This is for Beaver, the Raspberry Pi 4B, MAC address d8:3a:dd:26:f5:2b .
When the new machine was received, I checked out these features.
In summary, every one of the features that the machine was supposed
to have, performed with no hassle out of the box.
| Does it boot at all? | Box
|
| | Yes, it boots the XFCE image for OpenSuSE
Tumbleweed (2023-12=21), counting as a pass on this item. However,
the usual criterion for this test is booting the SuSE installer(s), and
both are ISO-9660 images, which the boot ROM cannot read. See
Installing an Image under Setup.
|
| Processor: Broadcom BCM2711, ARM Cortex-A72 (ARM v8)
| Box
|
| | Cores | 4
|
| | Nominal clock speed | 1.8GHz
|
| | Actual max clock speed | 1.5GHz
|
| | Minimum clock speed (powersave) | 0.6GHz
|
| | Bogomips | 108.50
|
| | Jimc's benchmark (Mby/sec) | 39.2
|
| | MPEG-2 playback (ffmpeg), CPU% | ?
|
| | L1 Cache size (per core) | Insn 48Kb,
data 32Kb
|
| | L2 Cache size (shared among all cores) | 1Mb
|
| | Capable of hosting virtual macnhine | N.T.
|
| Graphics: Broadcom VideoCore VI (driver: vc4), 500MHz
| Box
|
| | Using the HDMI port, with a
1920x1080px display (1080p)
|
| | Video RAM expands dynamically, min: | 32Mb
|
| | Video RAM (CMA) max: | 300Mb
|
| | glmark2 average frames/sec (without acceleration)
| Re-run
|
| | Need to turn on acceleration
and test MPEG2, H.264.
|
| Memory: LPDDR4 3200 MHz SDRAM | Box
|
| | RAM on this machine (1,2,4,8Gb) | 8Gb
|
Disc | Box
|
| |
SanDisk 64Gb Extreme Pro MicroSD UHS-I card; Model: SDSQXCU-064G-GN6MA.
Addressing limit: 2Tb (2e12 bytes).
Spec-oids: C10 U3 V30 A2 200MB/s read, 90MB/s write (when pigs fly,
a UHS-I card upper bound is 104MB/s).
|
| LAN | Box
|
| | Interface is part of the Broadcom 2711 SoC.
It is neither USB nor PCI, and can do 802.3ab gigabit
Ethernet plus 802.3af/at-1 power over Ethernet. Driver: bcmgenet
or just genet.
|
| Wi-fi | Box
|
| | The interface is believed to be part of the
Broadcom 2711 SoC. Provides 802.11ac (2.4 and 5GHz bands) and is
backward compatible with b/g/n). Driver: bcmfmac. Connects to CouchNet.
|
| Bluetooth | Add-on
|
| |
The Bluetooth HCI appears to be part of the Broadcom 2711 SoC.
It is neither USB nor PCI.
Driver: hci_uart_bcm per /sys/class/bluetooth/hci0/device/driver ,
probably btbcm per /proc/modules. It can communicate with partners
(Linux on Intel, and Android) and it can connect, pair, and show a
list of available services on the peer, but I wasn't able to get higher
level services to do anything useful. Clearly this is a software
issue, which is not Beaver's fault and which affects some but not all
desired pairings between other peers. So I'm giving Bluetooth a pass.
|
| %%%%% Updated to here…
|
| Audio (onboard) | Conf
|
| | On my Raspberry Pi 3B, with the SuSE XFCE
image (kernel 4.14.15), the driver isn't loaded for the onboard audio.
In partition 1, mounted on /boot/efi, you
need to create extraconfig.txt containing dtparam=audio=on (and
reboot). This done, the onboard audio appears as an ALSA device,
and functions with good sound quality.
Forum postings suggest that the DAC (on which model?) has only
11 bits and is subject to pops and crackles at the start and end of
tracks. I don't hear those symptoms.
|
| Audio (USB) | Fail
|
| |
Replying to complaints about onboard audio,
forum posters invariably recommend using a USB audio dongle.
I have an old Turtle
Beach dongle, identified as a C-Media Electronics CM102-A+/CM102-S+
Audio Controller (USB ID 0d8c:0103), or in the mixer GUIs and
/proc/asound/cards, Audio Advantage MicroII. It produces sound as
expected, but it has two fatal issues: it hogs the USB bus so the
Ethernet NIC loses most (over 90%) packets, and its volume does not
respond to the mixer, attributed to a recent driver bug.
|
| Audio (Other) | Conf
|
| |
- S/PDIF on HDMI: If the display has speakers, the GPU will
automatically divert audio to them unless you do a magic
incantation. The audio over HDMI works fine (as does the magic
incantation to always use analog audio). However, the ALSA driver
to use S/PDIF explicitly claims there is no such device.
- Microphone: There are said to be arcane ways to get audio into
a Raspberry Pi, but I don't know them. Some USB audio dongles
have 4 wire connections for capture from a headset, but not mine.
|
| USB Ports | Box
|
| | One bus; the controller handles USB-2.0 and
USB-1.2. There are four female type A connectors, and the Ethernet NIC is
also on this bus. There is no sign that the Micro-USB power connector has
any data capability at all.
|
| Special Features
|
| | Auto boot when power returns | Box
|
| | PXE boot: Supposed to work, but not tested.
| N.T.
|
| | Watchdog: Barks. But this inadvertent sequence of tests
was brought on by a kernel oops, and recovery (e.g. a reboot) did not
happen. The driver is bcm2835_wdt. | Box
|
| Suspend and Wake | None
|
| | The Raspberry Pi cannot do sleep states; it is always
on. In Linux, hibernation is pure software, should work, and appears to
go down OK; however, power stays on. When power is turned off and then
on, the boot scripts do not load the saved image and do a normal boot.
Times for non-sleep activities, in seconds:
|
| | S5 (power off / reboot) | 5 / 82 sec
|
| | Greeter to XFCE desktop, 1st time | 14 sec
|
| | Greeter to XFCE desktop, repeat | 10 sec
|
| Power consumption (watts) | OK
|
| | Idle |
|
| | Maxed out, one core |
|
| | Maxed out, both cores |
|
| | Playing MPEG-2 1080p video |
|
| | Beware: It's essential to use only one power supply with
this and similar machines. If you have a powered USB hub, get one with
a power supply big enough to run everything, and disconnect from the
motherboard's micro-USB power port. See the
USB setup section. | Beware
|
