FreeBSD on BeagleBone Black

[Bernd Walter]

On Tue, Oct 07, 2014 at 05:05:10PM -0400, AN wrote:
> Hi List:
> 
> I have been using FreeBSD current on amd64 for many years.  I now have a 
> project that I want to try to run on FreeBSD.  I'm trying to boot a 
> FreeBSD image on a BeagleBone Black Rev C without success.
> 
> FreeBSD-11.0-CURRENT-arm-armv6-BEAGLEBONE-20140903-r270990.img
> FreeBSD-arm-10.0-BEAGLEBONE.img
> 
> The above images fail to boot.

Basicly the BBB works very well under FreeBSD.
Did you check the uart output?
I'm not sure if those images are build with grafic support and
there will be nothing on HDMI or attached LCD without it.
To be honest: I don't even know if we have support for that output
already with the BBB.
Most people use the boards with uart console.
Unfortunately with the Beaglebone, as well as with many others,
the uart is only available as pin header using a 3.3V TTL uart.
Most people use USB uarts for that, which are available at many
electronic shops these days.
At best you should hook up to the console uart to see what's going
on.
As a workaround you can mount the SD card on your amd64 and setup
rc.conf and sshd for your network and ssh to the BBB.
But in the end you realy want to have console access if anything goes
wrong.
Maybe someone else can say something definitive about BBB LCD and HDMI
support in FreeBSD.

> I saw discussion on the list previously discussing:  Re: [RFC] Add and 
> armv7hf TARGET_ARCH (Andrew Turner)
> 
> So, would someone please explain the status of FreeBSD on the BeagleBone 
> Black REV C, does it work now, are there plans to make it work, what is 
> the general timeframe?

This is purely about some speed optimization by compiling with features
not available on lower ARM cores.
Since this changes function call convetions it has to be done that way
for every single code, therefor it is a decision at OS installation time.
The BBB runs fine with the current state.

-- 
B.Walter <bernd at bwct.de> http://www.bwct.de
Modbus/TCP Ethernet I/O Baugruppen, ARM basierte FreeBSD Rechner uvm.