raspberry pi 3 boot from usb

ermethic · October 26, 2016 at 6:10 PM

As stated on the rPi website (here, here and discussed here), with the raspberry pi 3, there is now the possibility to boot directly from a mass storage device, such as an USB stick or hard drive, and from network, without the necessity of a microSD card installed.
I want to ask if anyone did this with LE, and if not, if there's any possibility to update the LibreELEC USB-SD Creator to write USB sticks compatible with this feature, considering it has to have an updated bootcode.bin (issued in the 'next' branch of rPi firmware) and a proper cmdline.txt (at the moment, the USB stick written with the Pi image of Libreelec contains a cmdline.txt that references the SD partition).

thank you

**chewitt** · October 26, 2016 at 6:22 PM Official Post

It's been tested (but not extensively) and it works, but there are no current plans to make it the default boot method, nor to complicate the USB/SD creator with too many choices. It's something we'll keep an eye on though.

ermethic · October 26, 2016 at 6:24 PM

Can anyone assist me in explaining the proper settings for making such a USB stick ? As I've not been able to produce one...

silashack · October 28, 2016 at 5:14 AM

IIRC You will still need the microsd as it redirects the continuation of the boot process to the USB, I used this method to test run a webserver as I had issues with R/W being done to the card.

This was how I think I did it

Install & Run Raspbian from a USB Flash Drive - boost Performance

thommy86 · December 21, 2016 at 11:15 AM

Is there any update regarding this feature? I am also using Rasplex at the moment and this is build on LibreElec. For Raspbian USB boot works fine. It would be great is this can be done for LibreElec/Rasplex.

**lrusak** · December 21, 2016 at 4:34 PM Official Post

You can always grab the firmware yourself from the Raspberry pi next repo and update it in your system partition, then you will be able to usb boot.

thommy86 · December 29, 2016 at 8:28 PM

Quote from lrusak

You can always grab the firmware yourself from the Raspberry pi next repo and update it in your system partition, then you will be able to usb boot.

What is the best option to do this? I am still reading and learning, but as far as I know, Libreelec contains the master branch of the firmware and not the "next" branch. My pi is ready to boot from USB. I also tried to just put an update bootcode.bin on to the flashed USB, but this only gave me the rainbow start screen. So my thought was that the cmdline.txt had to be updated as well. But I don't know to what I should update this.

As far as I know, at initial startup, the partitions will be created. So what is the best way to handle this?

This is my cmdline which works with my Rasbian image. Not for LibreElec

Code

dwc_otg.lpm_enable=0 console=serial0,115200 console=tty1 root=/dev/sda2 rootfstype=ext4 elevator=deadline fsck.repair=yes rootwait plymouth.enable=0

**milhouse** · December 31, 2016 at 1:31 AM

My kodi 18 test builds include branch=next firmware. Or use the latest official 7.90.xxx release, then update the firmware from branch=next.

As for your cmdline.txt, the following might work (untested, I've only tested network booting):

Code

boot=/dev/sda1 disk=/dev/sda2 quiet ssh

Note that it's better to use uuids to identify your USB partitions to avoid confusion with any other USB based storage you may have connected, so once you've booted the Pi use blkid to list your uuids, and then change cmdline.txt.

The following is just an example with a system booted from SD card (although it's really not necessary to use UUIDs for SD cards):

Code

rpi22:~ # blkid
/dev/mmcblk0: PTUUID="bb25af57" PTTYPE="dos"
/dev/mmcblk0p1: SEC_TYPE="msdos" LABEL="System" UUID="9AD8-C43A" TYPE="vfat" PARTUUID="bb25af57-01"
/dev/mmcblk0p2: LABEL="Storage" UUID="16d88253-502e-4c3c-8404-1c24bade0213" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="bb25af57-02"
[code]


and then cmdline.txt would become:
[code]
boot=UUID=9AD8-C43A disk=UUID=16d88253-502e-4c3c-8404-1c24bade0213 quiet ssh

Shoog · January 18, 2017 at 9:40 PM

There is a problem with trying this as there is a known bug which means that when you enable boot from USB only 119MB of ram is available on the system. This is cured on the Raspbian system by using an updated version of bootcode.bin, but this doesn't cure the issue when used in a Libreelec build.

At the moment it would seem that this facility is broken until someone looks at the specifics of the Libreelec and firmware integration.

Update: if you try copying all the firmware across from the Raspbian next build, you get a broken system with everything stuck at the rainbow splash screen.

Stephen

**lrusak** · January 19, 2017 at 3:03 AM Official Post

Quote from Shoog

There is a problem with trying this as there is a known bug which means that when you enable boot from USB only 119MB of ram is available on the system. This is cured on the Raspbian system by using an updated version of bootcode.bin, but this doesn't cure the issue when used in a Libreelec build.

At the moment it would seem that this facility is broken until someone looks at the specifics of the Libreelec and firmware integration.

Update: if you try copying all the firmware across from the Raspbian next build, you get a broken system with everything stuck at the rainbow splash screen.

Stephen

just grab the firware from here, firmware/boot at next · raspberrypi/firmware · GitHub

Shoog · January 19, 2017 at 8:20 PM

Quote from lrusak

just grab the firware from here, firmware/boot at next · raspberrypi/firmware · GitHub

When I grab the firmware from that source (kernel,start.elf,bootloader.bin,bcm2710-rpi-3-b.dtb, bcm2709-rpi-2-b.dtb) and load it into the boot folder it gets stuck at the rainbow splash.

The question is has anyone actually got a working system with this method and precisely what files did you use to get it ?
Stephen

**milhouse** · January 20, 2017 at 3:18 AM

Shoog: The 119MB issue has been fixed for a while now, and shouldn't be an issue in my Kodi 18 test builds or the latest LibreELEC 8 beta build (7.95.1), both of which should boot from USB with the full complement of RAM. Which version of LibreELEC are you testing that has this RAM issue?

**lrusak** · January 20, 2017 at 3:21 AM Official Post

Quote from Shoog

When I grab the firmware from that source (kernel,start.elf,bootloader.bin,bcm2710-rpi-3-b.dtb, bcm2709-rpi-2-b.dtb) and load it into the boot folder it gets stuck at the rainbow splash.

The question is has anyone actually got a working system with this method and precisely what files did you use to get it ?
Stephen

Don't replace the kernel!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We actually rename some files.
See, LibreELEC.tv/package.mk at master · LibreELEC/LibreELEC.tv · GitHub

start_x.elf -> start.elf
fixup_x.dat -> fixup.dat

Shoog · January 20, 2017 at 7:17 AM

Quote from milhouse

Shoog: The 119MB issue has been fixed for a while now, and shouldn't be an issue in my Kodi 18 test builds or the latest LibreELEC 8 beta build (7.95.1), both of which should boot from USB with the full complement of RAM. Which version of LibreELEC are you testing that has this RAM issue?

I am using 7.0.3 because I know its stable otherwise.
This fix hasn't made it into the mainline boot files yet after a good six months of been out there

[hr]

Quote from lrusak

Don't replace the kernel!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We actually rename some files.
See, LibreELEC.tv/package.mk at master · LibreELEC/LibreELEC.tv · GitHub

start_x.elf -> start.elf
fixup_x.dat -> fixup.dat

OK i started out not replacing the kernel, just putting in the basic start.elf bootloader.bin and fixup.dat

I reverted to using the boot through SD to harddrive because I know this just works and I have finally realised that my time is more precious than the cost of an SD card.

Stephen

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**milhouse** · January 20, 2017 at 9:49 AM

The memory fix and USB support is now in Raspberry Pi firmware branch=master (has been for a week or two), so use that as per lrusaks instructions. Or upgrade to the LE 8 Beta.