external references in !Boot

It was difficult to know whether to post this as Bugs, a Porting concern , or here in the Wishing well.

The 5.24 !Boot sequence for the Raspberry Pi contains external references.
Specifically in :- !Boot.Choices.Boot.Tasks.PinSetup and !Boot.RO520Hook.Boot.Tasks.PinSetup.
The obey files contain the command:-
Backdrop -S Boot:^.Documents.Images.Backdrops.Octagons

The instructions for my new Wakefield purchase of a “Pi SSD up” say, in order to boot from the SSD instead of the SD Card, to copy !Boot to the SSD and alter CONFIG.TXT on the SD to point to it.
Unfortunately, this is not sufficient and the !Boot does not complete successfully.

In this case it was easy to find and fix by copying the Documents dirctory to the SSD.
Would it not be better if !Boot only referrred to stuff inside its own directory?

Or at least do an IfThere.

Would it not be better if !Boot only referrred to stuff inside its own directory?

While !Boot should refer to stuff within itself, the setup files may refer to external things. I think this is what is going on here.

nemo is right – given that the system boot is horrifically fragile (say hello to Harinezumi!), any setup of anything really ought to have an IfThere added as standard, so a missing resource doesn’t abort the machine startup.

The instructions for my new Wakefield purchase of a “Pi SSD up” say, in order to boot from the SSD insteAD OF THE SD CARD, to copy !Boot to the SSD and alter CONFIG.TXT on the SD to point to it

What does that even mean?

How do you “point to it” from the CONFIG.TXT file?

If you COPY the FAT partition from within RISC OS, it will be transferred as a regular file and won’t be placed anywhere that anything understanding FAT will recognise. The boot CONFIG.TXT points at the ROM image (which should also be on the SD’s FAT partition). If you wish to use the SSD for RISC OS, that’s done through the RISC OS configuration (FileSystem, Drive, etc). For example, my Beagle boots from µSD with the filesystem on a USB stick…

Given that $.!Boot.Loader is special, I’m not keen on anything that gives the advice of copying/moving !Boot around. It would have been better to have a utility to do this – which, granted – would likely still have missed Octagons.

I think this was simply an oversight.

How do you “point to it” from the CONFIG.TXT file?

My mistake – the CONFIG change was to up the Amperage.
max_usb_current=1
The boot switch instructions were to copy !Boot to the SSD and to
*configure filesystem scsi
*configure scsifsdrive 4
This worked apart from the missing Octagons.

Specifically in :- !Boot.Choices.Boot.Tasks.PinSetup and !Boot.RO520Hook.Boot.Tasks.PinSetup.
Backdrop -S Boot:^.Documents.Images.Backdrops.Octagons

The pinboard setup plugin does ordinarily produce absolute references, if you drag that image in for yourself and resave the settings you’ll see that by inspecting the PinSetup which is saved.

However, many Pi users found themselves renaming the SD card, especially if swapping between two cards of the same name, which left them with no backdrop. To dodge that the Pi disc image has a special edit (as hinted at by its presence in the RO520Hook, it’s not normally there) to make it Boot: relative so that that works.

The population of Pi users who rename their SD card is likely far larger than those trying what you’re doing.

The population of Pi users who rename their SD card

A very good point. I have five drives. I don’t dare rename any of them. Twas always thus.