Date: Fri, 24 Apr 2020 20:00:08 -0700 From: bob prohaska <fbsd@www.zefox.net> To: Mark Millard <marklmi@yahoo.com> Cc: freebsd-arm <freebsd-arm@freebsd.org>, bob prohaska <fbsd@www.zefox.net> Subject: Re: Booting from USB on RPI3 Message-ID: <20200425030008.GB7044@www.zefox.net> In-Reply-To: <5A943B45-FE58-452D-BBC5-534756782276@yahoo.com> References: <20200423212614.GA3996@www.zefox.net> <328B7083-1119-43F1-A6E4-61F1FB9E922E@yahoo.com> <20200423233259.GD3996@www.zefox.net> <74DB7BC9-8F60-404B-BF7B-02B06D5A1011@yahoo.com> <20200424021808.GA4638@www.zefox.net> <F0C464CD-2E1A-487C-97D3-D79C7A197132@yahoo.com> <20200424195953.GA6707@www.zefox.net> <5FA69E16-72DE-4175-A0FB-BEFA1A865633@yahoo.com> <20200425001743.GA7044@www.zefox.net> <5A943B45-FE58-452D-BBC5-534756782276@yahoo.com>
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On Fri, Apr 24, 2020 at 05:47:33PM -0700, Mark Millard wrote: > On 2020-Apr-24, at 17:17, bob prohaska <fbsd at www.zefox.net> wrote: > > > On Fri, Apr 24, 2020 at 03:09:35PM -0700, Mark Millard wrote: > > [huge snip, hope nothing vital was lost] > >> > >> Now that using both the microsd card and USB drive > >> as a pair to boot has been shown to work, have you > >> made the USB drive match what is used on from > >> the microsd card (such as the msdos file system) > >> and checked what the USB drive does without > >> involving the microsd card? > >> > >> (Although, I wonder if the "10 sec" issue ends up > >> involved, possibly blocking this way of working.) > > > > No. If there's no microSD at all the Pi3B is simply inert > > on power-up. No rainbow screen, no serial console, nothing. > > The OTP boot-from-usb bit is set according to Raspbian, > > so mine is one of the Pi3's that requires a microSD card. > > Is the RPi3 attached to a powered USB hub? Yes. > Directly to the USB drive? Tried that long ago, the power supply on the Pi couldn't cope. No obvious reason to think it'd be different now. > A different, probably better, experiment is suggested > later, one that avoids this USB drive. > > > If there's no microSD filesystem to fall back to, maybe > > u-boot would keep trying until the USB hard drive woke up. > > u-boot would have to load from someplace and be started > first in order to be involved at all. The initial code > is not u-boot code but code internal to the SoC (internal > firmware). The Pi3 is able to load bootcode.bin (alone) from the microSD promptly. Then u-boot can rattle the USB drive. If there's nothing else to boot on the microSD it might keep trying, how long I don't know. > > > Somebody also mentioned recompiling u-boot with a longer > > timeout, not an unreasonable step. For now I'll declare > > victory and retreat 8-) > > Such would not change the internal firmware code involved > in looking for msdos file system(s) on mass storage devices > with a bootcode.bin in the proper place. Thus the need for a microSD with a customizable bootcode.bin. > If that code > does not find the device in its time frame, bootcode.bin > is not found and, so, not used. > > Failing to find such a bootcode.bin means using the older, > buggier code that is the reset of the internal firmware. > This code is more likely to have problems with drives. > Indeed, on mine it does not appear to even start. AIUI, a Pi set up to boot without a microSD card should at least flash the rainbow screen. Mine does nothing. > > I gather the Raspberry Pi Foundation didn't more widely > > publicise the boot-from-usb feature because it didn't work > > with a too-large fraction of USB storage devices. > > Which leads to an alternate experiment: a different USB > "drive", one without the long wait. > > Technically this could be a USB microsd card reader > with the media you can boot from the microsd card > slot: That might well prove that you can boot without > use of the microsd card slot so long as the USB drive > is compatibile. If yes: Then it becomes a case of > selecting an appropriate USB drive and getting it set > up. > Is there some larger question that I'm not recognizing? I've tried a usb flash drive with FreeBSD on it a couple of times with no microSD. Nothing happened, not even an output on the serial console. No powered hub in the loop. > > Having > > now seen the exercise in person, I understand their motives. > > There was absolutely no chance of success without the vast > > amount of help I got on this list. > > Given the above possible experiment, are you sure that > you want to give up now? What is the question to be answered? I wanted to see if buildworld works any better on a mechanical disk than a well-used microSD card. So far, the answer appears to be yes: Not a single "indefinite wait...." warning even when ~900 megs of swap is in use and the machine is crawling at around 70% idle. Thanks for reading! bob prohaska
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