6 seconds on your eMMC BeagleBoard. Hardware initialization takes time. Can it be faster? Probably, but you haven’t provided a compelling example by referencing the BeagleBoard being one second faster. 7.7 seconds isn’t mind blowing, but it’s not crawling. It’s more than adequate here. If they optimize it more in the future... cool. If you want open systems, the upcoming RISC-V SBC revolution seems likely to be much friendlier than Broadcom, but the Pi is already more open than most ARM platforms, in my opinion.

sitzkrieg 6y ago

the bootloader seems to have a long delay booting for no reason (on all boards), not hw bound but posts are going ignored so far