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The release notes for example to date 2019-07-10 shows

* Linux kernel 4.19.57
* Raspberry Pi firmware cb3a32adf39f45a49be454e30c7464920ad7c605

After an update I can verify the current kernel version with uname -r. At How can I determine the current firmware version number? I have found how to get the current firmware version:

rpi ~$ sudo /opt/vc/bin/vcgencmd version
Jul  9 2019 14:37:58
Copyright (c) 2012 Broadcom
version d2b1b7fb01475cb3914b2086299e32d724e832f1 (clean) (release) (start)

But as you can see it does not match the release note.

How can I verify the Raspberry Pi firmware version from the release notes?

Ingo
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  • @PeterGreen Do you know how to verify the Raspberry Pi firmware version noted in the release notes? – Ingo Jul 15 '19 at 06:42
  • Have you tried asking this is the [raspberrypi.org forum](https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/)? @Dougie may have some clues? – Seamus Jun 09 '20 at 04:33
  • and I wonder if they refer to the same firmware package? The **vc** in `vcgencmd` refers to the VideoCore component of Raspberry Pi, but are there other components with firmware? That seems likely (to me), and the [Wikipedia article on the VideoCore technology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VideoCore) is an interesting read for RPi watchers. You can follow [this Q on github](https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware/issues/1407) if interested. – Seamus Jun 09 '20 at 05:57

1 Answers1

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I think I have an answer to this - actually one of the maintainers of the GitHub repo for Raspberry Pi firmware has answered your question. The Q&A is #1407 under the GitHub Issues tab.

The answer is not as detailed as I would have liked, but to my reading, it seems there is one repo to house the compiled/binary firmware for Raspberry Pi, and another repo to house the source code. The compiled/binary Raspberry Pi firmware is housed on the GitHub repo linked above. The repo containing the source code for the Raspberry Pi firmware is "unpublished/closed-source". The Wiki page for the Raspberry Pi (compiled) firmware repo tells the same story.

And so the answer seems to be this:

  • The 160-bit hash reported by vcgencmd is the hash of the firmware's source code - source code that is housed in an unpublished/closed-source repo.

  • The 160-bit hash in the release notes is the hash of the compiled/binary firmware repo hosted on GitHub.

  • Consequently, the release/commit date is all you have to rely upon. The dates are at least close - I assume there may be a time lag between committing the source files, and committing the binaries since they occur on different repos.

Finally, there's a related Q&A here... this question has been around for a while.

Seamus
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