Re: Trying an install to a Raspberry PI5 unit

On Feb 7, 2025, at 21:00, Mark Millard <[email protected]> wrote:

> Dennis Clarke <dclarke_at_blastwave.org>  wrote on
> Date: Fri, 07 Feb 2025 21:15:09 UTC :
> 
>> On 2/7/25 16:09, Dennis Clarke wrote:
>>> 
>>> All :
>>> 
>>>    Today I will be trying to follow the instructions at :
>>> 
>>>        https://wiki.freebsd.org/arm/Raspberry%20Pi%205
>>> 
>>>    Instantly the instructions are not clear. Not at all.
>>> 
>>>    I will try to follow along but expect many problems for someone
>>>    that has zero experience with the arm platform. Almost zero.
>>> 
>> 
>> At the very least be clear that I need :
>> 
>> FreeBSD-14.2-RELEASE-arm64-aarch64-RPI.img.xz
> 
> An issue is that there are multiple alternatives, currently
> including:
> 
> Weekly Snapshots of 15.0, 14.2, 13.5, or 13.4
> Releases of 14.2, 14.1, 13.4, or 13.3
> 
> Most folks are not likely to try to set your policy for you
> as far as which you pick and why. (None of this is RPi5
> specific unless it is discovered that some do not work.)
> 
> Some of those currently available are:
> 
> https://download.freebsd.org/ftp/snapshots/ISO-IMAGES/15.0/FreeBSD-15.0-CURRENT-arm64-aarch64-RPI-20250206-9ef38a01aea8-275290.img.xz
> 
> https://download.freebsd.org/ftp/snapshots/ISO-IMAGES/15.0/FreeBSD-15.0-CURRENT-arm64-aarch64-RPI-20250206-9ef38a01aea8-275290.img.xz
> 
> https://download.freebsd.org/ftp/snapshots/ISO-IMAGES/14.2/FreeBSD-14.2-STABLE-arm64-aarch64-RPI-20250130-9c72da889424-270259.img.xz
> 
> https://download.freebsd.org/ftp/snapshots/ISO-IMAGES/14.2/FreeBSD-14.2-STABLE-arm64-aarch64-RPI-20250206-f28415489639-270318.img.xz
> 
> https://download.freebsd.org/ftp/releases/ISO-IMAGES/14.2/FreeBSD-14.2-RELEASE-arm64-aarch64-RPI.img.xz
> 
> The snapshots only go back a few weeks at most. So the names
> change over time. Even for releases, the likes of 14.2 eventually
> changes over time. It is unlikely that instructions are going to
> be kept in synchronization with such naming variations.
> 
> You can look around, starting via the likes of:
> 
> https://download.freebsd.org/ftp/snapshots/ISO-IMAGES/?C=N&O=D
> and:
> https://download.freebsd.org/ftp/releases/ISO-IMAGES/?C=N&O=D
> 
> for URL's that match:
> 
> https://download.freebsd.org/ftp/releases/ISO-IMAGES/*/*-arm64-aarch64-RPI*.img.xz

Dumb incomplete pattern ("releases" is over specific), trying again:

https://download.freebsd.org/ftp/*/ISO-IMAGES/*/*-arm64-aarch64-RPI*.img.xz

Sorry.

>> How hard would it be to write clear docs here ?
> 
> Very because little is know about most of the vintages or
> variations of the RPi5 vs. what the EDK2 happens to support
> in a way that interacts well with the FreeBSD kernel as
> thigns are.
> 
> You have not even reported on which RPi5B variant you have. As
> far as I know, only the oldest variants work --those using
> bcm2712-rpi-5-b.dtb (as its content was at the time) and not
> any using newer bcm2712*-rpi-*.dtb names. (The EDK2 release
> does not even contain any of those.)
> 
> For reference:
> 
> # ls -lodT /RPi5-edk2/bcm2712*.dtb
> -rwxr-xr-x  1 root wheel - 76038 Mar 15 21:46:12 2024 /RPi5-edk2/bcm2712-rpi-5-b.dtb
> 
> (As I understand, bcm2712-rpi-5-b.dtb is for the bcm2712c1 variant of the part.)
> 
> # ls -lodT /mnt/bcm2712*.dtb
> -rwxr-xr-x  1 root wheel uarch 81163 Jan 27 17:19:54 2025 /mnt/bcm2712-rpi-5-b.dtb
> -rwxr-xr-x  1 root wheel uarch 81119 Jan 27 17:19:54 2025 /mnt/bcm2712-rpi-500.dtb
> -rwxr-xr-x  1 root wheel uarch 81620 Jan 27 17:19:54 2025 /mnt/bcm2712-rpi-cm5-cm4io.dtb
> -rwxr-xr-x  1 root wheel uarch 81682 Jan 27 17:19:54 2025 /mnt/bcm2712-rpi-cm5-cm5io.dtb
> -rwxr-xr-x  1 root wheel uarch 81661 Jan 27 17:19:54 2025 /mnt/bcm2712-rpi-cm5l-cm4io.dtb
> -rwxr-xr-x  1 root wheel uarch 81723 Jan 27 17:19:54 2025 /mnt/bcm2712-rpi-cm5l-cm5io.dtb
> -rwxr-xr-x  1 root wheel uarch 81167 Jan 27 17:19:54 2025 /mnt/bcm2712d0-rpi-5-b.dtb
> 
> If you have a RPi5 that requires one of those newer
> bcm2712-rpi-*.dtb files or the newer content of
> bcm2712-rpi-5-b.dtb then it may be unlikely that the
> combination of the EDK2 and FreeBSD available will be
> of use to you. What I have access to works, only because
> it is one of the early vintage RPi5 's that the old
> bcm2712-rpi-5-b.dtb file supports via the code in the
> EDK2 and the FreeBSD kernel.
> 
> FreeBSD did not do the RPi5 EDK2 work. The implementation is
> not part of FreeBSD at all. FreeBSD just happened to work
> with the EDK2 via FreeBSD's pre-existing ACPI support. FreeBSD
> normally does not put a lot if effort into documenting what it
> does not develop/support.
> 
> Going in another direction as far as documentation goes:
> FreeBSD normally does not put a lot of effort into
> documenting things determined by the RPi* folks that is
> information also useful without FreeBSD involved. You
> are expected to use the RPi* materials for that kind of
> information.
> 
> You are asking for help for an unsupported context. Expecting
> it to be like a well-supported context is likely going to be a
> disappointing experience.




===
Mark Millard
marklmi at yahoo.com