It seems the Pi (Pi 4 and Pi 5) cannot boot standard aarch64 ISOs for installation of Linux distros and must use pre-installed Pi images, right? My understanding is that installing UEFI firmware https://github.com/pftf/RPi4 allows it to boot the standard aarch64 installers.
I'm interested in using the standard installers because I'm purely using the PI as a Linux/NAS server and to test Ansible playbooks on so I want as much of the control of the install as possible. For example, setting up an automated Kickstart install on RHEL-based distros that let you decide choice of root filesystem to use is not possible with the pre-installed Pi images that you just flash to an SD card or flash drive.
I wonder if there are any drawbacks or considerations to using this UEFI firmware and whether it would potentially give up some useful features like perhaps efficient power consumption that I might want for 24/7 server or if they aren't relevant at all and pertain only the I/Os all of which I won't use except USB/ethernet ports. Curious if anyone has experience with the UEFI firmware and hopefully I can disable all unnecessary features like wifi/bluetooth to reduce power consumption.
I will be doing it on the Pi 4 and will probably sell my Pi 5 since its UEFI development seems less mature and incomplete and I feel like the Pi 4 won't be the bottleneck for my use.
I'm interested in using the standard installers because I'm purely using the PI as a Linux/NAS server and to test Ansible playbooks on so I want as much of the control of the install as possible. For example, setting up an automated Kickstart install on RHEL-based distros that let you decide choice of root filesystem to use is not possible with the pre-installed Pi images that you just flash to an SD card or flash drive.
I wonder if there are any drawbacks or considerations to using this UEFI firmware and whether it would potentially give up some useful features like perhaps efficient power consumption that I might want for 24/7 server or if they aren't relevant at all and pertain only the I/Os all of which I won't use except USB/ethernet ports. Curious if anyone has experience with the UEFI firmware and hopefully I can disable all unnecessary features like wifi/bluetooth to reduce power consumption.
I will be doing it on the Pi 4 and will probably sell my Pi 5 since its UEFI development seems less mature and incomplete and I feel like the Pi 4 won't be the bottleneck for my use.
Statistics: Posted by zff — Tue Jun 24, 2025 2:15 am — Replies 2 — Views 113