A 64-bit Raspberry Pi with 8GB of RAM and USB boot
Pi in the Sky
© Lead Image © innovari, fotolia.com
The Raspberry Pi 4 equipped with 8GB of RAM is the top end of this popular small-board computer. A 64-bit version of Raspberry Pi OS and the ability to boot from storage devices connected over USB are also just around the corner.
When the fourth generation of the Raspberry Pi was presented in June 2019, the Raspberry Pi Foundation fulfilled almost all the wishes of its loyal fans. With directly wired Gigabit Ethernet, fast USB 3.0 ports, and two monitor connections, the Raspberry Pi had finally come of age [1]. Technical details, such as the new BCM2711 system on a chip (SoC), along with the four Cortex A72 cores and up to 4GB of RAM were nearly forgotten.
Almost a year later, the Foundation launched a new variant of the Raspberry Pi 4. Besides versions with 1, 2, and 4GB of RAM, the new version was now also available with 8GB of RAM for an official price of $75 (£73/EUR78) – hardly a surprise, because the variant was listed in the Safety and User Guide enclosed with each board, more or less by mistake. Technically, the BCM2711 chip on the Raspberry Pi 4 can address up to 16GB of memory, but no chip manufacturer was able to supply LPDDR4 (low power, double data rate) chips with 8GB of capacity for the 2019 release [2].
In terms of components, the 8GB version hardly differs from the previous Raspberry Pi 4 versions; the only difference is that the RAM chip's identifier ends in D9ZCL (Figure 1). Having more RAM also means a minor adjustment of the power supply. Apart from that, the boards of the different variants are like identical twins.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Bugs Found in sudo
Two critical flaws allow users to gain access to root privileges.
-
Fedora Continues 32-Bit Support
In a move that should come as a relief to some portions of the Linux community, Fedora will continue supporting 32-bit architecture.
-
Linux Kernel 6.17 Drops bcachefs
After a clash over some late fixes and disagreements between bcachefs's lead developer and Linus Torvalds, bachefs is out.
-
ONLYOFFICE v9 Embraces AI
Like nearly all office suites on the market (except LibreOffice), ONLYOFFICE has decided to go the AI route.
-
Two Local Privilege Escalation Flaws Discovered in Linux
Qualys researchers have discovered two local privilege escalation vulnerabilities that allow hackers to gain root privileges on major Linux distributions.
-
New TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro Powered by AMD Ryzen AI 300
The TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro 14 Gen10 offers serious power that is ready for your business, development, or entertainment needs.
-
LibreOffice Tested as Possible Office 365 Alternative
Another major organization has decided to test the possibility of migrating from Microsoft's Office 365 to LibreOffice.
-
Linux Mint 20 Reaches EOL
With Linux Mint 20 at its end of life, the time has arrived to upgrade to Linux Mint 22.
-
TuxCare Announces Support for AlmaLinux 9.2
Thanks to TuxCare, AlmaLinux 9.2 (and soon version 9.6) now enjoys years of ongoing patching and compliance.
-
Go-Based Botnet Attacking IoT Devices
Using an SSH credential brute-force attack, the Go-based PumaBot is exploiting IoT devices everywhere.