4 ms·

Has the situation around booting from a USB-drive bettered for the Raspberry pi 4? Last time I tried, I couldn't figure out how to actually make it work.

moondev 5y ago
https://github.com/pftf/RPi4 https://github.com/pftf/RPi4 allows you to store the UEFI firmware on the sd card. This enables you to not only boot from USB, but also PXE and even ISCSI
- TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
  UEFI on an sd card -- that is so cool.
6581 5y ago
https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberrypi/bootmodes/msd.md https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberry...
roughly 5y ago
Yes - on the rpi4s, you can enable booting from usb devices directly using raspi-config, although raspbian is only 32 bit, so I wound up having to do a weird dance of using raspbian to enable usb boot and then installing ubuntu on the drive to get a 64bit OS
- zamadatix 5y ago
  FWIW Raspbian has a 64 bit version in beta https://downloads.raspberrypi.org/raspios_arm64/images/raspios_arm64-2020-08-24/ https://downloads.raspberrypi.org/raspios_arm64/images/raspi... the base image is outdated but you can full-system update from that point. I'm the same way though, I just use a more typical distro unless there is something I need the standard toolset for.
  - roughly 5y ago
    Yeah, I’d seen the beta, but it looked like an early effort shortly abandoned - it didn’t inspire a lot of confidence. Edit: although giving it a second glance, it looks like there’ve been a few updates: https://downloads.raspberrypi.org/raspios_arm64/images/ https://downloads.raspberrypi.org/raspios_arm64/images/
- geerlingguy 5y ago
  Note that Raspberry Pi OS also has a 64-bit beta version, and it's been extremely stable for me for months now.
  - vanilla_nut 5y ago
    I'll chime in that I've been using 64-bit raspberry pi OS for at least 8 months now and I haven't had any issues with it, other than a small snafu when I first tried to get Wireguard up and running but some of the base packages didn't yet support 64-bit OSes (I think?). That issue has since been fixed, I can happily report.
scottlamb 5y ago
Yes, I have a Pi4 booting off a SSD on a USB-SATA bridge. No SD card installed. This graduated from beta about a year ago. [1] Btw, since you brought up USB: disable UAS [2] when using cheap USB-SATA bridges! UAS is regularly recommended for performance reasons, but I've gotten block-level errors (eg those below) and filesystem corruption with UAS multiple times and never with UAS disabled. I've seen enough similar reports on the Internet to think it's better to just disable UAS. Sep 22 17:26:01 nuc kernel: sd 4:0:0:1: [sdb] tag#2 uas_eh_abort_handler 0 uas-tag 3 inflight: CMD OUT Sep 22 17:26:01 nuc kernel: sd 4:0:0:1: [sdb] tag#2 CDB: Write(16) 8a 00 00 00 00 01 4d b4 c4 00 00 00 03 b0 00 00 The Linux kernel has explicitly disabled UAS for some of these chipsets, but clearly not all of the offending ones. I'm not sure what you'd have to do to be confident your chipset is safe. I just don't think it's worth it. [1] https://github.com/raspberrypi/documentation/commit/bfef967d4e1fa6436d2302291aa5c3267ce32a22#diff-4d79d7285bf904464d7b40fffe5c480261bac879f1926750326751163e329434 https://github.com/raspberrypi/documentation/commit/bfef967d... [2] https://github.com/scottlamb/moonfire-nvr/wiki/System-setup#disable-uas https://github.com/scottlamb/moonfire-nvr/wiki/System-setup#...
camdv 5y ago
Be careful trying to boot 64 bit Ubuntu off a hard drive. You have to uncompress the kernel, or the boot will hang.

moondev 5y ago

https://github.com/pftf/RPi4 https://github.com/pftf/RPi4 allows you to store the UEFI firmware on the sd card. This enables you to not only boot from USB, but also PXE and even ISCSI

TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
UEFI on an sd card -- that is so cool.

6581 5y ago

https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberrypi/bootmodes/msd.md https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberry...

roughly 5y ago

Yes - on the rpi4s, you can enable booting from usb devices directly using raspi-config, although raspbian is only 32 bit, so I wound up having to do a weird dance of using raspbian to enable usb boot and then installing ubuntu on the drive to get a 64bit OS

zamadatix 5y ago
FWIW Raspbian has a 64 bit version in beta https://downloads.raspberrypi.org/raspios_arm64/images/raspios_arm64-2020-08-24/ https://downloads.raspberrypi.org/raspios_arm64/images/raspi... the base image is outdated but you can full-system update from that point. I'm the same way though, I just use a more typical distro unless there is something I need the standard toolset for.
- roughly 5y ago
  Yeah, I’d seen the beta, but it looked like an early effort shortly abandoned - it didn’t inspire a lot of confidence. Edit: although giving it a second glance, it looks like there’ve been a few updates: https://downloads.raspberrypi.org/raspios_arm64/images/ https://downloads.raspberrypi.org/raspios_arm64/images/
geerlingguy 5y ago
Note that Raspberry Pi OS also has a 64-bit beta version, and it's been extremely stable for me for months now.
- vanilla_nut 5y ago
  I'll chime in that I've been using 64-bit raspberry pi OS for at least 8 months now and I haven't had any issues with it, other than a small snafu when I first tried to get Wireguard up and running but some of the base packages didn't yet support 64-bit OSes (I think?). That issue has since been fixed, I can happily report.

scottlamb 5y ago

Yes, I have a Pi4 booting off a SSD on a USB-SATA bridge. No SD card installed. This graduated from beta about a year ago. [1] Btw, since you brought up USB: disable UAS [2] when using cheap USB-SATA bridges! UAS is regularly recommended for performance reasons, but I've gotten block-level errors (eg those below) and filesystem corruption with UAS multiple times and never with UAS disabled. I've seen enough similar reports on the Internet to think it's better to just disable UAS. Sep 22 17:26:01 nuc kernel: sd 4:0:0:1: [sdb] tag#2 uas_eh_abort_handler 0 uas-tag 3 inflight: CMD OUT Sep 22 17:26:01 nuc kernel: sd 4:0:0:1: [sdb] tag#2 CDB: Write(16) 8a 00 00 00 00 01 4d b4 c4 00 00 00 03 b0 00 00 The Linux kernel has explicitly disabled UAS for some of these chipsets, but clearly not all of the offending ones. I'm not sure what you'd have to do to be confident your chipset is safe. I just don't think it's worth it. [1] https://github.com/raspberrypi/documentation/commit/bfef967d4e1fa6436d2302291aa5c3267ce32a22#diff-4d79d7285bf904464d7b40fffe5c480261bac879f1926750326751163e329434 https://github.com/raspberrypi/documentation/commit/bfef967d... [2] https://github.com/scottlamb/moonfire-nvr/wiki/System-setup#disable-uas https://github.com/scottlamb/moonfire-nvr/wiki/System-setup#...

camdv 5y ago

Be careful trying to boot 64 bit Ubuntu off a hard drive. You have to uncompress the kernel, or the boot will hang.