Re: RPI 4/5 u-boot new port, is there any interest?

On Jun 4, 2025, at 05:33, Klaus Küchemann <[email protected]> wrote:

> a while ago, I spoke in more detail with bz@ about u-boot for the Pi5. There are ways to create a new port...
> Now I had a longer conversation with Hugo Kirnbichler on Discord. Hugo managed to patch u-boot for the RPI CM4 to make it NVMe bootable (compiled under FreeBSD).
> Details would go beyond the scope here for the first.
> 
> What I would like to know:
> Is FreeBSD still interested in supporting the RPI4/5?
> Goodbye Pi in FreeBSD or Hello Pi , especially now ? :-)
> 
> Then Hugo and I might be willing to create a new port.
> There's no other way to proceed...

I wonder if FreeBSD's kboot (LinuxBoot context) might be a
way to avoid both EDK2 and a FreeBSD specific U-Boot and
better track booting what Linux can boot (once FreeBSD has
kernel support for the context).

I've no clue if it might well apply to a RPi* context. But
other aarch64 boards?

> the u-boot mailing lists are aware of the problems, but nothing is happening because they don't need it for Linux. All the patches we know of are GPL’d from 3rd party companies or OS-projects afaik.
> 
> Because it’s not really fun :-) , I don't want to continue this work if there is no official interest from FreeBSD.
> If you are interested, we would be happy to discuss the details here.



===
Mark Millard
marklmi at yahoo.com