Raspberry Pi 4 usb boot?

[gkreidl]

I'll just be swapping my Pi3 out of this one (until my Flirc arrives). Nice thing about those 2 layer acrylic cases is they're pretty universal, and they don't trap in heat.

I use a similar case for my 3B. It is mounted sideways for better air circulation and there's small heat sink on the SOC.

My 3B+ runs in a FLIRC case and I'll do the same with the RPi 4.

[HawaiianPi]

Yea, my 3B+ models also reside in Flirc Gen2 cases, and I pre-ordered one for one of my Pi4 models.

The open sided case is my "test" Pi, the one I do most of my experimenting with (which is an older 3B). That will be swapped for the other Pi4 that I back-ordered (if and when they finally arrive). I'll need at least 1 more Pi4, and possibly 2 more after that, depending on how testing goes.

[hardwaremack-orginal]

noobs allows me to easily select the USB Samsung Fit drive to install!
So i am taking your advice, thanks!

looking for a one line to enter in terminal so i can quickly see what my R/W speeds are with this new 32 gig usb3.1 drive.

[SinAcedia]

SD cards, and the fact the RPi uses them is just plain dumb.

RPis are meant to be used for low income folkes and children to learn about computing.

No one normally has SD cards laying around the house, but I'd like to bet anyone that there would be a few flash drives in most houses on the planet.

SD cards just adds a unnecessary cost to the poor 3rd world children on our planet.

... and don't get my started on the new unneeded, unnecessary dual micro hdmi ports ...

imo they should have waited, and sell pi with bootable usb set by default, and included a micro hdmi adapter.

[jamesh]

SD cards, and the fact the RPi uses them is just plain dumb.

RPis are meant to be used for low income folkes and children to learn about computing.

No one normally has SD cards laying around the house, but I'd like to bet anyone that there would be a few flash drives in most houses on the planet.

SD cards just adds a unnecessary cost to the poor 3rd world children on our planet.

... and don't get my started on the new unneeded, unnecessary dual micro hdmi ports ...

imo they should have waited, and sell pi with bootable usb set by default, and included a micro hdmi adapter.

Absolute rubbish. What planet are you on? SD card are unbelievably cheap, and have been massively successful in the 27M devices we have already sold.

That's 27 MILLION devices using SD card already sold. 27 million. Just let that sink in. Almost every one of those using the SD card approach.

[neocalm]

Since I look after the documents repo, I'd like to know why you followed those instructions given the bolded warning at the top says which devices they are valid for. Something needs to be clearer, just like to know what.

As a relatively newb of the Raspberry Pi cruising by excited with my Raspberry Pi 4, I too followed those instructions given the bolded warning.

Here's my reason why, good or bad:

Step 1. I wanted to boot my new Raspberry Pi 4 from USB given my experience with Raspberry Pi (1) with two SDCard corruptions.

Step 2. I googled "raspberry pi usb boot" and landed at https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentati ... des/msd.md

Step 3. I read "USB boot is available on the Raspberry Pi 3B, 3B+, 3A+ and Raspberry Pi 2B v1.2 models only." and instinctively said to myself "Ah, great, they fixed this after Raspberry Pi 2B". Deep down the thought was something like "probably takes a while to update all the documentation to add the Raspberry Pi 4, that must be a lot of work for good folks like @jamesh" (if I had known the document repo master )

Step 4. And it didn't work, so I google'd it again with my result and ended up here.

So there you have it. If it had said something like "USB boot is available on the Raspberry Pi 3B, 3B+, 3A+ and Raspberry Pi 2B v1.2 models only. Raspberry Pi 4 uses a different system and will not work" I would have stopped there.

Cheers!

[SinAcedia]

SD cards, and the fact the RPi uses them is just plain dumb.

RPis are meant to be used for low income folkes and children to learn about computing.

No one normally has SD cards laying around the house, but I'd like to bet anyone that there would be a few flash drives in most houses on the planet.

SD cards just adds a unnecessary cost to the poor 3rd world children on our planet.

... and don't get my started on the new unneeded, unnecessary dual micro hdmi ports ...

imo they should have waited, and sell pi with bootable usb set by default, and included a micro hdmi adapter.

Absolute rubbish. What planet are you on? SD card are unbelievably cheap, and have been massively successful in the 27M devices we have already sold.

That's 27 MILLION devices using SD card already sold. 27 million. Just let that sink in. Almost every one of those using the SD card approach.

27 million RPi sold does not equal 27 million sd cards solds, your math is dumb, as a teacher I can tell you our students do not own sd cards for their projects, every classroom using rpis has one sd to unlock flash drive booting. ... hold on I forget to type words in caps ... DUMB ... pickup a phone, call ANY school, learn you're WRONG, its how you can be less DUMB.

[Roken]

Honestly, are people too dumb to do this. Boot an SDcard mounted as /boot, and handover rootfs to whatever the hell you want. It isn't rocket science, it doesn't strain your SDCard, and it will boot with any connected USB drive up to terrabytes.

Simply because it won't boot directly from USB doesn't mean it can't be (easily) made to work. You paid peanuts for this, yet you seem to want to feed Kong.

[W. H. Heydt]

27 million RPi sold does not equal 27 million sd cards solds, your math is dumb, as a teacher I can tell you our students do not own sd cards for their projects, every classroom using rpis has one sd to unlock flash drive booting. ... hold on I forget to type words in caps ... DUMB ... pickup a phone, call ANY school, learn you're WRONG, its how you can be less DUMB.

I look forward to the release of the $35 SBC you are developing. Please let us know when it is released, what default starting mass storage device it uses, and what the general specification are. Since you are obviously so knowledgeable in this field, getting your board on the market shouldn't take much effort or time.

[jamesh]

SD cards, and the fact the RPi uses them is just plain dumb.

RPis are meant to be used for low income folkes and children to learn about computing.

No one normally has SD cards laying around the house, but I'd like to bet anyone that there would be a few flash drives in most houses on the planet.

SD cards just adds a unnecessary cost to the poor 3rd world children on our planet.

... and don't get my started on the new unneeded, unnecessary dual micro hdmi ports ...

imo they should have waited, and sell pi with bootable usb set by default, and included a micro hdmi adapter.

Absolute rubbish. What planet are you on? SD card are unbelievably cheap, and have been massively successful in the 27M devices we have already sold.

That's 27 MILLION devices using SD card already sold. 27 million. Just let that sink in. Almost every one of those using the SD card approach.

27 million RPi sold does not equal 27 million sd cards solds, your math is dumb, as a teacher I can tell you our students do not own sd cards for their projects, every classroom using rpis has one sd to unlock flash drive booting. ... hold on I forget to type words in caps ... DUMB ... pickup a phone, call ANY school, learn you're WRONG, its how you can be less DUMB.

Whilst it is true that 27M devices != 27million SD cards, worth noting that until the Pi3B+, SD cards were the only option. So its not too ambitious to state that probably 15-20M Pi's currently using SD cards. Since you are the first, in my knowledge, and TBH I've only been here 7 years, to make such a statement about SD cards, it does seem your point of view may be in the minority.

[wildfire]

James, you and your colleagues are doing a wonderful job but please don't feed the trolls.

[rpdom]

27 million RPi sold does not equal 27 million sd cards solds, your math is dumb, as a teacher I can tell you our students do not own sd cards for their projects, every classroom using rpis has one sd to unlock flash drive booting. ... hold on I forget to type words in caps ... DUMB ... pickup a phone, call ANY school, learn you're WRONG, its how you can be less DUMB.

I think you'll find that jamesh knows considerably more about schools than you assume.

I agree that 27 million Pi sold doesn't mean 27 million SD cards purchased. It's probably higher than that. It is recommended to have two or more cards to keep as backups.

SD cards are relatively cheap. I for one do understand living on a tight budget.

I am not a teacher in a school, but I do run a Code Club. We have several Pis for the kids to use, each with an SD card. One kid brings his own Pi with SD card.

Your arguments are false.

[davidcoton]

27 million RPi sold does not equal 27 million sd cards solds, your math is dumb, as a teacher I can tell you our students do not own sd cards for their projects, every classroom using rpis has one sd to unlock flash drive booting. ... hold on I forget to type words in caps ... DUMB ... pickup a phone, call ANY school, learn you're WRONG, its how you can be less DUMB.

I hope that is not the attitude you show to your pupils.

If you have a point to make, please make it politely.

[jdb]

27 million RPi sold does not equal 27 million sd cards solds, your math is dumb, as a teacher I can tell you our students do not own sd cards for their projects, every classroom using rpis has one sd to unlock flash drive booting. ... hold on I forget to type words in caps ... DUMB ... pickup a phone, call ANY school, learn you're WRONG, its how you can be less DUMB.

What school do you teach for? If you're using raspberry Pis in an educational environment then we'd like to hear about how you're using them and what your classroom setting is - do you give a Pi to each student or do you have a lab where Pis are a common resource?

[jdb]

James, you and your colleagues are doing a wonderful job but please don't feed the trolls.

On the contrary, this is where the fun begins. The product has been in the wild for [checks notes] 10 days now and we're frankly disappointed about the quality of the troll armada that has followed this Pi release. In the past we used to have 20-page threads about [minor flaw] and [how this guarantees that the Raspberry Pi Foundation will explode/implode/get sued/cease to exist]. We must be losing our touch.

[LTolledo]

yet another one of those impatient "overly demanding" customer...

those who don't read the release notices and just assumes everything....

not reading the release notices surely makes someone look DUMB....

[wildfire]

On the contrary, this is where the fun begins...

Point taken, who am I to argue with the experts.

+++1

[Tzarls]

James, you and your colleagues are doing a wonderful job but please don't feed the trolls.

On the contrary, this is where the fun begins. The product has been in the wild for [checks notes] 10 days now and we're frankly disappointed about the quality of the troll armada that has followed this Pi release. In the past we used to have 20-page threads about [minor flaw] and [how this guarantees that the Raspberry Pi Foundation will explode/implode/get sued/cease to exist]. We must be losing our touch.

I see, so that's how you managed to get more power on the board and maintain the same price - the new RPi4 doesn´t include troll food! Nice trick!

[wildfire]

I see, so that's how you managed to get more power on the board and maintain the same price - the new RPi4 doesn´t include troll food! Nice trick!

[W. H. Heydt]

James, you and your colleagues are doing a wonderful job but please don't feed the trolls.

On the contrary, this is where the fun begins. The product has been in the wild for [checks notes] 10 days now and we're frankly disappointed about the quality of the troll armada that has followed this Pi release. In the past we used to have 20-page threads about [minor flaw] and [how this guarantees that the Raspberry Pi Foundation will explode/implode/get sued/cease to exist]. We must be losing our touch.

+1 with oak leaves and cross.

[HawaiianPi]

SD cards, and the fact the RPi uses them is just plain dumb.

Nope. It's actually rather brilliant (considering the target demographic and price point).

RPis are meant to be used for low income folkes and children to learn about computing.

No one normally has SD cards laying around the house, but I'd like to bet anyone that there would be a few flash drives in most houses on the planet.

I'd take that bet and likely win. If these so-called low income folks can't afford anything more than a Raspberry Pi, why would they need or own a flash drive? Oh, and I have loads of SD cards laying around, and did, even before my first Pi. So there's another flaw in your logic.

SD cards just adds a unnecessary cost to the poor 3rd world children on our planet.

You mean the ones that can't afford computers and would have no need for a flash drive?

... and don't get my started on the new unneeded, unnecessary dual micro hdmi ports ...

You meant the new dual display capability. Yes, it's great, isn't it!

imo they should have waited, and sell pi with bootable usb set by default, and included a micro hdmi adapter.

Or, and this is just a wild-n-crazy idea I had, those poor unfortunate souls who can't afford a micro SD card or micro HDMI adapter could, well, buy a Raspberry Pi 3B+ model. It ticks all your boxes.

USB boot, check (enabled by default).
Standard HDMI, check.

Now if only they could afford an HDMI monitor...

And by the way, the only one looking dumb in this thread is you.

Someone please ban this troll already.

[ejolson]

No one normally has SD cards laying around the house, but I'd like to bet anyone that there would be a few flash drives in most houses on the planet.

Around here spare flash drives, that is SSDs, are much less common than SD cards.

It's worth noting that the initial program load on all modern PC motherboards is from a flash memory module built into the motherboard. That's not much different than a Pi booting from an SD card and then running the operating system from a USB drive. In a similar way PiNet boots from the SD card and then runs the operating system diskless from the network. From what I can tell, PiNet is one of the most popular ways to set up a Raspberry Pi computing lab in a school. Since any card with a capacity greater than about 200MB is enough to hold the boot partition, the cost is not very much.

While it's possible to complain about anything, almost all computers execute code stored on a flash memory device when booting.

[Gavinmc42]

I have been using Pis for 7 years, my SD/uSD to Pi ratio is about 5 to 1 or even 10 to 1.
Actually too scared to count those SD's as I personally have over 20 Pi's.
SD cards fail, those plastic cases crack and break, uSD are better but I have snapped one.
Don't have as many USB sticks but they still outnumber my Pi's.
The USB reader write are less, maybe dozen+.
HDMI adaptors are even lower in number.
My collection of old 2.5"/3.5" Sata drives is growing
With USB 3.0 docks/caddies they are now usable for 4's.

If the only troll food is uSD card and not USB booting, well Pi's have always booted from SD or uSD.
USB/Net booting was a bonus on 3's.
With the boot EEPROM on the 4's other options spring to mind.
SPI, i2c even a Nand hat or Compact flash, IDE drive?

And it does look like we have a new bunch of trolls the Pi4 has sparked up.
Too bad the Pi4 is so good there is hardly anything to feed them.

But I only have this one 32GB uSD and it got filled quick with lots of games that just work now.
I only have two 32GB USB sticks. Time to get a few USB3.0 docks
Perhaps a big 1Gbs switch and big HDD for network booting Pi's?
These Pi4's mean a lot of network IT stuff needs to be learned.
Non stop learning.

[k-pi]

Never used a micro SD card, until I needed one to configure USB booting on my RPi3B!

Still prefer a bigger standard SD card - boot from one in one of my old laptops - at least you can see it, & not risk putting your fingers on the contacts - but HDD/SSD are much better - pendrives are very useful for experimenting with O/S, as well as transferring data.

Lack of USB booting is crazy, they need to get it sorted out quickly, & the HDMI software, which isn't working OOTB with the new Buster release - having to remove & replace a fragile micro SD card, to make alteration on to try & get the HDMI outputs to work is a pain, & they never seem to want to go into that tiny slot.

When everything works on the RPi4B, it will be a good little computer, but lots need sorting out, it would seem.

[jamesh]

Never used a micro SD card, until I needed one to configure USB booting on my RPi3B!

Still prefer a bigger standard SD card - boot from one in one of my old laptops - at least you can see it, & not risk putting your fingers on the contacts - but HDD/SSD are much better - pendrives are very useful for experimenting with O/S, as well as transferring data.

Lack of USB booting is crazy, they need to get it sorted out quickly, & the HDMI software, which isn't working OOTB with the new Buster release - having to remove & replace a fragile micro SD card, to make alteration on to try & get the HDMI outputs to work is a pain, & they never seem to want to go into that tiny slot.

When everything works on the RPi4B, it will be a good little computer, but lots need sorting out, it would seem.

USB boot is on the way. Simply wasn't time before release to get it going, and since the HUGE majority of people use SD card it's not a problem to that majority. It's not crazy, as you put it, it's just being pragmatic. Should we delay a release due to a minority feature not being ready? You've fallen in to the same track of so many others, that some feature YOU want is SO important that it MUST be there. Which is not true.

The HDMi issue that have appeared are indeed annoying, but keep to HDMI 0 and things should mostly just work. In all of our prerelease testing we did not encounter these issues, it just something that turned up out of the woodwork once you start to hit large numbers of users with a myriad of different devices to plug in.

I'm afraid I cannot comment on your inability to use a uSD card slot. I've no problems in that area.