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Is it truly amazing? I was under impression that Raspberry requires some blobs to run properly. Is there detailed specifications for Broadcom chip they're using

Is it truly amazing? I was under impression that Raspberry requires some blobs to run properly. Is there detailed specifications for Broadcom chip they're using? I was under impression that it was NDA and not possible to obtain for ordinary mortal. So may be it's good because of sheer number of people tinkering with it and smoothing rough edges, but it could be better. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

ZiiS 3y ago
I would better phrase it as every other board has amazingly bad support.
- doubled112 3y ago
  Sometimes it is a matter of choosing the one that sucks the least.
londons_explore 3y ago
You're right. Pretty much all the low level stuff below the kernel in a pi is closed source. Want your own custom boot rom so you can start up in half a second rather than the default 3 seconds before linux gets loaded? - sorry, we can't share the code for that with you, nor the specs for you to write it yourself!
- rusk 3y ago
  There’s a few popular bare metal projects. Pi 1541 springs to mind. So it is possible, tho perhaps only with earlier generations
  - dezgeg 3y ago
    That's not what they meant. Yes, anybody can write bare metal alternative to Linux ( at the very least by looking at the Linux codebase). But still that Pi 1541 depends on the bootcode.bin, fixup.dat and start.elf binary blobs, which the OP was complaining about.
    - rusk 3y ago
      It wasn’t clear to me what they meant. I’m not familiar with the details of boot.bin but my read of what GP was implying was you had to use the rapsbian kernel and drivers. Thanks for the information.
worik 3y ago
> Please correct me if I'm wrong. My memory told me it was the GPU that needed the blobs. So I asked at DDG https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ftsa&q=binary+blobs+and+the+Raspberry+PI&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ftsa&q=binary+blobs+and+the+Raspbe... Turned up this: https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi and it says... > All Raspberry Pi models before the 4 (1A, 1B, 1A+, 1B+, Zero, Zero W, 2, 3, Zero 2 W) boot from their GPU (not from the CPU!), so they require a non-free binary blob to boot So the 4 (and I suppose the 5, if it ever actually comes...) Goes on to say: > Since then, Broadcom publicly released some code, licensed as 3-Clause BSD, to aid the making of an open source GPU driver. The "rpi-open-firmware" effort to replace the VPU firmware blob started in 2016. See more at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11703842 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11703842 . Unfortunately development of rpi-open-firmware is currently (2021-06) stalled. So there you are. Not wrong, are you, but not strictly correct, depending on "...to run properly" definition https://github.com/librerpi/rpi-open-firmware https://github.com/librerpi/rpi-open-firmware has updates 3-months ago

ZiiS 3y ago

I would better phrase it as every other board has amazingly bad support.

doubled112 3y ago
Sometimes it is a matter of choosing the one that sucks the least.

londons_explore 3y ago

You're right. Pretty much all the low level stuff below the kernel in a pi is closed source. Want your own custom boot rom so you can start up in half a second rather than the default 3 seconds before linux gets loaded? - sorry, we can't share the code for that with you, nor the specs for you to write it yourself!

rusk 3y ago
There’s a few popular bare metal projects. Pi 1541 springs to mind. So it is possible, tho perhaps only with earlier generations
- dezgeg 3y ago
  That's not what they meant. Yes, anybody can write bare metal alternative to Linux ( at the very least by looking at the Linux codebase). But still that Pi 1541 depends on the bootcode.bin, fixup.dat and start.elf binary blobs, which the OP was complaining about.
  - rusk 3y ago
    It wasn’t clear to me what they meant. I’m not familiar with the details of boot.bin but my read of what GP was implying was you had to use the rapsbian kernel and drivers. Thanks for the information.

worik 3y ago

> Please correct me if I'm wrong. My memory told me it was the GPU that needed the blobs. So I asked at DDG https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ftsa&q=binary+blobs+and+the+Raspberry+PI&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ftsa&q=binary+blobs+and+the+Raspbe... Turned up this: https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi and it says... > All Raspberry Pi models before the 4 (1A, 1B, 1A+, 1B+, Zero, Zero W, 2, 3, Zero 2 W) boot from their GPU (not from the CPU!), so they require a non-free binary blob to boot So the 4 (and I suppose the 5, if it ever actually comes...) Goes on to say: > Since then, Broadcom publicly released some code, licensed as 3-Clause BSD, to aid the making of an open source GPU driver. The "rpi-open-firmware" effort to replace the VPU firmware blob started in 2016. See more at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11703842 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11703842 . Unfortunately development of rpi-open-firmware is currently (2021-06) stalled. So there you are. Not wrong, are you, but not strictly correct, depending on "...to run properly" definition https://github.com/librerpi/rpi-open-firmware https://github.com/librerpi/rpi-open-firmware has updates 3-months ago