RPi Software - Revision history

Remsnet: Updated Distribuion section as it been Incomple for fedoa remix, OpenSuse and others.

2013-04-15T22:55:54Z

Updated Distribuion section as it been Incomple for fedoa remix, OpenSuse and others.

AndrewS: /* GPU bootloaders */ link formatting fix

2013-03-12T01:53:08Z

‎GPU bootloaders: link formatting fix

Muzer: /* Overview */ Extra start_x.elf/fixup_x.dat

2013-02-13T01:38:14Z

‎Overview: Extra start_x.elf/fixup_x.dat

Madman xxx: /* Overview */ Added info about cut-down versions of boot files

2013-01-11T12:21:21Z

‎Overview: Added info about cut-down versions of boot files

Keviny: /* GPU bootloaders */

2013-01-05T02:58:02Z

‎GPU bootloaders

Keviny: Added details about firmware being updated by apt-get and also a link for rpi-update (and a warning about using the latest firmware!!).

2013-01-05T02:55:58Z

Added details about firmware being updated by apt-get and also a link for rpi-update (and a warning about using the latest firmware!!).

Walkeral: Added emulation section to cover QEMU (transferred from Development environments)

2012-11-24T18:46:36Z

Added emulation section to cover QEMU (transferred from Development environments)

Walkeral: Substantial rewrite - Added summary of software components and boot process. Replaced information covered in other pages with links. Removed / updated out-of-date remarks.

2012-11-24T18:37:44Z

Substantial rewrite - Added summary of software components and boot process. Replaced information covered in other pages with links. Removed / updated out-of-date remarks.

Portets: /* ARM */

2012-10-26T01:51:59Z

‎ARM

Elatllat at 18:26, 14 October 2012

2012-10-14T18:26:00Z

@@ Line 30: / Line 30: @@
 ''Main page: [[RPi_Distributions|Distributions]]''
-SD card images of a number of pre-built distributions including Raspbian (the RPi official distribution based on Debian), Arch Linux ARM, and RISC OS are available from the [http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads Raspberry Pi foundation website]. Pre-loaded SD cards are also available from [http://thepihut.com/collections/sd-cards The Pi Hut].
+SD card images of a number of pre-built distributions including Raspbian (the RPi official distribution based on Debian),
 Raspbian is the recommended distribution.

@@ Line 23: / Line 23: @@
 ==GPU bootloaders==
-Currently all of the GPU software and firmware is supplied in binary format. For Raspbian the latest stable release is included in the image and can be updated with apt-get (see the [http://elinux.org/Add_software adding software page]). The latest bleeding edge version can be downloaded from the [https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware/tree/master/boot RPI firmware section on GitHub]. At this time, the source code is not available.
+Currently all of the GPU software and firmware is supplied in binary format. For Raspbian the latest stable release is included in the image and can be updated with apt-get (see the [[Add_software|adding software page]]). The latest bleeding edge version can be downloaded from the [https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware/tree/master/boot RPI firmware section on GitHub]. At this time, the source code is not available.
 [https://github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update rpi-update] is also available as an easier way of updating the firmware and kernel. Please note, as this firmware is bleeding edge, it really should only be used by advanced users and could potentially still have bugs and be incompatible with existing images.

@@ Line 17: / Line 17: @@
 Prior to 19th October 2012, there was previously also a third stage bootloader (loader.bin) but this is no longer required. <ref>https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware/commit/c57ea9dd367f12bf4fb41b7b86806a2dc6281176</ref>
-Raspbian Linux image (others?) available on the foundation's website ([http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads]) also contains cut-down versions of the above files (fixup_cd.dat, start_cd.elf). These are used when GPU memory is set to 16 MB, which in result disables some GPU features. More info [http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=198420#p198420 here].
+Raspbian Linux image (others?) available on the foundation's website ([http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads]) also contains cut-down versions of the above files (fixup_cd.dat, start_cd.elf). These are used when GPU memory is set to 16 MB, which in result disables some GPU features. More info [http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=198420#p198420 here]. In addition, there are also testing versions of the above files (fixup_x.dat, start_x.elf), which enable potentially unstable/not-fully-tested/hacky functionality - currently, using these files instead of the usual fixup.dat/start.elf will cause extra video codecs to become available.
 Because of this boot process, use of an SD card to boot the RPi is mandatory. This does however mean that you cannot 'brick' the device.

← Older revision		Revision as of 12:21, 11 January 2013
Line 16:		Line 16:

	Prior to 19th October 2012, there was previously also a third stage bootloader (loader.bin) but this is no longer required. <ref>https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware/commit/c57ea9dd367f12bf4fb41b7b86806a2dc6281176</ref>		Prior to 19th October 2012, there was previously also a third stage bootloader (loader.bin) but this is no longer required. <ref>https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware/commit/c57ea9dd367f12bf4fb41b7b86806a2dc6281176</ref>
		+
		+	Raspbian Linux image (others?) available on the foundation's website ([http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads]) also contains cut-down versions of the above files (fixup_cd.dat, start_cd.elf). These are used when GPU memory is set to 16 MB, which in result disables some GPU features. More info [http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=198420#p198420 here].

	Because of this boot process, use of an SD card to boot the RPi is mandatory. This does however mean that you cannot 'brick' the device.		Because of this boot process, use of an SD card to boot the RPi is mandatory. This does however mean that you cannot 'brick' the device.

@@ Line 21: / Line 21: @@
 ==GPU bootloaders==
-Currently all of the GPU software and firmware is supplied in binary format. For Raspbian the latest stable release is included in the image and can be updated with apt-get (see the [http://elinux.org/Add_software adding software page). The latest bleeding edge version can be downloaded from the [https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware/tree/master/boot RPI firmware section on GitHub]. At this time, the source code is not available.
+Currently all of the GPU software and firmware is supplied in binary format. For Raspbian the latest stable release is included in the image and can be updated with apt-get (see the [http://elinux.org/Add_software adding software page]). The latest bleeding edge version can be downloaded from the [https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware/tree/master/boot RPI firmware section on GitHub]. At this time, the source code is not available.
-[https://github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update rpi-update] is also available as an easier way of updating the firmware and kernel [https://github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update]. Please note, as this firmware is bleeding edge, it really should only be used by advanced users and could potentially still have bugs and be incompatible with existing images.
+[https://github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update rpi-update] is also available as an easier way of updating the firmware and kernel. Please note, as this firmware is bleeding edge, it really should only be used by advanced users and could potentially still have bugs and be incompatible with existing images.
 ==Distributions==

@@ Line 68: / Line 68: @@
 ==Programming==
 A number of development environments are available depending on which language you are writing - see the [[RPi_Programming|programming]] page.
 ==References==

@@ Line 4: / Line 4: @@
 ==Overview==
-==BootRom==
+If you just want a working system, all that is required is a correctly formatted SD card. For details on how to create or get one, please see the [[RPi_Hardware_Basic_Setup#Prepared_Operating_System_SD_Card|Hardware Basic Setup]] page.
-The boards do not include NAND or NOR storage - everything is on the SD card, which has a FAT32 partition with GPU firmware and a kernel image, and an EXT2 partition with the rootfs.
+In order to understand the software compoonents in the RPi, you should first understand how it boots up. At power-up, the CPU is offline, and a small RISC core on the GPU is responsible for booting the SoC, therefore most of the boot components are actually run on the GPU code, not the CPU.
-We're not currently using a bootloader - we actually boot via the GPU, which contains a proprietary RISC core (wacky architecture). The GPU mounts the SD card, loads GPU firmware and brings up display/video/3d, loads a kernel image, resets the SD card host and starts the ARM.
+The boot order and components are as follows:
-You could replace the kernel image with a bootloader image, and that would work fine.
+Prior to 19th October 2012, there was previously also a third stage bootloader (loader.bin) but this is no longer required. <ref>https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware/commit/c57ea9dd367f12bf4fb41b7b86806a2dc6281176</ref>
-==Distributions==
+Because of this boot process, use of an SD card to boot the RPi is mandatory. This does however mean that you cannot 'brick' the device.
-Source code and binaries for Raspberry Pi will be available at various places from launch, including pre-built Linux distributions.
+==GPU bootloaders==
-Debian is the recommended distribution and pre-loaded SD cards with this distribution will be available shortly after the initial launch through the Raspberry Pi Store.
+Currently all of the GPU software and firmware is supplied in binary format. It can be downloaded from the [https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware/tree/master/boot RPI firmware section on GitHub]. At this time, the source code is not available.
-''Main page: [[RPi Distributions]]''
+SD card images of a number of pre-built distributions including Raspbian (the RPi official distribution based on Debian), Arch Linux ARM, and RISC OS are available from the [http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads Raspberry Pi foundation website]. Pre-loaded SD cards are also available from [http://thepihut.com/collections/sd-cards The Pi Hut].
-==Development environments==
+Raspbian is the recommended distribution.
-−
-Instead of just using compiler + editor, you can use "development tool chains" which integrate compiler, build system, packaging tools etc, in one tool chain.
-−
-−
-−
-Main page: [[RPi_Development_environments]]
 ==Kernel==
-The initial patches ([[Media:Rpi-linux-patches-3.1.9.tgz]]) are released against the 3.1.9 kernel - but may also work against later kernels.
+The kernel is sources can be obtained from the [https://github.com/raspberrypi/linux RPI linux section on GitHub]
-−
-The kernel is now also available on https://github.com/raspberrypi/linux
-−
-See [[rpi kernel compilation]] (unfinished) for how to compile the kernel.
-−
-(left here until new page is created:) TODO: Explain how to apply these patches and correctly obtain a default configured kernel.
 ==Compiler==
@@ Line 47: / Line 41: @@
 ===ARM===
-There is broad compiler support including gcc - please see [http://www.elinux.org/ARMCompilers ARM Compilers]
+There is broad compiler support for the ARM processor including GCC - please see [[ARMCompilers|ARM Compilers]].
+There are also a number of cross-compiler toolchains - please see [[Toolchains|toolchains]].
-The ARM is capable of around 500 BOGOMIPS <ref>http://www.raspberrypi.org/?p=78#more-78</ref>, 5400 LINPACK KFLOPS with software floating point and 22000 KFLOPS with softfp hardware floating point<ref>http://www.raspberrypi.org/?page_id=43&mingleforumaction=viewtopic&t=266.0</ref>.
 The gcc compiler flags which will produce the most optimal code for the RPi are:
-<pre>-Ofast -mfpu=vfp -mfloat-abi=hard -march=armv6zk</pre>
+<pre>-Ofast -mfpu=vfp -mfloat-abi=hard -march=armv6zk -mtune=arm1176jzf-s</pre>
--Ofast may produce compile errors for some programs. In this case, -O3 or -O2 should be used instead.
+<tt>-Ofast</tt> may produce compile errors for some programs. In this case, <tt>-O3</tt> or <tt>-O2</tt> should be used instead.
 ===GPU===
@@ Line 65: / Line 61: @@
 There is a DSP, but there isn't currently a public API (Liz thinks the BC team are keen to make one available at some point).
 ==Performance==
-[[RaspberryPiPerformance|Performance Page]]
+A large number of benchmark results are available on the [[RaspberryPiPerformance|performance page]].
 ==Programming==
+A number of development environments are available depending on which language you are writing - see the [[RPi_Programming|programming]] page.
-Raspberry Pi plans to support Python and C as primary teaching languages, but expect to have some sort of BASIC on there too. Perhaps even BBC BASIC or SuperBASIC depending on copyright issues.
-−
-−
-''See main page [[RPi Programming]] for more detail.''
 ==References==

@@ Line 67: / Line 67: @@
 ==Other software==
 This section collects hints, tips & tricks for various software components.
+*[[RPi_applications#Raspberry_Pi_Software_Application_Notes]]
-If you are using Debian and asked for an admin password, see this thread: http://www.raspberrypi.org/forum/absolute-beginners/debian-admin-password
 ==Performance==