The conversation debates whether the $385 price of the Raspberry Pi 5 16GB model results from rational market forces like AI-driven RAM shortages or artificial cartel manipulation, while users criticize the device for losing its educational value proposition. Participants disagree on the longevity of high prices, with some predicting a crash due to an impending data center bubble collapse and others citing collusion that prevents price adjustments.
303 readable replies · Supporting reply 1 · Supporting reply 2 · Supporting reply 3 · Supporting reply 4raspberrypi
rpi-eeprom
Shell2019–2026
raspberrypi / rpi-eeprom
rpi-eeprom
Installation scripts and binaries for the Raspberry Pi 4 and Raspberry Pi 5 bootloader EEPROMs
14Distinct people
17Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
1.5KGitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
Installation scripts and binaries for the Raspberry Pi 4 and Raspberry Pi 5 bootloader EEPROMs
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use was verified in the last source check.
What people are saying
No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.
No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.
Also in these discussions
No other repository is repeatedly linked in the same discussions.
This week on Hacker News
Nov 8–Nov 15 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/15/2026, 12:01:02 AM UTC.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year17 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2019-12-01 01:20:15 UTC to 2026-09-21 20:49:25 UTC.
* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 6 | 2 | 4 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| 2025 | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2026 (partial) | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 5 | 0 | 5 |
What Hacker News says
2 sourcesDIdividuum·Dec 1, 2019
Actually the flashing process was simplified compared to previously. It now relies on the reboot you mentioned with the following mechanism:
You need the following files from https://github.com/raspberrypi/rpi-eeprom/tree/master/firmwa...:
* recovery.bin
* One of the pieeprom files. Rename it to pieeprom.upd
* One of the vl805 files. Rename it to vl805.bin
* Generate the SHA256 sums of both files and place them in pieeprom.sig and vl805.sig
Reboot. The Pi4 will see the recovery.bin and load it. It will detect the pieeprom.upd file and will then flash both pieeprom.upd and vl805.bin, rename itself to recovery.001 and reboot. During that next boot the recovery.bin doesn't exist any longer as it has been renamed and the boot process continues normally.
The key here is the name of the pieeprom.upd file. You can also name it p
Read the rest
ieeprom.bin, but in that case the recovery.bin isn't renaming itself and you'll have to manually delete the files from the SD card.
This isn't documented anywhere I can find, but I think it should also be possible to flash the firmware from a 64-bit Ubuntu distribution. Afaik, the vcgencmd it needs is available is closed-source and only available as 32-bit binaries that also need some 32-bit shared libraries. Also, the Ubuntu PPA [1] that someone created only goes up to bionic, and I'm running the latest release, eoan. Still, with multiarch support, [2] this seems to create a working vcgencmd:
$ sudo dpkg --add-architecture armhf
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-raspi2/ppa
$ sudo perl -pi -e 's/eoan/bionic' /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ubuntu-raspi2-ubuntu-ppa-eoan.list
$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install libraspberrypi-bin:armhf
and from there it looks like you can get the firmware updater stuff to run:
$ git clone https://github.com/raspberr
Read the rest
ypi/rpi-eeprom
$ cd rpi-eeprom
$ cat > from-ubuntu <<EOF
#!/bin/bash
export FIRMWARE_ROOT=$(pwd)/firmware
export FIRMWARE_RELEASE_STATUS=beta
export VCMAILBOX=/usr/bin/vcmailbox
mkdir backup
export FIRMWARE_BACKUP_DIR=$(pwd)/backup
export BOOTFS=/boot/firmware
# Seems to want the vl805 executable from within $FIRMWARE_ROOT to be in the
# path.
export PATH=$FIRMWARE_ROOT:$PATH
. $(pwd)/rpi-eeprom-update "$@"
EOF
$ sudo ./from-ubuntu -a
*** INSTALLING EEPROM UPDATES ***
BOOTLOADER: update required
CURRENT: Fri May 10 18:40:36 UTC 2019 (1557513636)
LATEST: Mon Nov 18 11:06:55 UTC 2019 (1574075215)
VL805: update required
CURRENT: 00013701
LATEST: 000137ab
EEPROM updates pending. Please reboot to apply the update.
When I reboot, I see the firmware update has actually taken.
[1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ARM/RaspberryPi
[2] https://wiki.debian.org/Multiarch/HOWTO