20.10 is better than 20.04 for USB booting Ubuntu on Raspberry Pi 4B

Recently, the number of Raspberry Pi has been increasing steadily. We place Raspberry Pi all over the house and set up servers to support the IoT of our home. Although it is such a Raspberry Pi, the drawback is that it is started with microSD. That's fine for a little use, but it's a bit unfortunate to realize the Raspberry Pi 4B's slogan "Your new desktop computer". The environment for USB booting Raspberry Pi 4B is also ready, and I would like to install Ubuntu because it is a desktop environment.

things to do

Create a comfortable Ubuntu desktop environment by USB booting Raspberry Pi 4B with SSD as the boot drive

What you have prepared

Raspberry Pi 4B (8GB)
SSD (Crucial BX500; 240GB) --SATA --USB3 adapter (UGREEN; UASP compatible, be careful [^ 1]) --microSD (It is necessary to start with microSD once and update) --Display, keyboard, mouse, microHDMI cable

Why 20.10 is better than 20.04 LTS

From Ubuntu Server 20.04 LTS, Ubuntu officially supports Rapberry Pi, but when it comes to USB boot, there is a bug that 20.04 does not start when sudo apt update / sudo apt upgrade is done, it is scripted and put in You can take measures by leaving it, but is it troublesome? Fortunately, 20.10 eliminates that bug, so if you want to ** USB boot, it's overwhelmingly easier to use 20.10. In 20.04, it was only the Server version, but in 20.10, there is also a Desktop version, so it is perfect for use as a PC. However, support is available until July 2021.

procedure

It doesn't have to be particularly difficult.

0. Write Raspberry Pi OS to microSD

If you already have a Raspberry Pi running, this step is not necessary. I installed the 64-bit version of Raspberry Pi OS, but some people are doing it in 32-bit, so I think either [^ 2] is okay. It is easy to use Raspberry Pi Imager to write the OS image. The 32-bit version OS can be downloaded in the Raspberry Pi Imager.

Raspberry Pi Imager If you want to use the 64-bit version, please Download from here.

スクリーンショット 2021-01-17 12.20.44.png

1. Update EEPROM

The Raspberry Pi has a memory called EEPROM, which contains the bootloader. To do USB boot on Raspberry Pi 4B, the bootloader version must be 2020-09-03 or later.

#Check the current version
$ vcgencmd bootloader_version
Apr 16 2020 18:11:26
version a5e1b95f320810c69441557c5f5f0a7f2460dfb8 (release)
timestamp 1587057086

#update
$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt full-upgrade
$ sudo reboot

#Check if it has been updated after rebooting
$ vcgencmd bootloader_version
Sep  3 2020 13:11:43
version c305221a6d7e532693cc7ff57fddfc8649def167 (release)
timestamp 1599135103

2. Change boot drive to USB

Use raspi-config.

sudo raspi-config

I saw some pages that explain that 3 Boot Options> B4 Boot Order> B1 USB Boot is selected and saved [^ 3], but in my environment 7 Advanced It was in Options. After making the changes, the next reboot will be from USB.

Turn off the power.

sudo shutdown -h now

3. Write Ubuntu to SSD

I haven't written anything to the SSD yet, so let's use the Raspberry Pi Imager to write Ubuntu 20.10.

Ubuntu can be downloaded here, but you can download it in the Raspberry Pi Imager without having to download it yourself. I used the 64-bit version of Ubuntu Desktop 20.10.

スクリーンショット 2021-01-17 13.37.45.png

4. Boot from USB

Remove the microSD and insert the SSD. Turn on the power and start it up!

Screenshot from 2021-01-17 16-31-44.png

But honestly, it's a little heavy ... w There is a feeling of lack of CPU power rather than memory capacity or SSD. Maybe it's a little more comfortable if you switch from GNOME to a lightweight desktop such as Lubuntu? However, the more rich the GUI, the higher the tension ...

However, I think it would be enough if a second or third computer could be built for a total of about 17,500 yen. The number of apps that publish ARM64 builds such as VScode is increasing, so I'm looking forward to the future ^^

References

-Raspberry Pi with Ubuntu 20.10 delivers a complete Linux desktop and microcloud -Ubuntu officially supports Raspberry Pi 4 (Ubuntu 20.10)

[^ 1]: I'm not familiar with it, so I don't know, but it seems that UASP-compatible SATA-USB adapters are not supported. By the way, the adapter I bought also said that it supports UASP. Reference link [^ 2]: Some people have updated the EEPROM with the 32-bit version. Reference link [^ 3]: For example, this page or this page.