[Bug]: When building for the RPi4, fixup*.dat and start*.elf are missing.

[okrc]

What happened?

After writing the image to the TF card, the system fails to boot properly. The built image does not place fixup*.dat and start*.elf in the RPICFG partition, and the image does not include the raspi-firmware package.

As an ordinary user, I lack in-depth knowledge of the boot process. After unpacking the image, I found that these files are actually present under /usr/lib/armbian-firmware-raspi. When I manually copied fixup*.dat and start*.elf from that directory into the RPICFG partition, the system was able to boot successfully.

How to reproduce?

./compile.sh \
            BOARD=rpi4b \
            BRANCH=current \
            BTRFS_COMPRESSION=zstd \
            BUILD_MINIMAL=yes \
            COMPRESS_OUTPUTIMAGE=xz \
            DISABLE_IPV6=false \
            IMAGE_XZ_COMPRESSION_RATIO=9 \
            KERNEL_CONFIGURE=no \
            KERNEL_GIT=shallow \
            NETWORKING_STACK=systemd-networkd \
            RELEASE=trixie \
            ROOTFS_TYPE=btrfs \
            SEVENZIP=yes \
            SKIP_ARMBIAN_REPO=yes

Branch

main (main development branch)

On which host OS are you running the build script and observing this problem?

Debian 13 Trixie

Are you building on Windows WSL2?

• Yes, my Ubuntu/Debian/OtherOS is running on WSL2

Relevant log URL

https://paste.armbian.com/imuxuzizat

Code of Conduct

• I agree to follow this project's Code of Conduct

[github-actions]

Jira ticket: AR-2811

[EvilOlaf]

Hm there must have been a change quite recently since I have a rpi5b here with 6.19-rc1 kernel so the os has been built a bit over a month ago.
Hm edge with trixie seems to be good: https://paste.armbian.com/poluludiku
at line 4042 the list of files in /boot/firmware (which equals the RPICFG partition) seems to be complete.

Try yourself adding DEBUG=yes to the build switches to get more insight in the process.

edit, ah you were using btrfs, let me try that as well

[EvilOlaf]

Okay, found the issue. SKIP_ARMBIAN_REPO=yes prevents copy of the files for unknown reason. Remove and retry

[okrc]

Okay, found the issue. SKIP_ARMBIAN_REPO=yes prevents copy of the files for unknown reason. Remove and retry

Thank you for your help. I have reviewed the code and confirmed that the issue is caused by SKIP_ARMBIAN_REPO=yes. I added this option solely because I stubbornly did not want to install armbian-config.

[EvilOlaf]

I think since armbian-config has completely rewritten it comes with zero dependencies (except bash perhaps which shouldn't be a deal breaker lol), so uninstall should be very simple.