ARM board recommendations with true GigE ports

[Marcin Wojtas]

Hi Jim,

2017-10-13 20:57 GMT+02:00 Jim Thompson <jim at netgate.com>:
>
> On Sun, Sep 24, 2017 at 5:06 PM, Brett Glass <brett at lariat.net> wrote:
>>
>> So, how would I obtain an image for the Solidrun "ClearFog" board (whose
>> specs say it uses the Marvell ARMADA 88F628 SoC)? Is it supported by
>> any of the snapshots of 11.1-RELEASE or 12.0-CURRENT? Or would I have to
>> set up
>> a development system to cross-compile? If there's no SD/MMC driver (as
>> suggested
>> by some of the messages earlier in the thread), what media would I use to
>> boot
>> the system and as mass storage? Is there better support for the
>> "Macchiatobin"
>> board, whose specs say it uses a "Marvell AMADA 8040"?
>>
>> --Brett Glass
>
>
> I don't see where anyone has responded to Brett, (I was in Europe starting
> with EuroBSDcon for two weeks, so I didn't notice that the thread had gone
> stale without answering Brett's question.)
> Apologies if I missed someone else answering.

>
> Solid-Run has some documentation specific to FreeBSD on the ClearFog,
> including build instructions for FreeBSD
> https://wiki.solid-run.com/doku.php?id=products:a38x:software:os:freebsd
> That URL above has a link to pre-built images that Solid-Run has made if
> that's what you're after.
> http://images.solid-build.xyz/A38X/freebsd/

I pointed Brett same URL's on September 25th, now I see it was off the lists.

>
> I booted pfSense 2.4.1 (not released, but based on FreeBSD 11.1) from USB on
> a ClearFog Base (with eMMC) yesterday.  ClearFog Pro works as well.
> We use a customized toolchain that started off as crochet, but the
> instructions on that page should serve to get you to freebsd -HEAD running
> from microSD.  Getting from there to FreeBSD 11.1-RELEASE
> is simple.   Since arm32 isn't a tier-1 architecture in FreeBSD, I don't
> know what it takes to have RE make images for these boards.  I know I've
> given Glen Barber a selection of boards (arm and non-arm) to
> use in his efforts to make FreeBSD images for various boards, and if it's as
> simple as sending him a ClearFog, he only needs to hold his hand up.  I have
> about 20 of them sitting in my office.
>
> Since Brett mentioned "mass storage",  I haven't tried the m-sata on
> ClearFog, but the m.2 SATA ports on our product based on the Armada 385
> work, so presumably the m-sata on the ClearFog also works.
>
> The Marvell 8040 stuff is further behind.  It boots, but no interfaces, etc.
>

Did you run MacchiatoBin? When adding support, we tested normal boot
from UEFI - USB, SATA and RTC work fine on HEAD (now the latter should
work as runtime service, but I didn't have time to test Andrew T.
patches).

What firmware did you use? Please check my howto, pointing to the
updated sources, which allow to build UEFI image for the board:
http://wiki.macchiatobin.net/tiki-index.php?page=Build+from+source+-+UEFI+EDK+II

> I'll be trying the espresso.bin board (Armada 3700) next.
>

Ok, please let know how it goes.

Marcin