Raspberry Pi 4 usb boot?

[pepeEL]

It's good if it would be done faster than a few months ... because a lot of people are waiting for it.

[clicky]

It's good if it would be done faster than a few months ... because a lot of people are waiting for it.

Here we go again.
The people that are waiting on it could apply one of the simple workarounds and could go on with their life...

[dickon]

It's quite a complicated thing. Much moreso than network, I would think. For network, you only need to write a driver for the hardware -- surprisingly simple in most cases; I did one for the DEC Tulip back in the day, and it wasn't much over about a 1000 lines of assembly, if that -- and enough of a UDP/IP stack (with trivial ARP, DHCP, and TFTP implementations; none of which is difficult) to load the next-stage.

For USB you've got to initialise the hardware, enumerate all the devices, handle hubs, ideally handle as many quirks as possible, and then you've got to have enough of a SCSI stack -- the USB mass-storage protocol is basically SCSI over USB -- to start probing the attached discs to read stuff from. After than you can hand it off to the partition and FAT parsers you've already got for the SD card mode, but there's still a lot of work to be done. All in, AIUI, about 32K of ROM space.

Not a simple job.

[pepeEL]

It's good if it would be done faster than a few months ... because a lot of people are waiting for it.

Here we go again.
The people that are waiting on it could apply one of the simple workarounds and could go on with their life...

Please write manual if it is very simple....

[clicky]

Please write manual if it is very simple....

It was already mentioned many times in this particular thread (and a few different approaches to it). Here is what I've done:
https://www.maketecheasier.com/boot-up- ... hard-disk/

It did take 2 minutes of my time and another I can't-remember-how-long for rsync to finish and it just worked. No big deal. And it is still working and I am using that RPi4 to write it from.

[B.Goode]

It's good if it would be done faster than a few months ... because a lot of people are waiting for it.

Here we go again.
The people that are waiting on it could apply one of the simple workarounds and could go on with their life...

Please write manual if it is very simple....

It can be done trivially with the NOOBS Installer https://github.com/raspberrypi/noobs/bl ... /README.md, and equally easily with the better supported PINN https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/view ... 3&t=142574

Or forum user @RonR has a utility to assist you. https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/view ... 1#p1547589

[pepeEL]

I want use Hassos system with Home Assistant.... it is other system.

[dickon]

It was already mentioned many times in this particular thread (and a few different approaches to it). Here is what I've done:
https://www.maketecheasier.com/boot-up- ... hard-disk/

Interesting (and accurate) set of instructions. I always

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sudo su -

to get a full login shell, where PATH is setup correctly, and I'd recommend removing the 'noatime' from the root stanza in /etc/fstab as it's quite useful and doesn't have the same issues on a proper HD that it does on an SD card (basically, the extra write duty won't be an issue on a proper device, which it is on an SD card).

[jamesh]

It's good if it would be done faster than a few months ... because a lot of people are waiting for it.

It'll be done when it's done. Constant pestering will not make it appear any faster. And in the general scheme of things, no, a lot of people are not waiting for it. We are making 100 of thousands of Pi4's a WEEK. Compare that with the number of people asking for USB boot......

[OneMore]

... Compare that with the number of people asking for USB boot......

Other people are not asking... We just wait... By the way for hassio as well.

[jamesh]

It's quite a complicated thing. Much moreso than network, I would think. For network, you only need to write a driver for the hardware -- surprisingly simple in most cases; I did one for the DEC Tulip back in the day, and it wasn't much over about a 1000 lines of assembly, if that -- and enough of a UDP/IP stack (with trivial ARP, DHCP, and TFTP implementations; none of which is difficult) to load the next-stage.

For USB you've got to initialise the hardware, enumerate all the devices, handle hubs, ideally handle as many quirks as possible, and then you've got to have enough of a SCSI stack -- the USB mass-storage protocol is basically SCSI over USB -- to start probing the attached discs to read stuff from. After than you can hand it off to the partition and FAT parsers you've already got for the SD card mode, but there's still a lot of work to be done. All in, AIUI, about 32K of ROM space.

Not a simple job.

Spot on.

[jamesh]

... Compare that with the number of people asking for USB boot......

Other people are not asking... We just wait... By the way for hassio as well.

I have no problem with people waiting, quietly.

Had to look up Hassio. No idea what it was.

[clicky]

Interesting (and accurate) set of instructions. I always

Code: Select all

sudo su -

to get a full login shell, where PATH is setup correctly, and I'd recommend removing the 'noatime' from the root stanza in /etc/fstab as it's quite useful and doesn't have the same issues on a proper HD that it does on an SD card (basically, the extra write duty won't be an issue on a proper device, which it is on an SD card).

Would 'noatime' help with SSD and controller I have no idea if it implemented trim and such ("ostrich head in sand" is first association that came to me to describe my approach in this case)?

[clicky]

I want use Hassos system with Home Assistant.... it is other system.

If you don't need to copy root to your image (on HD) - even better - you just need to update `/boot/cmdline.txt` and that's all!

[dickon]

Would 'noatime' help with SSD and controller I have no idea if it implemented trim and such ("ostrich head in sand" is first association that came to me to describe my approach in this case)?

All noatime does is stop the kernel writing atime datestamps when files are read from. These are mostly delayed until things are written to anyway, but they're worth disabling on something as limited as an SD card. Personally I find atimes quite useful and I wouldn't disable them on a proper disc.

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ls -lu

is handy once in a while.

[royhenderson]

Yes, network boot has been added.

Is there any documentation available regarding network boot on RPi-4? I've trawled the board but most of what I've found looks to be a series of solutions to encountered problems …

TIA

[jamesh]

Yes, network boot has been added.

Is there any documentation available regarding network boot on RPi-4? I've trawled the board but most of what I've found looks to be a series of solutions to encountered problems …

TIA

Still going through merging, should be up soon. See https://github.com/raspberrypi/rpi-eepr ... ot_beta.md

[harwoodr]

Still no movement on booting RPi4 from usb....they dont seem to realise that to some users boot speed and reliabilty are important, come on guys you promised that this feature would be added, if it doesnt come soon we will be into Rpi 5 already

[jj_0]

Still no movement on booting RPi4 from usb....they dont seem to realise that to some users boot speed and reliabilty are important, come on guys you promised that this feature would be added, if it doesnt come soon we will be into Rpi 5 already

I really don't understand this kind of comment. As has been stated many times in this thread (I guess it's my turn now) you can already boot with your rootfs on USB with only the initial boot files on an SD-card. There is really no speed nor reliability advantage against booting entirely from USB. The only advantage I see is that booting entirely from USB frees up the SD-card slot.

Patience is a virtue.

[RonR]

The only advantage I see is that booting entirely from USB frees up the SD-card slot.

And if you really need the SD card slot for some other use, you can remove the SD card that's used for booting as long as you replace it before trying to boot to USB again.

[rpdom]

As has been stated many times in this thread (I guess it's my turn now) you can already boot with your rootfs on USB with only the initial boot files on an SD-card. There is really no speed nor reliability advantage against booting entirely from USB.

Exactly the opposite, in fact. The Pi 3B[+] for example will try to look for an SD card to boot from for a few seconds before it tries to boot from USB or network. So the start of the boot at least will take longer than just booting initially from SD card.

[jamesh]

Still no movement on booting RPi4 from usb....they dont seem to realise that to some users boot speed and reliabilty are important, come on guys you promised that this feature would be added, if it doesnt come soon we will be into Rpi 5 already

Q. Do you think we are stupid
A. No, we are not, and someone is working on it right now. You made a colossal mistake - that of think that just because YOU haven't seen any progress, that there hasn't been any progress. News for you, that's not how it works.

You clearly do not realise how complex it actually is to do this. Requires an entire open source (not GPL) USB 2/3stack to be found/developed, to cope with whatever can be plugged in. Plus a USB HW driver that works via the PCIe interface, so PCIe also needs to work. All in the bootloader! Huge amount of very complex work.

As for boot speed - already referenced above - quicker to use an SD card!!!!!

Reliability? Got any figures? I've had terrible reliability from SSD's and great reliability from SD cards...

[clicky]

Still no movement on booting RPi4 from usb....they dont seem to realise that to some users boot speed and reliabilty are important, come on guys you promised that this feature would be added, if it doesnt come soon we will be into Rpi 5 already

Q. Do you think we are stupid
A. No, we are not, and someone is working on it right now. You made a colossal mistake - that of think that just because YOU haven't seen any progress, that there hasn't been any progress. News for you, that's not how it works.

You clearly do not realise how complex it actually is to do this. Requires an entire open source (not GPL) USB 2/3stack to be found/developed, to cope with whatever can be plugged in. Plus a USB HW driver that works via the PCIe interface, so PCIe also needs to work. All in the bootloader! Huge amount of very complex work.

As for boot speed - already referenced above - quicker to use an SD card!!!!!

Reliability? Got any figures? I've had terrible reliability from SSD's and great reliability from SD cards...

This was quite unnecessary. Is it called 'feeding the troll''?

Nobody with half a brain and good intentions do not presume that you're not doing anything. On the contrary! How many times we were positively surprised with new developments (I'm just referring to everything you've done after original Raspberry Pi was released)?

People who are using Raspberry Pi 4 B daily (like me - booting it from SSD) do not complain nor have any issues at all. People who refuse to turn on 'common sense' part of the brain will complain about pretty much everything. Just imagine what kind of barrage of 'negativity' will spawn from introducing USB boot - it will be by default broken, not worth, bad, and who knows why not suitable (for them)...

[LTolledo]

As a temporary measure am also booting my RPi4B-4G with M.2 SSD using RonR's script to set it up...

no real problems so far.....

[pepeEL]

As a temporary measure am also booting my RPi4B-4G with M.2 SSD using RonR's script to set it up...

no real problems so far.....

Please share this script with manual how do it?