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IDProjectCategoryView StatusDate SubmittedLast Update
0012112Alternative ArchitecturesGeneralpublic2026-02-27 12:192026-02-27 12:19
ReporterAndrew Gawthrope Assigned To 
PrioritynormalSeverityblockReproducibilityalways
Status newResolutionopen 
PlatformRaspberry Pi-4 Model B (8GB)OSRocky LinuxOS Version10.1
Summary0012112: Raspberry Pi, Rocky Linux 10 image fails to boot on Pi-4 Model B
DescriptionThe image "Rocky-10-SBC-RaspberryPi.latest.aarch64.raw.xz" available as of 21-Feb-2026 as a download from the Rocky Linux website fails to boot on a Raspberry Pi-4 Model B with 8GB RAM when written to a 32GB SD-card.

At boot the Raspberry boot loader display is presented for approx. 500ms, followed by the colourful, rainbow-like, Raspberry splash screen. Nothing else is ever shown on the display and RL fails to boot. The Pi motherboard has two LED's. Red has continuous illumination, the green flashes seven times, pauses momentarily and then repeats the pattern.

The Rocky Linux 10 README for the Raspberry Pi image identifies that it has been tested (and presumably works) with a Pi 4:

"This image is always available at: https://dl.rockylinux.org/pub/rocky/10/images/aarch64/Rocky-10-SBC-RaspberryPi.latest.aarch64.raw.xz
They have been tested on Raspberry Pi 4 and 5.
Rocky Linux 10 WILL NOT WORK on a Raspberry Pi 1 or 2 (1.1 or earlier) as they are 32-bit only, and Rocky Linux only supports arm64 (aarch64).
Rocky Linux 10 WILL NOT WORK on a Raspberry Pi 3 due to lack of MBR on the images."
Steps To ReproduceThe image "Rocky-10-SBC-RaspberryPi.latest.aarch64.raw.xz" was written to an SD-card using macOS 26 and either balenaEtcher v2.1.0 or Raspberry Pi Imager v2.0.6. The resulting RL10 boot failure was consistently the same with either. When using Pi Imager, the OS type menu selection was 'Use custom' which permits the selection of the image file.

Once the SD-card has been written, insert it into the Pi and apply power.
Additional InformationUsing the steps outlined above, the Rocky Linux 9.2 image was downloaded from the Rocky website and written to the SD-card. This worked with RL successfully booting. The same steps were also followed with the Alma Linux 10.1 image for a Pi - again this booted successfully.

In exploring the issue the SD-card containing the RL10 image was mounted to a mac and the EFI partition examined. Many files were present, including kernel8.img, config.txt, cmdline.txt and start4.elf. kernel8.img was 8.9MB in size and config.txt contained only:
arm_64bit=1
auto_initramfs=1
dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d

kernel8.img seems small; the RL9 version is greater than 20MB.

The Raspberry Pi was using the latest available firmware. This was applied using ‘rpi-eeprom-update -a’, a command available in Raspberry Pi OS. The firmware detailed below was also tried and in each case RL10 failed to boot as described above.
GitHub firmware-2711 images:
pieeprom-2025-02-11.bin
pieeprom-2025-05-16.bin
pieeprom-2025-07-17.bin
pieeprom-2025-08-20.bin
pieeprom-2025-09-22.bin
pieeprom-2025-10-03.bin
pieeprom-2025-11-05.bin
pieeprom-2025-12-08.bin
pieeprom-2026-02-06.bin

Each firmware image was applied using the command 'rpi-eeprom-update -d -f <filename>'

The information below is included in case it is helpful but it's not considered relevant. In the bottom half of Pi boot loader screen the following boot messages are displayed momentarily for about 500ms total.
Progress: Trying boot mode SD
Reset USB port-power 1000ms
Boot mode: SD (01) order f4
USB3[2] 00021203 connected enabled
USB3 root HUB port 2 init
USB2[1] 400202e1 connected
MSD [01:00] 3.32 000000:02 register MSD
USB2 root HUB port 1 init
HUB [02:00] 2.16 000000:01 init port 3 speed 2
HID [03:02] 1.16 000003:01 register HID
HUB [02:00] 2.16 000000:01 init port 4 speed 2
Trying partition: 0
type: 16 lba: 2048 ‘mkfs.fat’ ‘ V ^ ‘ clusters 63965 (16)
Trying partition: 1
type: 16 lba: 2048 ‘mkfs.fat’ ‘ V ^ ‘ clusters 63965 (16)
Read config.txt bytes 51 hnd 0x9f
Read start4.elf bytes 2262304 hnd 0x26bc
Read fixup4.dat bytes 5459 hnd 0xa1
0x00c03112 0x00000000 0x00001fff
MEM GPU: 76. ARM: 948 TOTAL: 1024
Starting start4.elf @ 0xfec00200 partition 1
Tagsboot, raspberry, rocky 10

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Issue History

Date Modified Username Field Change
2026-02-27 12:19 Andrew Gawthrope New Issue
2026-02-27 12:19 Andrew Gawthrope Tag Attached: boot
2026-02-27 12:19 Andrew Gawthrope Tag Attached: raspberry
2026-02-27 12:19 Andrew Gawthrope Tag Attached: rocky 10