I wanted to test installing my screenless Raspberry Pi using the serial port.
I flashed a new microSD card with image 199.
After booting, I get no response after “Starting Kernel…”
U-Boot 2024.10 (Jan 02 2026 - 19:36:52 +0000) RPi4 - IPFire.org
DRAM: 998 MiB (effective 7.9 GiB)
RPI 4 Model B (0xd03114)
Core: 178 devices, 17 uclasses, devicetree: board
MMC: mmc@7e300000: 0, mmc@7e340000: 1
Loading Environment from FAT... Card did not respond to voltage select! : -110
** Bad device specification mmc 0 **
In: serial,usbkbd
Out: serial,vidconsole
Err: serial,vidconsole
Net: eth0: ethernet@7d580000
PCIe BRCM: link up, 5.0 Gbps x1 (SSC)
starting USB...
Bus xhci_pci: Register 5000420 NbrPorts 5
Starting the controller
USB XHCI 1.00
scanning bus xhci_pci for devices... 3 USB Device(s) found
scanning usb for storage devices... 0 Storage Device(s) found
Hit any key to stop autoboot: 0
Card did not respond to voltage select! : -110
switch to partitions #0, OK
mmc1 is current device
Scanning mmc 1:1...
Found U-Boot script /boot.scr
2552 bytes read in 10 ms (249 KiB/s)
## Executing script at 02400000
89 bytes read in 8 ms (10.7 KiB/s)
Load uEnv.txt...
...
Set console to ttyAMA0,115200n8
29481472 bytes read in 1238 ms (22.7 MiB/s)
39650 bytes read in 32 ms (1.2 MiB/s)
49065781 bytes read in 2062 ms (22.7 MiB/s)
Ramdisk loaded...
Moving Image from 0x80000 to 0x200000, end=1ed0000
## Loading init Ramdisk from Legacy Image at 02700000 ...
Image Name:
Image Type: AArch64 Linux RAMDisk Image (lzma compressed)
Data Size: 49065717 Bytes = 46.8 MiB
Load Address: 00000000
Entry Point: 00000000
Verifying Checksum ... OK
## Flattened Device Tree blob at 02600000
Booting using the fdt blob at 0x2600000
Working FDT set to 2600000
Using Device Tree in place at 0000000002600000, end 000000000260cae1
Working FDT set to 2600000
Starting kernel ...
If I connect a monitor, I get the screen display with the four logos, then nothing.
If I modify uEnv.txt with SERIAL-CONSOLE=OFF, Same display on the serial console but the installation starts correctly via the keyboard/screen.
If I modify uEnv.txt with SERIAL-CONSOLE=ON after installation, Same display on the serial console, IPFire starts correctly, but I get no display.
I still get the screen display with the four logos, then nothing.
I tried with the CU200 test image, same problem.
I performed this test on my two Raspberry Pi 4 model B.
- Rev 1.2 2Go Ram
- Rev 1.4 8Go Ram
This bug was reported in CU173 but was closed without fixing the problem.
Using the serial port isn’t a requirement for me; I’m not sure anyone uses it …
it was just a test.