RPi4 Status and xorg behavior

[Mark Millard]

On 2021-Mar-8, at 09:30, bob prohaska <fbsd at www.zefox.net> wrote:

> On Mon, Mar 08, 2021 at 02:40:06PM +0100, Klaus K??chemann wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> it would also help to be explicit about the firmware-version.
>> I would suggest to base tests on - 1.20210303. - , as it should then be the
>> latest in the next build , IIRC.
>> 
> Is there some way to check it from FreeBSD? The machine usually
> runs RaspiOS and was updated yesterday, so I'd expect the firmware
> to be reasonably current but can't be certain.

Summary for current context:

(The below presumes that the msdosfs file system
involved is mounted on /boot/efi . Adjust as
needed for your context.)

# strings /boot/efi/start4.elf | grep VC_BUILD_ID_
VC_BUILD_ID_USER: dom
VC_BUILD_ID_TIME: 12:10:40
VC_BUILD_ID_VARIANT: start
VC_BUILD_ID_TIME: Feb 25 2021
VC_BUILD_ID_BRANCH: bcm2711_2
VC_BUILD_ID_HOSTNAME: buildbot
VC_BUILD_ID_PLATFORM: raspberrypi_linux
VC_BUILD_ID_VERSION: 564e5f9b852b23a330b1764bcf0b2d022a20afd0 (clean)

That strings and grep can be used locally to see
if the start4.elf matches the above. fixup4.dat
*.dtb's and such do not seem to contain such
identification information. Full checking requires
getting a full copy and diffing the result (or just
replacing). But if one has been careful to not mix
and match files, the above should be a good cross
check.



More generally, the below is how I figured out the
above text for the current example. . .

Treating this as an example of a more general process,
starting from:

https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware/commits/1.20210303

clicking on the first <> on the right gets to:

https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware/tree/fcf8d2f7639ad8d0330db9c8db9b71bd33eaaa28

clicking on boot gets to:

https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware/tree/fcf8d2f7639ad8d0330db9c8db9b71bd33eaaa28/boot

clicking on start4.elf gets to a page with a Download button:

clicking on Download (or copy link for Download and use of it)

gets a copy of the start4.elf . The URL was:

https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware/raw/fcf8d2f7639ad8d0330db9c8db9b71bd33eaaa28/boot/start4.elf

Then this file's content shows:

# strings start4.elf | grep VC_BUILD_ID_
VC_BUILD_ID_USER: dom
VC_BUILD_ID_TIME: 12:10:40
VC_BUILD_ID_VARIANT: start
VC_BUILD_ID_TIME: Feb 25 2021
VC_BUILD_ID_BRANCH: bcm2711_2
VC_BUILD_ID_HOSTNAME: buildbot
VC_BUILD_ID_PLATFORM: raspberrypi_linux
VC_BUILD_ID_VERSION: 564e5f9b852b23a330b1764bcf0b2d022a20afd0 (clean)

and that type strings and grep use can be used
on /boot/efi/start4.elf to see if the start4.elf
matches. (Wording presumes the /boot/efi/ mount
point. Vary as needed.)

I will note that VC_BUILD_ID_VERSION is not from the
public github server space. It seems to be from a
non-pubic internal one, possibly the source code
git repository. So do not expect to match it with
github hash-ids for commits of binary materials.



I will note that:

https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware/commits/master

shows two commits on Mar 5 2021 that are after
the 1.20210303 tagged material, as well as older
activity:

Commits on Mar 5, 2021
	• firmware: hdmi_2711: Rework I2C driver to NOT use the AUTO-I2C block …
popcornmix committed 3 days ago
1711f63 
	• kernel: Bump to 5.10.20 …
popcornmix committed 3 days ago
530cfdd 

Commits on Feb 25, 2021
	• firmware: arm_loader: Return all borrowed DMA channels …
popcornmix committed 11 days ago
5985247 

Commits on Feb 24, 2021
	• firmware: platform: vl805: Get BAR2 address from PCIe BAR2 registers
popcornmix committed 12 days ago
7872272 

Commits on Feb 22, 2021
	• kernel: Bump to 5.10.17 …
popcornmix committed 14 days ago

. . .



===
Mark Millard
marklmi at yahoo.com
( dsl-only.net went
away in early 2018-Mar)