Re: u-boot-nanopi-r5c [Was: Re: 14-BETA5 panic on rk3566] https://personalbsd.org/images

On 12/16/23 04:30, Fred G. Finster wrote:
>> ...
> Hary,  I can see you are testing and setting up a build environment 
> for the Nano Pi R5C SBC.   Look at Sleep Walkers work over at 
> https://personalBSD.org   and Telegram Group t.me/personalbsd
>
> https://personalbsd.org/images/FreeBSD-aarch64-14.0-CURRENT-NanoPi-R5C-20230522.img.xz 
>
>

Hello Fred,


thanks, I stumbled across this resource before purchasing R5C, which I 
considered as my insurance for having an easy onboarding, I thought - 
the download is 404 these days and I couldn't find a copy out there.


> Give this image a test run on your hardware NanoPi r5c.   Then read 
> register settings and save.  See what settings and values (ie binary 
> blobs NOT LOADED ) exist in your kernel boot image.  Then modify your 
> own sources and build another new image again.
> Chat with SleepWalker and maybe get a working build environment?
> ExtroWerk user, was porting FreeBSD to a GeniaTech RK3566 SBC board.
> https://t.me/PersonalBSD/11146  I see ExtroWerk was asking me to build 
> an image for him.
> https://extrowerk.com/2023-10-30/Geniatech-XPI-3566-ZERO-SBC.html
> https://github.com/extrowerk
>
>
>
> Yes, Harry, I want to see you successfully build a FreeBSD kernel from 
> source to run and execute on the NanoPi r5c single board computer.  Ie 
> Get all the "little ducks in a row."


Stacking downloaded images in the correct order with correct offset 
worked - I can boot cross-compiled FreeBSD-14-aarch64 kernel+world from 
such a SD-card.  But the TianoCore port I found produces incorrect ACPI 
tables - e.g the eMMC controller is only accessible if I disable ACPI 
and load a DTB via loader.conf.

My goal was to understand the arm-SoC boot process, at least to some 
degree, and having the ability to compile all the necessary blobs myself 
- otherwise I would need to choose a vendor who officially supports 
FreeBSD - which is none afaik, meaning I'd need to deploy a different 
operating system for my project. Either vendor supported or code 
available.  Tinkering with dubiously acquired 'images' isn't feasible 
for me.

Is the complete u-boot port obsolete these days?  As far as I 
understand, there's no UEFI support and since ubldr was canceled. Is 
there really no way to boot FreeBSD aarch64 with self-compiled 
ingredients? (at least with only including the bl31_dram blob)

I will have a look in src/release for the aarch64 platform, but I 
thought deploying the boot firmware was more straight forward - 
especially since there's plenty of doc's claiming that u-boot is all you 
need...
It's hard to identify outdated docs - which is the majority, if not all 
I found so far...

Thanks,

-harry