/boot/kernel7l.img needs to exist to get a V8 kernel installed

[DougieLawson]

If /boot/kernel7l.img (which can't be used on RPi3B) doesn't exist then rpi-update doesn't even attempt to install the 64-bit kernel8.img.

This bit of code

        find "${FW_REPOLOCAL}/modules" -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -type d | while read DIR; do
            BASEDIR="$(basename "${DIR}")"
            if [[ ${WANT_PI4} -ne 1 ]]; then
                ENDSWITH=${BASEDIR: -4}
                if [[ "${ENDSWITH}" == "v7l+" ]]; then
                    continue;
                fi
                ENDSWITH=${BASEDIR: -3}
                if [[ "${ENDSWITH}" == "v8+" ]]; then
                    continue;
                fi
            fi

doesn't work on a RPi3B.

[popcornmix]

I believe it is working as designed.

Older (pre-buster) installs had too small a FAT partition to add the the extra kernel and firmware files. A decision was made that rpi-update wouldn't add new files to /boot without WANT_PI4=1 being set.

WANT_PI4=1 is implicitly set if you already have pi4 files on the /boot partition.

You can force it by setting WANT_Pi4=1 once. From then on it will not be required.

I accept that kernel8.img isn't exclusively Pi4 (but it is mainly there for Pi4), so perhaps the control is imperfectly named, but I feel it is close enough.

[DougieLawson]

I can't eliminate the kernel7l.img on 3Bs. If I do that the kernel8.img isn't installed. That's a bug not a feature. Try it.

If I could fathom the complexity of your shell script and had a 4B to test on I'd hack up a pull request.

[satmandu]

Also seeing this issue. For what it is worth I needed to do a touch /boot/kernel7l.img && sudo WANT_Pi4=1 rpi-update to update /boot/kernel8.img for me.

[Ruffio]

Has this issue been 'resolved'?

[DougieLawson]

I worked around this with WANT_PI4=1 when running sudo rpi-update.