Raspberry Pi 4 Microcode?

[tmmd]

Hi there,

I'm new to Arch Linux ARM, and just getting it setup on my Raspberry Pi 4. I've been working my way through the Arch wiki's general recommendations, and saw that it suggests setting up microcode updates. I haven't been able to find much of anything about this as it relates to ARM/RPi4, so wanted to ask here.

Is microcode something I need to worry about with ARM/RPi4? If so, are there any good resources/tutorials to help me set it up?

Thanks!

[tmmd]

I posted this on Reddit as well, and got a response there (https://www.reddit.com/r/archlinuxarm/c ... microcode/) saying microcode isn't anything to worry about. Let me know if that's mistaken. Otherwise, I'll consider the issue solved.

[moonman]

There is no microcode on ARM cpus.

[jmmec]

There's no microcode, however the Pi4 does have firmware updates, which isn't the case for Pi3 and below.

The firmware for Pi4 is not automatically updated if you're running ArchLinux as it is for the official Raspberry distribution. It includes updates dealing with the bootloader (e.g. network boot, and future USB boot, etc), and also separate firmware for the USB chipset (VL805).

Here is the official RPI tool for upgrading firmware:

https://github.com/raspberrypi/rpi-eeprom

fryfrog has made the rpi-eeprom tool available for ArchLinux here:

https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/rpi-eeprom/

Hope this helps.

[tmmd]

Thanks for the pointer!

[ufo6000]

Thank jmmec!

I took a look too,
I'm curious, the link sounds generic, suitable for all pi, but the head the the README.md at github then only talks about Raspberry Pi4.

Does this updater also works on older pi ? Or is there another package ?

[lategoodbye]

Now we have the perfect confusion about microcode, firmware and bootloader.

Only the RPI4 has a flash to store its bootloader. This tool update the bootloader in the flash. On the older Pis the bootloader was built into the ROM of the SoC.

The GPU firmware is still stored on the SD card as like the older Pis.