How to install on a Raspberry Pi 5 with PCI-e SSD

Warning

Anthias does not currently support devices running Debian Trixie. Please use Raspberry Pi OS Bookworm for the best experience.

Hardware

The following guide has been tested using a Raspberry Pi 5 with 8GB RAM and a GeeekPi P33 PoE+PCI-e HAT.

Other HAT's should work just fine as long as they are supported by the Pi.

The author of this guide used a 256GB M.2 NVMe SSD as it came in the 2242 (22mm x 44mm) form factor. The original version of the P33 HAT only supported 2230 and 2242 SSDs, but a newer version extends further and supports 2260 and 2280 SSDs as well.

Booting

Early Pi 5's do not support PCIe boot as part of the factory bootloader configuration. If you have a version of the bootloader prior to at least Mon 23 Sep 13:02:56 UTC 2024 (1727096576) then it is likely that you will need to follow the Boot from SD steps first.

Installation

Using the Raspberry Pi Imager and appropriate USB adapters, write the 64-bit version of Raspberry Pi OS Lite (Bookworm) to the microSD card. Depending on your deployment preference, you can either write the same OS or you can deploy the BalenaOS image to the SSD.

There are a few alternative ways to install:

Network boot (if enabled on the Pi)
Booting from the microSD card and using the SD Card copier utility to copy the OS to the SSD
Booting from the microSD and using the Raspberry Pi Imager to write a fresh copy to the SSD
Using rpiboot mode to display the SSD as a mass storage device on a PC.

Do whatever is easiest for you!

Boot from SD

Depending on the bootloader version of your Pi (confirmed that as of at least Mon 23 Sep 13:02:56 UTC 2024 (1727096576) you do not need to perform this step), you may need to boot from microSD first and set the bootloader to boot from PCIe.

Note

You can check the bootloader version by using the command sudo rpi-eeprom-update which will tell you what version your Pi 5 is running. This command will also tell you if an update is available, which you can install with sudo rpi-eeprom-update -a. The author of this document would welcome feedback if once the above update is performed, whether you still need to run the command below. The author tested the below and found it successful, then updated the bootloader so your mileage may vary! This looks a little bit like the following:

Once booted, run the RPI EEPROM configurator: sudo rpi-eeprom-config -edit. This will open up the Nano text editor.
Change the boot order to: BOOT_ORDER=0xf614
Add the line: PCIE_PROBE=1
Type Ctrl-O to save the file.
Type Ctrl-X to exit the editor.
Remove the microSD card, and power cycle the Pi.

Boot from SSD

Once your Pi is booting from the SSD, if you installed the Raspberry Pi OS image you have a couple of housekeeping tasks to perform;

Update the OS using sudo apt update -y and sudo apt full-upgrade -y
Check the bootloader is at the latest version using sudo rpi-eeprom-update
If there is an EEPROM update, then use sudo raspi-config to update it
Go to 6 Advanced Opitions → A5 Bootloader Version → E1 Latest, then select Yes
Reboot the Pi.
Finally, you'll need to run the Anthias installer: bash <(curl -sL https://install-anthias.srly.io)
Follow the prompts to install and reboot the Pi
Once the install has completed, don't forget to change the password for your Pi uinsg passwd

Check your boot order

You can view your current boot order by running rpi-eeprom-config and checking the output. Using this document you can view the boot options and configure your boot order to suit your requirements.

Post Install Issues

Note

If you still get a black screen after the installation completes and after a reboot, simply press Ctrl-Alt-F1 to get into the console (or SSH in) and then run ./screenly/bin/upgrade_containers.sh. this should re-run the container creation step and have the system up and running properly.

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