Risc OS Pi does not boot Raspperry Pi 512MB Model B

Hello

I just received my Raspperry Pi 512MB Model B. I also orderd both the RISC OS Pi official release on SD card and the Nut Pi add-on pack for RISC OS Pi, on SD card…

Unfortunatelly, I am unable to make riscos boot! The symptoms are no signal to the monitor via HDMI. I first thought it was a harware issue until I tried Raspbian “wheezy” which works just fine.

I read on the raspberrypi site the following note:
“Note this image will not work correctly with 512MB Model B devices which use Hynix memories. An updated image is expected before the end of March.”

Could it be the problem? If yes, it is a pitty that this is not mentioned on the ROOL Store… I would not have paid for it now if I was correctly informed. I would have wait until the official release of a working version… How can I tell if this is the case?

EDIT: looking closely to the card… I see a component with Hynix written on it… So I guess I just have to wait until end of march to discover and enjoy riscos… :(

Regards

François

François,

The ROM is now done for this new firmware.

If you are feeling brave there is more information here:

https://www.riscosopen.org/forum/forums/1/topics/1726

I haven’t yet tried this myself as I haven’t quite got around to sorting out my RISC OS Raspberry Pi email server yet!

Hope this helps.

François,

My 3 RPi boards, 2 @512 megs & a new model A, all boot RISCOS just fine, although all of mine do have Samsung DRAM. I used the 3 relevant boot files from GitHub, along with the recent Rom here on ROOL mentioned above. Presumably you have tried that combination?

Do you have a URL to some definitive info’ on the Hynix problem?

Dear all,

Thank you for your replies. I will try the suggested combinations tonight.

Just a question: is it enough to simply copy the 3 relevant boot files on my existing SD card or should I first create a new image with Win32DiskImager?

Regarding the Hynix incompatiblity, this is a bold note on the official raspberry pi download page:
http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads

Note this image will not work correctly with 512MB Model B devices which use Hynix memories. An updated image is expected before the end of March.

My guess now is that with the updated raspberrypi firmware, I will be able to at least initiate a boot (and see that sth happens on my monitor), as everything runs fine with the latest version of Raspbian “wheezy”.
But will RiscOS work correctly, I have a doubt considering the “official” note on the raspberry site.

I am frustrated as I bought the raspberrypi to run RiscOS specifically. Lets be honest, the raspberry pi is a nice piece of hardware, but current linux version does not fit at all on this hardware: this is damned slow!!

Regards

François

is it enough to simply copy the 3 relevant boot files on my existing SD card or should I

For boot testing, I just use any old SD card that’s handy, usually in my case, old camera 512 megs SD cards.

You only need a fat formatted SD to boot. RISC OS will naturally complain when it exits its ROM code because it can’t find any !Boot structures, but you can still get to a basic desktop & use the ROM based app’s like edit, etc..

I’m on OS X here, so never use the win imager stuff, but I imagine “dd” works on ms win in a similar fashion to dd on OS X.

Let us know how you get on with your tests.

I think “image” mentioned in that forum download post means the “old” original ROOL supplied image so probably doesn’t take account of recent developments.

Your feedback will doubtless help others.

looking closely to the card… I see a component with Hynix written on it… So I guess I just have to wait until end of march to discover and enjoy riscos…

There is an alternative, if you feel confident.

Download the following files from github :
bootcode.bin
fixup.dat
start.elf
and the latest RISC OS ROM image from the ROOL downloads page (the alpha development one for the Pi, not the 1 Nov 2012 beta one) and rename it ‘riscos.img’

Put the SD card into a card reader on a Window machine.

Rename the existing files on the SD card as follows:
bootcode.bin → bootcodeold.bin
fixup.dat → fixupold.dat
start.elf → startold.elf
riscos.img → riscosold.img
copy the newly downloaded ones onto the card.
how you copy these onto the card is important - do it under Windows to avoid the DOSFS bug

Try the Pi again (and let us know how you get on).

If it doesn’t work then all you have to do is to delete the new files you put on and rename the others back to their original names and your SD card will be back to where you started.

If it doesn’t work

Well it doesn’t work unfortunately… Seems the current development ROM (5-Mar-2013) doesn’t yet have the fix for the new firmware… See below

Have renamed the files in !Boot.Loader from (e.g.) ‘start/elf’ to ‘start/elf2’ and then to ‘START/ELF’ to force them into 8/3 format (don’t ask but the 8/3 issue is debated here). The Pi now starts up but without the boot splash screen.

Hi all

Could we rename the topic as “Risc OS does not boot on Raspberry Pi 512MB with Hynix memories”
This would be more clear.

I will try tonight the suggested solutions given here and will come back to give a status.

Anyone from the Risc OS development team to react on this issue?

Thanks to all.

Regards

Anyone from the Risc OS development team to react on this issue?

I’d suggest doing the following:

1. Download the latest bootcode.bin, fixup.dat and start.elf from github
2. Download the latest development (alpha) Raspberry Pi ROM from ROOL
3. Put the RISC OS Pi SD card into a card reader on a Windows (or Linux, or whatever) machine. You should be able to see the contents of the FAT partition (containing start.elf, riscos.img, etc.)
4. Copy the new bootcode.bin, fixup.dat and start.elf onto the SD card, overwriting what’s already there. There’s not much point taking a backup of the original files (let’s face it – they’re useless to your Pi). Also, overwriting the existing files (at least on Windows) should ensure that they keep their DOS 8.3 filenames.
5. Unzip the RISC OS ROM download and rename the ROM image to riscos.img, then copy it onto the card, overwriting the existing image (again, there’s no point making a backup, as the existing ROM is useless to you)
6. Dismount the SD card, plug it into your Pi, and turn it on!

Even if you do something wrong and manage to trash your SD card, there’s nothing to worry about, as you can always download a fresh copy of the image from the Raspberry Pi website.

Well…

I follow the steps suggested by Jeffrey, but without success. Still no boot and even no signal to the hdmi monitor.

So disappointing…

But thank you for your previous help…

I may have an idea: duplicate the SD card with the working raspbian and copy the latest riscos rom…

Hourra…

I finally get it to work… The trick is to install the latest raspbian on the SD card and replace the linux rom image (kernel.img) with the development release of the riscos image. By the way, I rename the riscos image as ‘kernel.img’.

THis post has been writen from netsurf running under Risc OS Pi :)

My god, Risc OS is so much faster than raspbian.

Thanks a lot to all of you for your help.

Regards

François

Hi all. We have been aware of this issue for a little while and that’s why recently Jeffrey did the vital work on VCHIQ.

We’ve set-aside some time this weekend to create a new official RISC OS Pi release image which sorts this out. With any luck, we’ll also have a packaged upgrade solution via PackMan – I expect this will all see the light of day early next week.

Hello
This is a good news! But thanks to all the ideas collected in this thread, i have been finally able to boot and run RiscOS on my raspberry pi whith hynix memories.

And this is a real pleasure… SO much reactive and fast than rasbian!

I think my wife will hate riscos this WE :)

Regards

Glad you like it! :)

We’ve set-aside some time this weekend to create a new official RISC OS Pi release image

I can see the new beta ROM release for the Raspberry Pi (dated 9 March 2013) …

I tried Francois suggestion above using the latest version of Wheezy and the new beta ROM release but got a !Boot file not found error when I booted the Pi and the final desktop was missing everything other than the !configure application. HOWEVER I had a bit of a play and got everything working by a very roundabout route!
1. Write an SD card with the latest version of Raspian Wheezy.
2. Write an SD card with the standard version of RiscOS
3. Copy all the Raspian Wheezy files across to the RiscOS SD card apart from the kernel.img making sure you overwrite everything
4. Download the new beta ROM, extract it, rename the file to kernel.img and copy it onto the RISCOS SD card
5. Plug in the card and switch on and Bingo the whole system boots up complete with bootsplash screen. I did this twice and it worked fine both times
Having been disappointed by how slow and unresponsive Raspian is, I have been blown away by RISCOS – time to play!!!

Hi MarkTP

Your explaination are much better than mine, but this is indeed exaclty what i have done to make riscos boot on my raspberry pi.

Ans this trick works with this we release.

And indeed, riscos is a real pleasure to use on the rasp…

Hi Francois Vanzeveren, if you are from Belgium or the south o/t Netherlands you might visit the RISCOS.be fellows someday. Most of them, including me, have RPI’s as well :-). They can help you out too.

BTW. I have made the files from the RC7 available on my RPI-webserver. See my posts on Anouncements → RISC OS Pi RC7 has been released.

Now on another matter. Is it possible to read SDFS-cards on e.g. VRPC-Sa or similar? I need to amend my !boot after having fu my boot by unplugging several modules without adjusting Predesk… grrr!

Manu,

Have you tried a delete power on (it should work on the Pi)?

If you can then type desktop and actually get into the desktop you’ll be able to then edit your predesk folder to your heart’s content.

Of course if this works you’ll lose all your CMOS settings, but, in this case this might actually help! :-)