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
-
New Linux Tool for Security Issues
Seal Security is launching a new solution to automate fixing Linux vulnerabilities.
-
Ubuntu 25.04 Coming Soon
Ubuntu 25.04 (Plucky Puffin) has been given an April release date with many notable updates.
-
Gnome Developers Consider Dropping RPM Support
In a move that might shock a lot of users, the Gnome development team has proposed the idea of going straight up Flatpak.
-
openSUSE Tumbleweed Ditches AppArmor for SELinux
If you're an openSUSE Tumbleweed user, you can expect a major change to the distribution.
-
Plasma 6.3 Now Available
Plasma desktop v6.3 has a couple of pretty nifty tricks up its sleeve.
-
LibreOffice 25.2 Has Arrived
If you've been hoping for a release that offers more UI customizations, you're in for a treat.
-
TuxCare Has a Big AlmaLinux 9 Announcement in Store
TuxCare announced it has successfully completed a Security Technical Implementation Guide for AlmaLinux OS 9.
-
First Release Candidate for Linux Kernel 6.14 Now Available
Linus Torvalds has officially released the first release candidate for kernel 6.14 and it includes over 500,000 lines of modified code, making for a small release.
-
System76 Refreshes Meerkat Mini PC
If you're looking for a small form factor PC powered by Linux, System76 has exactly what you need in the Meerkat mini PC.
-
Gnome 48 Alpha Ready for Testing
The latest Gnome desktop alpha is now available with plenty of new features and improvements.