Raspberry Pi 5 4GB arrived today - Part 1

of course I got one.  It was on pre-order with thepihut.com (actually this one was registered to Mrs.IsAGeek - but shhhh!), I missed my one being delivered as I was "out" and they wanted it signed for..that will arrive on Monday, that one is the 8GB version with the new PSU and fan...

What can I say?  Well...I had a minor niggle out-of-the-box that I'll cover here.

I went to here: https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/operating-systems/#raspberry-pi-os-64-bit

I downloaded this file: https://downloads.raspberrypi.com/raspios_arm64/images/raspios_arm64-2023-10-10/2023-10-10-raspios-bookworm-arm64.img.xz

I burnt it to an SD-Card:

Stuck the SD-Card into the device, booted it up and was shown some looping time out issues and errors.

I thought that the SD-Card was at fault? So I did it a few times, even used another SD-Card.

Then I actually read the prompt on the screen - It was complaining that a specific RPi-5.dtd file was missing, nope there it was in the main folder, I could see it.

It turns out it does tell you to modify the config.txt file to bypass the OS check:

os_check=0

I modified the file as told, and it booted up into the familiar style install UI.  I could see it was new / different as it asks which web-browser you want to use: Chromium or Frirefox and whether you want to uninstall the unselected one.  Interesting, it's like the early 2000s browser-wars all over again.

Anyway, usual questions and connect to internet and download even more updates and stuff....

[Please wait...]

(Write this article, whilst I do!)

 

So...what am I going to do with it? What am I going to do with ALL THAT POWER?!

I have absolutely no idea - I'll find something though as I have the next 2-weeks off work.. so that means toy-playing time solely for me.  I guess it might involve some node-red, some C code, some ML, maybe some other as yet un-thought about stuff.  We'll see.  Whatever it is, I'll make sure I look to make sure I use or exploit that new CPU and extra grunt that this specific device offers.

To find out more specifically about the Raspberry Pi 5 device itself, go check it out.

https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/raspberry-pi-5/

The MOST IMPORTANT feature = the power button!  LOL - I do love the fact this is shown as a feature.  It's a bit like when Apple announced the "copy & paste" feature with the iPhone and everyone was, like, "wow!".....

anyway, [System is up to date]

Time to reboot.

Hmmm.... okay, so THAT doesn't look so good.  :-(   Seems like a SD-Card read error going on, although it was fine to boot from it earlier.

SD TIMEOUT

FAT read failed.

Ah, I thought it was going to well.  Although, as I said earlier, I thought it might be due to the SD-Cards I am using, they are branded as "KEXIN 32GB", they weren't cheap and nasty one's, but they are not Sandisk, which is what I "usually" use.  That might be the problem here?

Wow! That board gets HOT! I have had it running for 30mins or so and just picked it up to remove the SD-Card and, yeah, that's a bit toastie.

What now?

Well, I'm going to err on the SD-Card option and try again tomorrow (after the emergency plumber has come to fix the leaking pipework in the bathroom and hopefully I may have some ££££ left over to go buy some decent SD-Cards from somewhere), we'll see....

........

Of course, it may also be that I am using the RPi 4 5v 3amp PSU and not the new RPi 5 5v 5amp PSU?

Hmmm.... troubleshooting time?

..........

Ah-ha!!!! Well... what do we have here?!  I was being IMPATIENT! If you wait a few minutes after all the error flipping screen, you then get a Desktop splash screen and then you get the following shown:

THAT's BETTER.

Turns out there is actually a new app called: Raspberry Pi Diagnostics.  It does an SD Card Speed Test.

I ran it.  I failed.

What does that mean?  that means Amazon is delivering 4 of these tomorrow :-)

I'm sure I can use the other cards for other "things", but for the RPi 5, I imagine you have to use the "good stuff" to get it to work properly.  Makes sense.

UPDATE:

I just found a LEXAR 128GB SD-Card, installed the same OS version to it, did the initial install / setup, rebooted and straight into the desktop.  Just run the SD-Card Speed Test and [PASS].  Okay, so the SD-Card DOES seem to make a major difference.  That is good to know.  Also makes me feel more confident that the "slowness" I was experiencing is most likely down to the card.  I'll repeat the same steps as I was doing to see if there is a noticeable difference.  Yes, it is 01:00am now, but y'know...