rpi-eeprom beta package - VL805 updates

[timg236]

We've just pushed an update to the rpi-eeprom apt package which enables updates to the USB VL805 EEPROM from recovery.bin. Updating the USB EEPROM from the bootloader is preferable to doing this from the command line because no USB devices are active then.

This version of the package will only update the VL805 if you are tracking beta-releases. If no major bugs are found in the next couple of days then the VL805 update will be enabled as a 'critical' update because it offers significant power savings.

If you opt out of bootloader EEPROM updates then the current mechanisms (e.g. FREEZE_VERSION in bootloader config or disabling the rpi-eeprom-update systemd service) will also apply to VL805 EEPROM updates.

Enable BETA EEPROMs and update bootloader + VL805.

Code: Select all

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
sudo sed -i -e 's/^FIRMWARE_RELEASE_STATUS=.*/FIRMWARE_RELEASE_STATUS=beta/' /etc/default/rpi-eeprom-update
sudo rpi-eeprom-update -a
sudo reboot

N.B. See 'rpi-eeprom-update -h' for more information.

[andrum99]

Does recovery.bin run on the ARM or the VPU?

[trejan]

Does recovery.bin run on the ARM or the VPU?

VPU

[andrum99]

Does recovery.bin run on the ARM or the VPU?

VPU

Thanks. The reason I asked was that the binary that was previously used to update the VL805 firmware ran on the ARM (at least I'm assuming it did, since it ran from the Linux command line) and that got me wondering about recovery.bin.

I'm guessing the VL805 firmware update that is about to get deployed to everyone is 000137ab?

[CypherOz]

I'm guessing the VL805 firmware update that is about to get deployed to everyone is 000137ab?

I think so, I've been running 000137ab since it was released for manual update around August. Using USB 3 regularly (storage)

[dickon]

I *think* it seems to've lopped about 10 degrees off the idle temperature on my Pi 4: it's currently reporting 46 degrees C, whereas before I'm fairly sure it was in the mid-50s. The Pi's temperature is one of the few things I don't obsessively graph, so I can't be certain.

Good work.

[andrum99]

I've got a heat sink case on my Pi 4B4 and the VL805 firmware update to version 000137ab reduced the idle temperature by about 3 or 4 C when I installed it in mid September.

[timg236]

I'm guessing the VL805 firmware update that is about to get deployed to everyone is 000137ab?

I think so, I've been running 000137ab since it was released for manual update around August. Using USB 3 regularly (storage)

Sorry, should have mentioned that it's the 000137ab.

[timg236]

Thanks for the test reports.

Unless anyone discovers a major problem we plan to include the VL805 000137ab in the 'critical' folder in the next version of this package which fixes a couple of minor issues in the update-script.
I think that could be this week or Monday at the latest.

Assuming that all goes well the rpi-eeprom will be listed is a dependency so everyone(*) gets this update, probably in a couple of weeks.


(*) Unless the FREEZE_VERSION is set to 1 in the bootloader config or systemd service is disabled etc

[timg236]

The rpi-eeprom package has now been updated such that the VL805 update is now part of the standard (critical) updates.
This means that everyone who has manually installed rpi-eeprom it downloaded the full Buster 2019-09-26 image will get the updates the next time they run run apt update + upgrade.
The rescue image on the downloads page has also been update to include the VLI update.

Thanks to everyone who tried the beta releases

[algorithm]

I previously installed the VL805 update from the google drive package. Is it then expected that no VL805 version info is available in rpi-eeprom-update? Maybe until there is another update? But current version is also empty:

Code: Select all

 $ LANG=C rpi-eeprom-update
Bootloader EEPROM is up to date
BOOTLOADER
CURRENT: di 10 sep 2019 10:41:50 UTC (1568112110)
 LATEST: di 10 sep 2019 10:41:50 UTC (1568112110)
VL805
CURRENT: 
 LATEST:

By the way: I added LANG=C to avoid localised dates while posting here but apparently that doesn't work. Strange. (Edit: ah, not strange! LANG is no good anymore, you have to use LC_ALL.) Also strange: all-caps and a space at the left margin (I realise it is to justify the dates but I'd put the space before the colon).

[RonR]

I previously installed the VL805 update from the google drive package. Is it then expected that no VL805 version info is available in rpi-eeprom-update? Maybe until there is another update? But current version is also empty:

Part of it may be a permissions problem:

Code: Select all

pi@FreePBX:~ $ rpi-eeprom-update
Bootloader EEPROM is up to date
BOOTLOADER
CURRENT: Tue 10 Sep 10:41:50 UTC 2019 (1568112110)
 LATEST: Tue 10 Sep 10:41:50 UTC 2019 (1568112110)
VL805
CURRENT:
 LATEST: 000137ab
 
pi@FreePBX:~ $ sudo rpi-eeprom-update
Bootloader EEPROM is up to date
BOOTLOADER
CURRENT: Tue 10 Sep 10:41:50 UTC 2019 (1568112110)
 LATEST: Tue 10 Sep 10:41:50 UTC 2019 (1568112110)
VL805
CURRENT: 000137ab
 LATEST: 000137ab

[knute]

I really don't understand how all this works so I've got a stupid question. If you run the update next week and it updates the eeprom and then you move the card to another Pi will running update again update that other Pi too?

[timg236]

I really don't understand how all this works so I've got a stupid question. If you run the update next week and it updates the eeprom and then you move the card to another Pi will running update again update that other Pi too?

Yes, the EEPROMs on the other Pi4 would be upgraded as well if you boot + reboot that Pi.

The rpi-eeprom package installs a Debian systemd service which runs at startup and prepares an EEPROM update if necessary. To see if the service is installed type

sudo systemctl status rpi-eeprom-update

[andrum99]

I previously installed the VL805 update from the google drive package. Is it then expected that no VL805 version info is available in rpi-eeprom-update? Maybe until there is another update? But current version is also empty:

Code: Select all

 $ LANG=C rpi-eeprom-update
Bootloader EEPROM is up to date
BOOTLOADER
CURRENT: di 10 sep 2019 10:41:50 UTC (1568112110)
 LATEST: di 10 sep 2019 10:41:50 UTC (1568112110)
VL805
CURRENT: 
 LATEST:

By the way: I added LANG=C to avoid localised dates while posting here but apparently that doesn't work. Strange. (Edit: ah, not strange! LANG is no good anymore, you have to use LC_ALL.) Also strange: all-caps and a space at the left margin (I realise it is to justify the dates but I'd put the space before the colon).

Try running rpi-eeprom-update without stuffing any environment variables on the front, and invoke it using sudo - that *should* allow the VL805 parts of the script to run correctly:

Code: Select all

sudo rpi-eeprom-update

[timg236]

The VL805 tool has to run as root to get the version numbee of the running firmware. The rpi-eeprom-update service runs from systemd so it's not a problem for automatic updates.

I'll tweak the text in the rpi-eeprom-update version status to indicate this

[algorithm]

Try running rpi-eeprom-update without stuffing any environment variables on the front, and invoke it using sudo - that *should* allow the VL805 parts of the script to run correctly:

Code: Select all

sudo rpi-eeprom-update

"Stuffing"? This is an entirely common way of temporarily resetting a custom language install. Like I said, it worked with LC_ALL. That there is no version info for VL805 is unrelated. And of course I had tried it without the variable, I only added it when I wanted to post here.

However, I did not try sudo, because the eeprom info never needed it, so it didn't occur to me that the vl805 info might (especially since there was no error, only missing versions). After I posted, there was an update to the rpi-eeprom package which now does display vl805 version info: both types with sudo but only Latest (not Current) without.

[HypnoToad]

The rpi-eeprom package has now been updated such that the VL805 update is now part of the standard (critical) updates.
This means that everyone who has manually installed rpi-eeprom it downloaded the full Buster 2019-09-26 image will get the updates the next time they run run apt update + upgrade.
The rescue image on the downloads page has also been update to include the VLI update.

Thanks to everyone who tried the beta releases

My VL805 seems to have updated itself from 00013701 to 000137ab without issue, it did it on reboot, and now my CPU temps are around 5 degrees less at idle.

[laurent]

The same here.
Upgrade was fine with the regular apt procedure, and won about 4-5 °C when idle.

[JumpZero]

Same here
Upgrade was fine with the regular apt procedure.

Code: Select all

# systemd rpi-eeprom-update.service is masked on my system, I prefer use rpi-eeprom-update myself.
moi@pi4:~ $ sudo rpi-eeprom-update -a
*** INSTALLING EEPROM UPDATES ***
BOOTLOADER
CURRENT: mardi 10 septembre 2019, 10:41:50 (UTC+0000) (1568112110)
 LATEST: mardi 10 septembre 2019, 10:41:50 (UTC+0000) (1568112110)
VL805
CURRENT: 00013701
 LATEST: 000137ab
Bootloader and/or VL805 EEPROM update pending. Please reboot to apply the update.

Temperature went down a few degrees but can't tell exactly how much since I don't really watch it.
Now LATEST: 000137ab

[ingotee]

I wanted to really measure the difference, so I would like to revert to the old FW. I grabbed vl805-00013701.bin from https://github.com/raspberrypi/rpi-eepr ... mware/beta

and ran

Code: Select all

sudo systemctl disable rpi-eeprom-update
sudo rpi-eeprom-update -u vl805-00013701.bin
sudo reboot

sudo rpi-eeprom-update confirms that 13701 is active.

Is this the orginal firmware or an intermediate release? If the latter - is the release firmware still available?

BTW: The difference between 13701 and 137ab is about 0,3W in power consumption when no USB 3.0 device is transferring a lot of data. The difference in SoC temperature obviously depends on the case.
Thanks!

Ingo

[jimbojones]

Apologies if this is a stupid question and answered elsewhere, but I’m womndering if someone could please explain how you are supposed to update the EEPROM on the rpi4 if you aren’t running raspbian? I’m running arch linux arm on my rpi4, using the aarch64 4.19.y branch of raspberrypi/linux kernel. It’s not really clear to me how one goes about uploading the bootloader if you aren’t able to use the apt repo on rasbpian. I tried downloading the zip folder from the EEPROM recovery page, but it seems like the version included is version f626c772 from September 10, not the latest one talked about on this thread.

[Kendek]

Apologies if this is a stupid question and answered elsewhere, but I’m womndering if someone could please explain how you are supposed to update the EEPROM on the rpi4 if you aren’t running raspbian?

Just place the update files on the FAT32 boot partition and reboot.

Code: Select all

wget -O /boot/partition/recovery.bin https://github.com/raspberrypi/rpi-eeprom/raw/master/firmware/recovery.bin
wget -O /boot/partition/pieeprom.upd https://github.com/raspberrypi/rpi-eeprom/raw/master/firmware/beta/pieeprom-2019-10-16.bin
wget -O /boot/partition/vl805.bin https://github.com/raspberrypi/rpi-eeprom/raw/master/firmware/critical/vl805-000137ab.bin
sha256sum /boot/partition/pieeprom.upd | cut -d' ' -f1 >/boot/partition/pieeprom.sig
sha256sum /boot/partition/vl805.bin | cut -d' ' -f1 >/boot/partition/vl805.sig
reboot

[timg236]

Apologies if this is a stupid question and answered elsewhere, but I’m womndering if someone could please explain how you are supposed to update the EEPROM on the rpi4 if you aren’t running raspbian? I’m running arch linux arm on my rpi4, using the aarch64 4.19.y branch of raspberrypi/linux kernel. It’s not really clear to me how one goes about uploading the bootloader if you aren’t able to use the apt repo on rasbpian. I tried downloading the zip folder from the EEPROM recovery page, but it seems like the version included is version f626c772 from September 10, not the latest one talked about on this thread.

The rpi-eeprom package is only supported on Raspbian so for other distributions the maintainers would need to implement a similar package. Since the update is just a shell script it should be reasonably easy for other distributions to either re-package the scripts or roll their own e.g. LibreElec does this.

You'll need to sort out any dependency issues yourself (e.g. userland vcgencmd etc) but this will install the scripts but not a systemd service.

Code: Select all

git clone https://github.com/raspberrypi/rpi-eeprom.git
sudo ./rpi-eeprom/test/install

[jimbojones]

The rpi-eeprom package is only supported on Raspbian so for other distributions the maintainers would need to implement a similar package. Since the update is just a shell script it should be reasonably easy for other distributions to either re-package the scripts or roll their own e.g. LibreElec does this.

You'll need to sort out any dependency issues yourself (e.g. userland vcgencmd etc) but this will install the scripts but not a systemd service.

Yeah I figured that the rpi-eeprom update package itself was not compatible with other OSs as its obtained from raspbians apt repos, but I thought that there was still a way to manually update the EEPROM on the pi4? For example, using the rescue method, because that is OS agnostic as it updates directly from the SD card before any OS is booted? But it seems that the rescue image linked on the downloads page is still the older version?

The rescue image on the downloads page has also been update to include the VLI update.

I downloaded the rescue image from the downloads page, transferred the contents of the zip file to a blank FAT32-formatted SD card and booted my pi4 with just that SD card until the green LED flashed repeatedly. But after booting back into my Arch OS,

Code: Select all

 /opt/vc/bin/vcgencmd bootloader_version

reports the September 10 f626c772b version. Is this correct? Is there a way of knowing if the VLI update has been applied?

I know that perhaps my use case is not officially supported, but it would be great if the instructions for updating the EEPROM on the pi4 on non-raspbian systems was given a little more documentation and made a little clearer, as, as of right now, it’s not clear if you should download the rescue image from the downloads page, or download the .bin files directly from the github repo, and it’s not clear if the rescue image is kept up-to-date with the critical branch of the rpi-eeprom package.