D43399 FreeBSD Review, enable VCHIQ HDMI Audio subsystem for BCM2711 Raspberry Pi 4B, 400 adding 3 patch files.
Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2025 06:10:52 UTC
Hello fellow FreeBSD Arm users, To be complete, I usually place too many URLs in a short email. But then "Too Long Didn't Read" TLDR symptom shows up unannounced. If you are interested in videos and audios playing out on your own Television Speakers, please read the following few paragraphs. I wish to see the 14.3-RELEASE and 15.0-CURRENT supported RPI binary images on the https://FreeBSD.org website, to actually support HDMI audio out through the TV speakers, out of the box (OOTB). Review D43399 was my attempt to show how to use Marcos Devesas Campos 3 patch files in reviews D36431, D37878, D37879 to patch the FreeBSD Kernel source /usr/src and support the VCHIQ subsystem of the Broadcom BCM2711 Raspberry Pi 4B, 400 and (BCM2835) Raspberry Pi 3B+ SOCs, running 32 bit armv7 software. ( yes, I know armv7 was moved to Tier 2 in FreeBSD support.) URLS to view: FreeBSD RPI image. downloaded here is without the VCHIQ subsystem HDMI Audio Sound device driver. https://www.freebsd.org/where/ https://download.freebsd.org/releases/ISO-IMAGES/14.3/ https://download.freebsd.org/releases/ISO-IMAGES/14.3/FreeBSD-14.3-RELEASE-arm64-aarch64-RPI.img.xz https://download.freebsd.org/releases/ISO-IMAGES/14.3/CHECKSUM.SHA512-FreeBSD-14.3-RELEASE-arm64-aarch64-RPI https://download.freebsd.org/releases/ISO-IMAGES/15.0/ https://download.freebsd.org/releases/ISO-IMAGES/15.0/FreeBSD-15.0-ALPHA1-arm64-aarch64-RPI-20250906-0b3d82579a01-280099.img.xz https://download.freebsd.org/releases/ISO-IMAGES/15.0/CHECKSUM.SHA512-FreeBSD-15.0-ALPHA1-arm64-aarch64-RPI-20250906-0b3d82579a01-280099 How can that binary RPI image be improved? Who can or what update of this build process can be modified to include HDMI audio support from the BCM2711 VCHIQ subsystem hardware? Yes, having the SDIO Cy43455 wifi driver written will help out, to use a WIFI connection from the raspberry Pi to the local WIFI WAN network. https://reviews.freebsd.org/D43399 This is the 3 patch files to add the VCHIQ HDMI Audio subsystem device driver to the kernel /usr/src codehttps:// https://reviews.freebsd.org/D36431 vchiq: update printf-s to more architecture-independent format specifiers https://reviews.freebsd.org/D37878 arm64: Add support to vchiq and bcm2835_audio (plus some fixes) https://reviews.freebsd.org/D37879 vchiq: add compat_freebsd32 ioctls and respective datatypes Authored by devesas.campos_gmail.com on Dec 26 2022, 8:15 PM. Fred Finsters tested set of written steps to follow for using the 3 patch files: https://reviews.freebsd.org/F75131370 or https://reviews.freebsd.org/F75131370#30 Can someone with a Raspberry Pi 4B, or 400 Keyboard run through these steps and prove that VCHIQ subsystem HDMI Audio output works on the TV Speakers? or work on the Raspberry Pi 4B 3.5mm output jack analog sound. Then can we include this VCHIQ HDMI Audio source code in the FreeBSD kernel source code and also in the created 14.3 or 15.0 RPI Images? Mike Karels, a strong Arm64 FreeBSD supporter, has passed on. He might have competed this work. Can we incorporate this tested, useful source code in the FreeBSD Kernel and in the created binary image to download and burn into a MicroSD card or into a USB Flash drive stick to boot FreeBSD. I prefer to have a supported Raspberry Pi binary image that includes HDMI Audio available for others to download and use. Is there a different method to support the Raspberry Pi 5, 500 BCM2712 and RP1 chip hardware with updated VCHIQ device driver? https://x.com/i/grok/share/z5megTW93mZt9B5fioCz7Zzzv Grok notes differences between BCM2711 and BCM2712 in the VCHIQ driver software. Your thoughts, suggestions, comments are welcome about supporting VCHIQ subsystem HDMI Audio for Raspberry Pi (BCM2711) 4B, 400, RPI (BCM2712) 5, 500, (BCM2835) RPI3 RPI3+ 64 bit hardware ? pss: RUSPIPRO is Rust supported VCHIQ hardware device driver software. URL link here: https://github.com/RusPiRo There was a VCHIQ bare metal driver here somewhere.