Showstoppers for RPI3

[Stefan Parvu]

I think FreeBSD should support and have Tier 1 for ARM64 supporting:

 * a consumer level SBC like RBPI enough well supported (SMP, PowerMgmt, Wifi, BLE) 
    this would be good for FreeBSD adoption, IoT projects, university, students. The board 
    is not an industrial board but for 30EUR, it does work for different use cases very well. 

 * industrial SBC (like ? Rock64 ?, else ?) this would be useful for SME and other companies 
    to build things around FreeBSD for more serious projects.

ARM is moving fast and should we. FreeBSD must list ARM (aarch64) as Tier 1 supported platform.

Talking about NetBSD: can anyone here give a list of what features NetBSD supports and 
we dont ? (RBPI 3B/4) I will ask also on their list a bit later.




Stefan Parvu
sparvu at kronometrix.org



> On 27. Feb 2020, at 2.27, Klaus Küchemann via freebsd-arm <freebsd-arm at freebsd.org> wrote:
> 
> Hi Mark,
> 
>> Am 27.02.2020 um 00:59 schrieb Mark Linimon <linimon at lonesome.com>:
>> 
>> On Wed, Feb 26, 2020 at 05:11:35PM +0100, Klaus Küchemann via freebsd-arm wrote:
>>> but Ed Maste stated a clear aarch64->Tier1-roadmap
>> 
>> I'll try not to speak for Ed here other than to say I know he often sees
>> things from the "aarch64 server box installed in rack" view.  And IIUC
>> we do fairly well on those.
> 
> No problem to install a bunch of crappy consumer boards into a server-rack :-).. just kidding..
> 
>> Mark Linimon
>> 
>> The problem is that aarch64 has this bewildering variety of hardware;
>> some very capable and well-documented, others not so.
>> 
>> IMHO there's no possible way that we can be a first-class platform on
>> every single arm board that's ever been made
> 
> It’s all better than we think, it’s just time consuming and a thing of organization 
> Maybe not for every board but for nearly every board which is worth ..
> 
>> Mark Linimon
>> 
>>> and it looks funny when we fail in supporting devices while others do
>> 
>> If NetBSD has drivers, then we should see if there is interest in porting
>> them over.
> 
> Finally a reasonable attitude from someone here, Mark
> 
>> Mark Linimon
>> 
>> (The number of people on the two projects differs a lot, especially w/rt
>> non-x86 platforms, so it's kind of hard to say in general.  I do know we
>> are ahead w/rt powerpc64.)
>> 
>> But the real roadblock is the chips whose specs are under NDA.  No one
>> seems to have any ideas of how to work around that.  So, if we can't
>> work around it, and also can't port otherBSD drivers, we are stuck.
> 
> also OpenBSD is very successful active in this discipline…
> Today I’ve  got a Broadcom-Wifi-device to work (with an openbsd-driver-dev)
> 
>> Am 27.02.2020 um 01:03 schrieb Mark Linimon <linimon at lonesome.com>:
>> 
>> On Wed, Feb 26, 2020 at 07:27:37AM -0600, Kyle Evans wrote:
>>> This platform is on life support on FreeBSD with exactly maybe two
>>> developers doing anything on it
>> 
>> I am hoping that by "this platform" you mean RPI4?
>> 
>> There are certainly more people working on the ports side than just 2.
>> 
>>> it's highly demotivating to then receive comments like this.
>> 
> 
> 
>> I've talked to Klaus as some length and I think part of all this is
>> due to a language barrier.
> 
> Thanks Mark, yes, I say   sorry again to Kyle and Ian,
> Kyle is the one who made the RPI4 booting,
> who am I that I  could think I had the right to say something bad to him or other devs ?! .
> I couldn't just explain in native English language what I meant..
> Hopefully these sentences do work in yours native English language  :-)
> 
>> 
>> But it is *very* frustrating to have developers saying "we *must*
>> have RPI4" and "we *cannot* have RPI4" -- even for someone like me
>> whose only involvement is trying to update documentation.
>> 
>> mcl
> 
> We`lll update the docs, for sure, there’s of course no must have for any gadget 
> But there are a lot which work and can be improved e.g. by adopting drivers from other BSDs,
> If here are none available.. 
> 
> Thank you 
> Regards
> Klaus
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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