Booting Risc OS from GRUB on Raspberry Pi4

Hi there,

We already have a nice UEFI port on the Raspberry Pi 4: https://github.com/pftf/RPi4
This allows loading GRUB, which in turn can boot GNU/Linux.

Now, is it theorically possible to boot Risc OS on the Pi 4 this way? (From GRUB, I mean)

That would be the best way to multiboot it with GNU/Linux.

Thanks!

I normally question the worth of dual booting on the Pi as they are so small and cheap, why not just have two. But given you can’t get hold of Pi4s for love nor money these days, we may have to work out how to do it.

Dual booting on the Pi has already been written up. It works. It will be on my stand at the South West show. A simple switch on the GPIO pins allows boot into RISC OS or Linux. See for example Archive magazine 25:5 or diagram below:

@Chris Hall: I have no problem dual-booting Risc OS and GNU/Linux, I have done so for a decade now, this makes it easy without any hardware: https://github.com/procount/pinn

What I am asking is if UEFI + GRUB can boot Risc OS.

@ SenorNueces

What I am asking is if UEFI + GRUB can boot Risc OS.

I suggest you try to contact RISC OS Open directly for this type of enquiry, the community here tend to “force” opinions as a plausible technical response to a technical question, which rarely is a useful activity.

Another way might be to share what type of problems you have encountered when you’ve tried to boot RISC OS via grub/UEFI.

Good luck,

I think RISC OS makes itself look like a Linux kernel, so that the native Pi bootloader can boot it. RISC OS doesn’t know anything about UEFI. So it might work from GRUB, if GRUB thinks it’s booting a Linux kernel and RISC OS knows no different.

Try it and see?