Raspberry Pi 4

What’s the status of the Pi4 build? Is there a Wiki page for it?

Wiki page: https://www.riscosopen.org/wiki/documentation/show/Raspberry%20Pi%204%20port%20status

We have a saying where I work, when someone comes up with a rather complex task, at the end of discussing it, someone asks “Was spricht dagegen außer dem Aufwand”, which roughly translates into “What – apart from time and effort – prohibits us from doing it?”

Nice! I think more idiomatically (and picking up the original sprechen):

What’s to say we can’t, other than time and effort?

Just came across this… https://blog.mythic-beasts.com/2019/06/22/raspberry-pi-on-raspberry-pi/

Here’s another benchmark comparison using Otter Browser. Webjames used as a local web server as there is no network support yet for the RPi4.

Kraken-1.1 Javascript benchmark. https://krakenbenchmark.mozilla.org

RPi 4 @2GHz       18000ms
Titanium @1.5Ghz  31000ms
RPi 3b+ @1.4Ghz   53000ms

1/10th the speed of my Core i3 :)

Just to report that the official Raspberry Pi touch screen works on the Pi 4 with the TchScrn module loaded.

Tried a USB C hub with power pass through. At first the RPi4 refused to power up. I then noticed when pulling out the power cable the power LED briefly flickered. Turns out pulling the power cable out very slightly causes the Pi to power up normally. Not sure if this is due to the USB C power connection non compliance or not.

The display is very bright compared to a any other RPi.

Sound seems to be non-functional. Tried analogue and HDMI.

Without sound it’s difficult to tell but using MPlayer to play 720p mp4 appears to play full speed at 2GHz.

PS One emulation runs at 60fps. At least according to Mednafen. Also clocked at 2GHz.

Hum. How do you connect mouse and keyboard?

With the latest released firmware the 2GHz overclock limit has been removed. The maximum overclock now seems to be 2147MHz.

The FLIRC Raspberry Pi 4 Case available here stops the CPU from overheating.

The RPI 4 no longer uses bootcode.bin. Instead it has an on-board SPI-attached EEPROM which can be updated. See here for documentation.
The latest beta bootloader can be used to network boot the RISC OS rom. See here for instructions how to configure the boot loader. The latest beta firmware is here.
It seems to work OK apart from the CMOS file still needs to be present on the SD card.

Just to report that the Elesar Raspberry Pi WiFi Hat works with the Raspberry Pi 4. Makes it possible to control the RPi 4 using VNC.
Otter Browser runs much faster. (This message was posted using the RPi 4)

Funny. Is there some RISC OS test image/ROM for the Pi4?

Is there some RISC OS test image/ROM for the Pi4?

As I recall there was a call for people to assist in the development with pointers to the location of the build information.
At that point the build didn’t have a properly working GUI.

A release will come – I think from the London show reports the target is christmas/new year.

A release will come – I think from the London show reports the target is christmas/new year.

I know, but since Chris use a ROM image that can work with the VNC server on WiFi, USB, Ethernet and GPU support is not needed. Is it the standard dev ROM or a specific one?

Is it the standard dev ROM or a specific one?

It’s the standard dev build apart from using the ‘Pi4’ branch for the HAL. The instructions are mentioned further back in this topic.

A build of the current RPi beta source code archive, 2019-10-27, plus HAL_BCM2835 0.82 (29 Sep 2019) Pi4.12 failed to output any video on the RPi4 but did on the RPi3B+. That was with firmware dated 01Aug19. An earlier RPi4 ROM dated 15Aug19 does start up in the RPi4

The current Pi firmware, 21Oct19, fails here on both the RPi3B+ and RPi4 with the large multi-coloured square.

Newer rom builds need,

[pi4]
enable_gic=1

instead of armstub=pi4.bin

The current Pi firmware, 21Oct19, fails here on both the RPi3B+ and RPi4 with the large multi-coloured square.

I get this too with latest firmware. Firmware as of the 12th Oct works OK.

[pi4]
enable_gic=1

Thanks, the RPi4 is now showing the desktop.

The current Pi firmware, 21Oct19, fails here on both the RPi3B+ and RPi4 with the large multi-coloured square.

The latest firmware appears to be working again (for Pi 3, at least – I haven’t checked Pi 4). Looks like they accidentally broke the kernel config.txt option

The latest firmware appears to be working again (for Pi 3, at least – I haven’t checked Pi 4).

Firmware of 28Oct19 is good on the RPi4.

OK so:
1/ Need to buy a Pi4
2/ Need to understand what files to copy for the firmware
3/ Need to update the RISC OS image with the latest kernel (on a Pi3)
4/ Need to install VNC Server or ask to beta test the new VNC offer
5/ Need to find a way to apply to ROD beta testing program

And enjoy :)
Or wait for the official version of RISC OS adapted to the Pi4 and the new web browsers. Less fun.

Less fun.

But as long as the wait isn’t too terribly long, better for folks like me.

Moving a topic about using the RPi4 with a WiFi HAT and vnc into a more appropriate place. That works OK but then there was this suggestion in another thread.

Have you tried Thomas Milius’s keyboard and mouse sharing software? I think it’s called KMSwitch and is part of RemoteTools and is available through !Store. Saves needing the VNC video bit.

That would be quite good as the vnc screen updates over WiFi are rather slow. There is a bit of a snag, the RPi4 never shows a mouse pointer on the attached monitor, otherwise KMSwitch was working, the keyboard worked and the mouse position on the screen followed mouse movement as seen by menu clicking. Even when using vnc there is no pointer on the RPi4’s attached screen as there is when using the RPi3B+ over vnc with an attached monitor. The SD card with the RPi4 ROM also does display the pointer when used in the RPi3B+.

I know it is work in progress, but just asking, just in case …

At the moment only Linux works on the RPi4, not RISC OS.