Raspberry Pi 3 B+

dicko

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@wardmundy , I would be interested to see what failed, I have successfully installed Asterisk and FreePBX "the old fashioned way ( from source) " several times with no problems.
 

dicko

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Well, actually I did it on both jessie and stretch (it takes a looooong time though :) )
 

kyle95wm

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@dicko please be aware that Ward's project is more than just FPBX and Asterisk. This is likely why there are compatibility issues for Incredible PBX on the 3B +
 

dicko

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Of course I am aware of that, I am just saying that I don't think it is either Asterisk or FreePBX, I am sure Ward will get there though.
 

wardmundy

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Thanks for the inspiration, @dicko. We finally got it working. An updated install image has been uploaded to SourceForge. Just download the image dated 4-28-2018.

Db4Ia5eVQAACaRo.jpg


To upgrade an existing Raspbian 8 platform, here are the steps which must first be performed on a RasPi 3B before it will boot on a 3B+:
Code:
apt-get update
apt-get dist-upgrade
apt-get clean
rpi-update ef7621d91cb58ccc856c3c17ddda28685edd23f3
reboot
cd /root
wget https://archive.raspberrypi.org/debian/pool/main/f/firmware-nonfree/firmware-brcm80211_20161130-3+rpt3_all.deb
dpkg -i firmware-brcm80211_20161130-3+rpt3_all.deb

Before WiFi will actually work, you must set the proper WiFi locale using raspi-config and reboot once more.
 
Last edited:

tukkae

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I am trying to build a system on a Raspberry Pi 3B that boots from a USB hard drive using the 04-28-2018 image. I am wondering whether the instructions contained in Ward's post http://nerdvittles.com/?p=21255 under "Running PBX from an External USB Device" need to be updated?

I am able to successfully mount the USB drive. However, when I try to edit /mnt/etc/fstab, /dev/mmcblk0p2 does not exist anywhere in the file.

Similarly, when I try to edit /boot/cmdline.txt, /dev/mmcblk0p2 does not exist anywhere in the file either.

Is it possible to boot this version of Raspian Jessie using USB Boot Mode in the Raspberry Pi 3 described in this post https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberrypi/bootmodes/msd.md?

Thanks for your help.
 

jerrm

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I am trying to build a system on a Raspberry Pi 3B that boots from a USB hard drive using the 04-28-2018 image. I am wondering whether the instructions contained in Ward's post http://nerdvittles.com/?p=21255 under "Running PBX from an External USB Device" need to be updated?

I am able to successfully mount the USB drive. However, when I try to edit /mnt/etc/fstab, /dev/mmcblk0p2 does not exist anywhere in the file.

Similarly, when I try to edit /boot/cmdline.txt, /dev/mmcblk0p2 does not exist anywhere in the file either.

Is it possible to boot this version of Raspian Jessie using USB Boot Mode in the Raspberry Pi 3 described in this post https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberrypi/bootmodes/msd.md?

Thanks for your help.
I haven't used the new image, but it should be doable. Newer Raspbian versions use partuuid values instead of device names. Post the cmdline.txt and fstab here you might not need to do anything to the image.

Not all USB drives work. Verbatim flash drives have not worked for me.
 

tukkae

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Hi jerrm:

fstab
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0

PARTUUID=916478d8-01 /boot vfat defaults 0 2

PARTUUID=916478d8-02 / ext4 defaults,noatime 0 1

# a swapfile is not a swap partition, no line here

# use dphys-swapfile swap[on|off] for that

and cmdline.txt

dwc_otg.lpm_enable=0 console=serial0,115200 console=tty1 root=PARTUUID=916478d8$
 

jerrm

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@tukkae - no need to edit. Should work as is if you have booted from SD at least once with "program_usb_boot_mode=1" in /boot/config.txt.
 

jerrm

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Last edited:

jerrm

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I tested several scenarios.

OS variants included Jessie-Lite, Stretch-Lite and Pi3b+ hacked Jessie-Lite. These were fresh images updated with apt-get update, apt-get dist-upgrade.

With no SD card installed, all three OS variants booted from USB on the Pi3b, Stretch and hacked Jessie USB booted on the Pi3b+.

With an "empty" SD card installed the appropriate OS variants USB booted as expected on both Pi3b and Pi3b+. "Empty" was tested both as a single freshly formatted, no files at all FAT partition and as a completely clean, unformatted, /dev/zero wiped SD card with no partition table at all. There did not seem to be any difference at all between the two versions of "empty" with regard to USB boot.

I did not test the bootcode.bin only method (I don't care about it).

The CPU utilization issue without an SD card mentioned in the link appears real. Without an SD card installed, a kworker thread hovers in the 7%-9% utilization range. This was consistent across all three OS variants on both the 3b and 3b+. It appears the thread is polling the SD card, maybe to detect if one has been inserted. With an SD card installed, even a completely wiped, unformatted card, the utilization is eliminated.

The kworker thread did not give up it's cpu percentage even when benchmarks were being run that pegged out all four CPUs at 100%.

Bottom line:
USB only boot works just fine, but it may be best to keep an empty SD card in the slot anyway.
 
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wardmundy

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Thanks, @jerrm. This appears to be a problem with USB drives that rely upon the USB port for power. They don't spin up quickly enough when you apply power to the 3B+ to actually boot. There was a workaround in the past, but that no longer seems to help.
 

jerrm

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Thanks, @jerrm. This appears to be a problem with USB drives that rely upon the USB port for power. They don't spin up quickly enough when you apply power to the 3B+ to actually boot. There was a workaround in the past, but that no longer seems to help.
Possibly, I didn't have a 2.5 spindle around to test, only USB Flash and SSD.

The biggest concern I personally had with the linked thread was the CPU utilization issue with no SD card, which appears real for both the Pi3b and Pi3b+.

I am currently using SD cards, but was planning on switching. Probably still will switch for most uses, but glad to know about the empty slot CPU issue first.
 

jerrm

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@wardmundy - the discussion prompted me to play with the 13-13 image for the first time.

Looks good!

A couple of things to think about if a Stretch image is not imminent:
  1. Since Pi3b+ boots USB out of the box, I would think many will skip the sd card altogether(despite the issues). The Jessie raspi-config resize option only works on an SD card. Probably easy to patch, but we won't be getting any Jessie updates. It might worthwhile to include a resize script or at least a links in the tutorial.

  2. Since Raspbian is now using the PARTUUID values for mounting, consider randomizing the values. Things might get interesting with multiple partitions all looking the same.
I've got quick and dirty scripts to do both the above. I can put a little structure around them and post if you want.
 

wardmundy

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That would be great. The resize routine for external drives actually is covered in the current tutorial.
 

jerrm

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Ok, finally came back to test these after hacking them out the other day. Spent some time trying to break them tonight. After a little cleanup I think they are OK.

These are probably overkill, but I couldn't bring myself to post these without at least basic checks to prevent trashing the system.
  • randomizepi - changes PTUUIDs and UUIDs on the current root and boot partitions.

  • resizepi - resizes current root partition to fill drive. root partition can be resized online while mounted. Optionally takes a percentage to expand to. Optionally can be passed another unmounted partition to expand.
 

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