[TriLUG] tips for a new, RPI-based house server

[Brian via TriLUG]

On 5/1/20 2:42 PM, Chris Bickhaus via TriLUG wrote:
>> The guys at the Self-Hosted podcast have been talking about how snappy
>> it is running the Raspberry Pi from an external SSD. I guess they have
>> it booting from a small SD Card and loading the rootfs from SSD.
> 
> On this week’s Linux Unplugged (ep. 351), he mentions that due to the kennel shipped with 20.04, he can boot his pi4 from usb.  He didn’t get more specific than that it that episode though.

My knowledge may be outdated.  The last I knew anything about it, the 
Broadcom SoC at the heart of the Pi itself cannot be booted from USB; it 
only knows how to talk to the SD card when it first powers on.  This 
isn't something a Linux kernel has anything to do with, because it's 
before the kernel is loaded.  It may be true, though, that all the 
bootloader on the SD card needs to do nowadays is contain enough 
instructions to point the SoC at a USB device.  Or for all I know, the 
latest SoC might have USB boot support built in.  But that still 
wouldn't be a kernel feature; it'd be a feature of the silicon.

-B