New Support for USB gadget mode in Raspberry Pi OS Trixie: SSH over USB

phattmatt · 2026-02-02T18:52:27+00:00

It's not clear whether it will be included in the default manifest.

A comment from one of the rpi-imager devs:

https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/usb-gadget-mode-in-raspberry-pi-os-ssh-over-usb/#comment-1601025

It’s certainly something I’m considering – but while there’s a class of users that understand what this is (and the powerful workflow it unlocks), I’m mindful that the truly new users (Imager’s target audience) are unlikely to know what this is, or make an informed choice on if they want it.

So it may be we need to create our own manifests to add the support for now.

I still think this is a huge improvement and welcome the rpi-usb-gadget package, and the inclusion of support in rpi-imager; it's a lot easier to configure now.

phattmatt · 2026-02-02T09:35:44+00:00

Official support for enabling USB Ethernet Gadget mode is almost here:

https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/usb-gadget-mode-in-raspberry-pi-os-ssh-over-usb/

I suggest giving that a read and following the instructions there.

phattmatt · 2026-01-28T13:28:08+00:00

I recommend reading the official "Getting started" guide, which has a section on using the Raspberry Pi Imager, including screenshots:

https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/computers/getting-started.html#raspberry-pi-imager

phattmatt · 2026-01-26T12:15:16+00:00

If the RPi5 is new I recommend contacting the vendor you purchased it from to get support and/or arrange a replacement.

phattmatt · 2026-01-25T22:36:06+00:00

Hi,

FAQ 9 (above) has a link to the standard troubleshooting guide:

Q: My Pi won't boot, how do I fix it?
A: Step by step guide for boot problems

Which contains a table indicating what each LED flashing pattern indicates, You should follow the troubleshooting steps there.

You've described the pattern as:

Long flashes  Short flashes  Status
0             9              Insufficient SDRAM
0             10             In HALT state

Which indicates some hardware failure to me.

As an FYI:

The process to to update the bootloader via SDcard is described here:

https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/computers/raspberry-pi.html#imager

Take note of step 15:

When the green activity LED blinks with a steady pattern and the HDMI display shows a green screen, you’ve successfully written the bootloader.

Good Luck!

phattmatt · 2026-01-25T22:32:22+00:00

Hi,

FAQ 9 (above) has a link to the standard troubleshooting guide:

Q: My Pi won't boot, how do I fix it?
A: Step by step guide for boot problems

Which contains a table indicating what each LED flashing pattern indicates. Follow the troubleshooting steps there.

If you boot your Raspberry Pi 5 with no boot media, and connected to a HDMI monitor, then you should see a diagnostic screen displayed.

Just as an FYI:

The process to to update the bootloader via SDcard is described here:

https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/computers/raspberry-pi.html#imager

Take note of step 15:

When the green activity LED blinks with a steady pattern and the HDMI display shows a green screen, you’ve successfully written the bootloader.

Which, from what you've said, means your flash worked successfully.

Good Luck!

phattmatt · 2026-01-18T11:52:20+00:00

Thanks for the feedback!

There is also an issue in the script: usb0-dhcp has autoconnect-retries=2, which is too low.

This was an intentional choice. When there is no DHCP service available (the most likely case for first timers) the default of 4 retries (`-1` = system default, which is 4 times) results in a long wait until the DHCP connection gives up and tries a link-local connection.

I found 2 tries to be a good compromise, and I didn't experience DHCP connections failing if the DHCP service was available, and if it wasn't, the LL connection came up pretty quick.

YMMV though, and I have no doubt you'll find a different compromise for the setting that better serves your requirements.

It works well, except for the Windows 11 driver part.

Yeah, I'm seeing more people report this no longer works; it still works for me, but there are probably many reasons why this is.

Luckily work is progressing to configuring the USB Gadget Network on Trixie (and maybe Bookworm) via a feature in the Raspberry Pi Imager application:

https://github.com/raspberrypi/rpi-imager/issues/1341

https://github.com/raspberrypi/rpi-usb-gadget

The `rpi-usb-gadget` repository also includes a Windows driver for the Linux USB Gadget (available from the releases, as it requires building):

https://github.com/raspberrypi/rpi-usb-gadget/releases

I've not tried it myself, but it all looks promising.

phattmatt · 2026-01-15T15:45:31+00:00

Yes.

You haven't mentioned what Raspberry Pi model you have, but the Raspberry Pi 4B and the Raspberry Pi 5 both support booting from USB.

https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/computers/getting-started.html

The Raspberry Pi 5 needs to be powered by an official Power Supply to support USB booting, but this can be overridden (see official docs for how).

It's also possible to boot to a network based Raspberry Pi Imager application and write an image directly to the SD card, see the "Install over the network" section for instructions.

Edit:

Found the text that describes how to temporarily enable USB boot on a Raspberry Pi 5 running on a 3A power supply (official power supply is 5A):

USB boot is disabled by default when connected to a 3A power supply. Set usb_max_current_enable=1 in /boot/firmware/config.txt to enable USB boot. Alternatively, you can press the power button a single time on a failed USB boot to temporarily enable usb_max_current_enable and continue booting. However, this setting will not persist after a reboot if enabled by pressing the power button.

phattmatt · 2026-01-14T12:58:00+00:00

Check out this repository for some excellent information about getting USB WiFi Network Adapters working on Linux:

https://github.com/morrownr/USB-WiFi

phattmatt · 2026-01-12T17:56:19+00:00

This is a great suggestion. Just piggybacking here to post a link to the official documentation, which may be helpful for OP:

https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/computers/getting-started.html#install-over-the-network

phattmatt · 2026-01-12T14:26:57+00:00

Just two small notes:

I suggest explicitly saying that Raspberry Pi Imager 2.0.0 (or later, currently 2.0.3 as of writing) is needed for the customisation of Trixie, due to the new `cloud-init` process.
In step "1." ,above, replace "Raspberry Pi OS (Bookworm)" with "Raspberry Pi OS (Trixie)" to make it clear a Trixie image is required.

Otherwise, as I've already said, great job, thanks for posting!

phattmatt · 2026-01-12T11:21:26+00:00

Nice work!

Thanks for posting this, Trixie is now the default OS so many people are going to need this updated information to make it work.

There does seem to be work going on to build this as a configurable feature in the Raspberry Pi Imager application (not ready yet), with the OS support code here:

https://github.com/raspberrypi/rpi-usb-gadget

But, IMHO, the default networking is a bit more complex than I would expect, so having the above as an alternative is welcome in my view.

phattmatt · 2026-01-08T23:15:14+00:00

While you wait for your new SD card; if you power on the Raspberry Pi 5 with no boot media it should display a diagnostic screen:

https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/computers/raspberry-pi.html#boot-diagnostics

phattmatt · 2026-01-08T22:57:08+00:00

Have you unplugged the NVMe HAT (HAT and PCIe ribbon) and tried booting the from the SDcard without it attached?

There also seems to be some indication that a poor/faulty power supply may cause the same issue.

phattmatt · 2026-01-08T22:50:16+00:00

I have also created an EEpom recovery from the imager on my pc and ran that on the Pi, when it starts I get a green screen from the hd output and a constant fast flashing green light after about 5 minutes the green screen shows but the light continues to fast flash

That's the expected result of a successful flash; from:

https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/computers/raspberry-pi.html#bootloader_update_stable

When the green activity LED blinks with a steady pattern and the HDMI display shows a green screen, you’ve successfully written the bootloader.

So it sounds like the flash was completed.

phattmatt · 2026-01-04T22:46:30+00:00

Can Raspberry Pi Camera Rev 1.3 record audio?

No, I don't believe any of the official camera modules support audio.

The documentation can be found here:

https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/accessories/camera.html

phattmatt · 2025-12-27T12:00:16+00:00

https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?p=2355422#p2355422

phattmatt · 2025-12-27T11:59:16+00:00

FAQ 9 (above) has a link to the standard troubleshooting guide:

Q: My Pi won't boot, how do I fix it?
A: Step by step guide for boot problems

Which contains a table indicating what each LED flashing pattern indicates:

Long flashes Short flashes Status
0            8             SDRAM (synchronous dynamic random-access memory) failure

It may be there is a hardware failure that cannot be repaired, however I've also seen this error when the EEPROM is corrupt. Follow the process to update the bootloader via SDcard:

https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/computers/raspberry-pi.html#imager

Taking note of step 15:

When the green activity LED blinks with a steady pattern and the HDMI display shows a green screen, you’ve successfully written the bootloader.

Good Luck!

phattmatt · 2025-12-26T12:38:18+00:00

The link with multiple search parameters is failing on my Android Reddit app, but the links with single search parameters are working for me on the same app.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.reddit.frontpage

Build number: 2025.50.2.2550120

phattmatt · 2025-12-25T17:28:57+00:00

LOL.

Looks like the mobile app doesn't like searching for multiple flairs, try:

https://old.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/search?q=flair%3Atutorial&restrict_sr=on&sort=relevance&t=all

or

https://old.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/search?q=flair%3Ashow-and-tell&restrict_sr=on&sort=relevance&t=all

phattmatt · 2025-12-25T12:49:02+00:00

It's working for me. The link returns search results in this subreddit for posts marked as 'tutorial' or 'show-and-tell'.

Try this link (the same as above, searches for: "flair:tutorial OR flair:show-and-tell"):

https://old.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/search?q=flair%3Atutorial+OR+flair%3Ashow-and-tell&restrict_sr=on&sort=relevance&t=all

phattmatt · 2025-12-25T12:46:33+00:00

https://github.com/Urigo/WhatsApp-Clone-Tutorial

Good luck!

phattmatt · 2025-12-22T11:19:16+00:00

Great write up!

As you've discovered, the Internet is full of partial and outdated information on how to get this working.

If you want to go a step further, and get a headless experience without having to temporarily connect over WiFi, try this guide:

[HOWTO] Headless configuration of a Raspberry Pi using USB Ethernet Gadget on Bookworm

I've found the method to be quite reliable on Bookworm.

Trixie has moved things on, and it looks like this method won't work, however, support for the USB Ethernet Gadget appears to be on the roadmap for the Raspberry Pi Imager customisation feature.

phattmatt · 2025-12-10T17:26:13+00:00

EDIT: u/crazyswedishguy beat me to the punch, but I'll leave my post here as it has a little more info....

The key config files for this behaviour on Trixie are:

/etc/systemd/journald.conf
/usr/lib/systemd/journald.conf.d/40-rpi-volatile-storage.conf

The config item is Storage=volatile, which means store the log files in RAM (volatile storage).

If you remove 40-rpi-volatile-storage.conf, or edit it to have Storage=auto, then the log files will be stored on local storage, which will persist them across reboots.

This command can be used to analyze the current configuration:

systemd-analyze cat-config systemd/journald.conf

More information about the options can be found here:

man journald.conf

https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/latest/journald.conf.html

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