arm64 as Tier 1 for FreeBSD 13

[greg at unrelenting.technology]

January 30, 2020 12:42 AM, "Rodney W. Grimes" <freebsd-rwg at gndrsh.dnsmgr.net> wrote:

>> --------
>> In message <20200129222907.3ccaf4c23fe8509e3f9cdfe4 at bidouilliste.net>, Emmanuel Vadot writes:
>> 
>> RPi's are a LOT easier to get hold of for hackers and in particular
>> for educators.
>> 
>> In what way ?
>> Real answer only.
>> 
>> 1. Schools can get them through their usual suppliers of educational
>> material, with a pretty decent discount, and with educational
>> courses and materials, pretty much ready to go.
> 
> As a bonus data point I have seen RPI's in vending machines at
> universities that have engineering departments. Thats just how
> "commidity" these items are in the educational world.
> 
>> 2. Most "maker-space" atuned electronics pushers carry them.
>> 
>> 3. Big electronics pushers carry them.
> 
> You can walk into a Frys and walk out with one!
> 
>> In re 1-3: No customs processing of shipment involved.
> 
> :-)
> 
>> 4. Cost, including shipping is below "trivial" threshold in most
>> organizations.
> 
> Yep.
> 
> I have no problem if some want to ignore RPI*, but as Poul says
> FreeBSD does so at its own peril. If its a man power thing lets
> find it or make it!

PSA: with the RPi 4, the distinction between proper SBSA/SBBR machines and the Pi can get quite small.
The new SoC uses a GIC instead of a custom interrupt controller, so it is possible to describe
all the basics of the system using generic ACPI. And upstream TianoCore EDK2 is doing just that.
For example, even the XHCI USB controller can be a good old PNP0D10:
https://github.com/tianocore/edk2-platforms/commit/0d4b36888b5e614afef0361fda6e899b85999a52

The organization for this work is https://github.com/pftf

People have actually got Windows (!!!) to run using this:
https://twitter.com/WhatAintInside/status/1221151430788161537

And this doesn't mean we have to kill the support for all the extra Pi features.
For example, see how NetBSD has added ACPI attachment for the Broadcom mailbox:
https://github.com/NetBSD/src/commit/12e2bb1bfb04328865863ea0d970e323ec0470e5