Rpi-firmware notes

[Mark Millard]

On 2021-Jan-9, at 11:41, Mark Millard <marklmi at yahoo.com> wrote:

> On 2021-Jan-9, at 01:02, portscout at freebsd.org <portscout at FreeBSD.org> wrote:
> 
>> Dear port maintainer,
>> 
>> The portscout new distfile checker has detected that one or more of your
>> ports appears to be out of date. Please take the opportunity to check
>> each of the ports listed below, and if possible and appropriate,
>> submit/commit an update. If any ports have already been updated, you can
>> safely ignore the entry.
>> 
>> You will not be e-mailed again for any of the port/version combinations
>> below.
>> 
>> Full details can be found at the following URL:
>> http://portscout.freebsd.org/uboot@freebsd.org.html
>> 
>> 
>> Port                                            | Current version | New version
>> ------------------------------------------------+-----------------+------------
>> sysutils/rpi-firmware                           | 1.20201201.g20201201| 1.20210108.master
>> ------------------------------------------------+-----------------+------------
>> 
>> 
> . . .
> 
> I will note that pftf/RPi4 (the UEFI/ACPI software) has
> reverted to using RPi firmware from before 2020.12.08 as
> of 3 days ago. For why, see:
> 
> https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware/issues/1518
> 
> For what they changed in what they extract:
> 
> https://github.com/pftf/RPi4/commit/8fcd5bc6fd04e78cf8460f51767393407516724e
> 
> pftf/RPi4 is now using:
> 
> https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware/raw/08ed7a0c9ad4d9db559aaec462520ab435c7ce1c/boot/
> 
> to select just start4.elf and fixup4.dat .

Turns out that https://github.com/pftf/RPi4/releases/tag/v1.22 has a
more explicit note:

QUOTE
Important Note: The start4.elf and fixup4.dat used in this release are the 2020.12.01 ones, as using newer versions broke xHCI initialization (raspberrypi/firmware#1518, raspberrypi/firmware#1495) with newer revisions of the Bcm2711 SoC. Do not be tempted to use more recent versions of start4.elf, as, unless you are using an old Pi 4 model, this will most likely break USB support.
END QUOTE

As for v1.22 update, it reports:

Raspberry Pi 4 UEFI Firmware v1.22

	• Fix settings not being stored or being corrupted on reset (#78, #82) [tianocore/edk2-platforms at 94e9fbatianocore/edk2-platforms at ae6c236]
	• Add internal changes for the eventual support of CM4 & Pi400 [tianocore/edk2-platforms at 100e360]
	• Fix type of PMU GSIV in GICC (#103) [tianocore/edk2-platforms at 734fed7]
	• Switch back to the old coloured logo [tianocore/edk2-non-osi at 3d1bb66]
	• Fix cursor appearing on top of logo (#115) [tianocore/edk2 at b585238]

As I understand, start4.elf and fixup4.dat reverting were associated
with the "Fix settings not being stored or being corrupted on reset".



Other notes if anyone that might want to use material extracted from
v1.22:

So far as I know, FreeBSD use of UEFI/ACPI via the v1.22 means of booting
should still have the 3 GiByte limitation in place for reliable operation,
otherwise things like unreliable file copies can silently happen in
FreeBSD.

(So far as I know, no one is systematically trying to support
UEFI/ACPI booting for the RPI4B's in FreeBSD: the effort is primarily going
to u-boot based booting.)

I am using the rpi-firmware subset of the UEFI/ACPI materials from v1.22,
even for booting via my u-boot build. bcm2711-rpi-4-b.dtb is recent enough
to allow the 8GiByte RPi4B's to boot via a USB3 SSD, no microsd card
involved.

(I've got things set up so that just swapping config.txt content swaps
between u-boot and UEFI/ACPI based booting.)

So far, historically, I've (eventually) learned more about the rpi-firmware
problems and what vintages work better via monitoring the UEFI/ACPI
project's information about such then I have learned other ways, at least
fairly generally.

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