BSD host of issues on reboot from fresh install

[MNtinkerer]

Sounds good. My shipment has arrived in the UK so it won't be long until I get mine. But I've been playing around with another RK3399 based device.

Building world takes about 8 hours using 4 CPUs and building the kernel takes about 35 minutes. I didn't encounter any issues so keeping the system uptodate with security patches etc isn't going to be a problem. Building 2nd time should be a lotquicker with the -DNO_CLEAN option if there are only a few changes to the src.

Exciting! What was the other RK3399 device?

[ashleymills]

Other device was a radxa rockpi 4c, similar specs to the rockpro64 but in a raspberry pi form factor and with integrated wifi. It also has an M.2 socket so I have an NVME drive attached which is very fast.

As it happens the rockpro64 arrived in the post today! The NAS enclosure should be close behind. I've already got 13.0-RC1 installed and am updating it to RC2 from source as we speak. Interested to see how hot it will get with the tall heatsink. It's been building world about 3 hours on 4 cpus clocked at 1800 and 1416 and temp is at 62.5 celcius. The rock pi 4c actually got to 73 celcius! building world for 8 hours on 5 cpus

[MNtinkerer]

Other device was a radxa rockpi 4c, similar specs to the rockpro64 but in a raspberry pi form factor and with integrated wifi. It also has an M.2 socket so I have an NVME drive attached which is very fast.

As it happens the rockpro64 arrived in the post today! The NAS enclosure should be close behind. I've already got 13.0-RC1 installed and am updating it to RC2 from source as we speak. Interested to see how hot it will get with the tall heatsink. It's been building world about 3 hours on 4 cpus clocked at 1800 and 1416 and temp is at 62.5 celcius. The rock pi 4c actually got to 73 celcius! building world for 8 hours on 5 cpus

Nice! You should start a new thread with your benchmarks so they are more visible to the community. Those numbers make building on the RockPro64 attractive to novices like myself, who initially would be intimidated by unknown investments in time. Tinkering with the RockPro64 is a seemingly endless rabbit hole, but benchmarks are seductive sirens coaxing out one's inner nerd.

Are you active on the FreeBSD.org forums? I haven't joined yet, but am over there more and more now.

[diizzy]

I few things I noticed browsing this thread

Unless you have very good reason to use 14-CURRENT (probably not if you're starting out) use the -RELEASE images. 13.0-RC2 (as time of writing) is close to 14-CURRENT and all -CURRENT images have debugging on which eats a lot of performance.
http://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/relea...AGES/13.0/

I would be a bit cautious about portmaster, while se@freebsd.org is working on it you're likely to run into some rough edges. Pre-built packages are picking up for aarch64 on 13 but some might not still be available and are managed by the pkg tool. You can also either use "ports" (do not run either on a SD-card) and build (compile) packages "manually" or generate packages using Poudriere for a local package repo. Please refer to FreeBSD's handbook as it's very comprehensive about packages and well written overall. https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/

Video/Desktop support is still pretty barebone, graphics driver is expected to arrive in late summer or so.

In about 98% of all cases aarch64 works the same as x86 so there's very little that works differently so there's usually no need to search for "arm-specific" documentation.

There are a few irc channels which might be helpful such as #freebsdhelp on EFNet keep in mind though that many live in Europe so it can take a while to get a reply, #bsdmips is more techical which probably isn't the "right" forum for general questions. There are also channels on other networks such as freenode. https://wiki.freebsd.org/IRC/Channels
If you have questions please try looking at the handbook, forums and mailinglists as your answer can probably be found before asking on IRC or mailinglists and please follow http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-ques...#beprecise .

@ashleymills
There's currently no support for big.LITTLE in terms of "split" cpu frequency so all cores runs at 1.4GHz (if you're running powerd) or have set it manually using sysctl
If you're compiling you might want to have a look at the settings mentioned on this page https://wiki.freebsd.org/action/show/arm...astructure for /etc/make.conf and /etc/src.conf to reduce compilation time.
If you have the Raxda board working, please submit a patch to the ports repo for u-boot support.

Worth noting is that the network driver is wip so you might not get linespeed.

[ashleymills]

Other device was a radxa rockpi 4c, similar specs to the rockpro64 but in a raspberry pi form factor and with integrated wifi. It also has an M.2 socket so I have an NVME drive attached which is very fast.

As it happens the rockpro64 arrived in the post today! The NAS enclosure should be close behind. I've already got 13.0-RC1 installed and am updating it to RC2 from source as we speak. Interested to see how hot it will get with the tall heatsink. It's been building world about 3 hours on 4 cpus clocked at 1800 and 1416 and temp is at 62.5 celcius. The rock pi 4c actually got to 73 celcius! building world for 8 hours on 5 cpus

Nice! You should start a new thread with your benchmarks so they are more visible to the community. Those numbers make building on the RockPro64 attractive to novices like myself, who initially would be intimidated by unknown investments in time. Tinkering with the RockPro64 is a seemingly endless rabbit hole, but benchmarks are seductive sirens coaxing out one's inner nerd.

Are you active on the FreeBSD.org forums? I haven't joined yet, but am over there more and more now.

I'll make a better timing of it, including a script to log temperatures during the build when I update to RC3 when they release it in a week or so, and make a new thread as you suggest.

I'm not active on the FreeBSD.org forums as I don't really have time and it seems pretty well resourced.

[MNtinkerer]

Other device was a radxa rockpi 4c, similar specs to the rockpro64 but in a raspberry pi form factor and with integrated wifi. It also has an M.2 socket so I have an NVME drive attached which is very fast.

As it happens the rockpro64 arrived in the post today! The NAS enclosure should be close behind. I've already got 13.0-RC1 installed and am updating it to RC2 from source as we speak. Interested to see how hot it will get with the tall heatsink. It's been building world about 3 hours on 4 cpus clocked at 1800 and 1416 and temp is at 62.5 celcius. The rock pi 4c actually got to 73 celcius! building world for 8 hours on 5 cpus

Nice! You should start a new thread with your benchmarks so they are more visible to the community. Those numbers make building on the RockPro64 attractive to novices like myself, who initially would be intimidated by unknown investments in time. Tinkering with the RockPro64 is a seemingly endless rabbit hole, but benchmarks are seductive sirens coaxing out one's inner nerd.

Are you active on the FreeBSD.org forums? I haven't joined yet, but am over there more and more now.

I'll make a better timing of it, including a script to log temperatures during the build when I update to RC3 when they release it in a week or so, and make a new thread as you suggest.

I'm not active on the FreeBSD.org forums as I don't really have time and it seems pretty well resourced.

I look forward to your thread. They are doing exciting things with the PBP and FreeBSD too. Since both the PBP and RockPro64 share the same CPU and have PCIe, I'm curious to what carries over between both devices. Like you I have my hands full with life but this is a fun excursion!

[ashleymills]

I few things I noticed browsing this thread

Unless you have very good reason to use 14-CURRENT (probably not if you're starting out) use the -RELEASE images. 13.0-RC2 (as time of writing) is close to 14-CURRENT and all -CURRENT images have debugging on which eats a lot of performance.
http://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/relea...AGES/13.0/

I would be a bit cautious about portmaster, while se@freebsd.org is working on it you're likely to run into some rough edges. Pre-built packages are picking up for aarch64 on 13 but some might not still be available and are managed by the pkg tool. You can also either use "ports" (do not run either on a SD-card) and build (compile) packages "manually" or generate packages using Poudriere for a local package repo. Please refer to FreeBSD's handbook as it's very comprehensive about packages and well written overall. https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/

Video/Desktop support is still pretty barebone, graphics driver is expected to arrive in late summer or so.

In about 98% of all cases aarch64 works the same as x86 so there's very little that works differently so there's usually no need to search for "arm-specific" documentation.

There are a few irc channels which might be helpful such as #freebsdhelp on EFNet keep in mind though that many live in Europe so it can take a while to get a reply, #bsdmips is more techical which probably isn't the "right" forum for general questions. There are also channels on other networks such as freenode. https://wiki.freebsd.org/IRC/Channels
If you have questions please try looking at the handbook, forums and mailinglists as your answer can probably be found before asking on IRC or mailinglists and please follow http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-ques...#beprecise .

@ashleymills
There's currently no support for big.LITTLE in terms of "split" cpu frequency so all cores runs at 1.4GHz (if you're running powerd) or have set it manually using sysctl
If you're compiling you might want to have a look at the settings mentioned on this page https://wiki.freebsd.org/action/show/arm...astructure for /etc/make.conf and /etc/src.conf to reduce compilation time.
If you have the Raxda board working, please submit a patch to the ports repo for u-boot support.

Worth noting is that the network driver is wip so you might not get linespeed.

Thanks for the tips. The Raxda board works fine, the u-boot-rock-pi-4-2020.10 port just needs a config option added to it to select either rockpi A/B or rockpi C, otherwise USB won't work on the C. Only a single line in the ports makefile needs to change. I'll take a look if I have time.

[MNtinkerer]

Slow progress, but still tinkering.

FreeBSD 13.0-Release has been installed, configured and running successfully on my RockPro64 w/2GB memory. I had varying degrees of success with the 13.0 release candidates and unofficial 12.2 versions. I own (4) RockPro64, 2 with 4GB memory, and 2 with 2GB of memory.


Hardware issues dogged my FreeBSD NAS project from the get-go. One of the 2GB RockPros has a bad LAN and consistently drops packages. As does one of my home network switches. This made attempting to update and download software unreliable. Before figuring out the software issue, I did a clean install on an Intel Nuc to get a feel for FreeBSD on a better supported architecture and what a joy! This stiffened my resolve for FreeBSD on a RockPro64.


As of today I have 13.0-Release installed on a 2GB memory RockPro64, supporting (5) 2.5" HDDs, in the Pine64 NAS case, w/80mm case fan sucking air through the case, a JM585 chipset based SATA to PCIe 4X lane card, using 32GB eMMC module for system storage. The hardware is powered by a 650watt PCU, that has been modified to run without being plugged into an ATX motherboard. All of the HDDs use the PCU Molex/SATA power connectors, with appropriate adapters. The 80mm case fan is hardwired into the PCU. I cut the head off the SoC board 4pin power header to SATA power adapter from the NAS case kit and spliced it onto a 12v lead and ground from the PCU. Using (2) Rosewill 3.5" to 2.5" drive adapters I was able to place (5) 2.5" HDDs (salvaged from old laptops) into the NAS case, with the ability to host up to (6) drives. Originally I was worried about airflow bypassing the heatsink and HDDs, but the cabling creates a natural air dam ensurring fresh air is reaching the CPU and HDDs when the case fan is running.


The HDDs are configured into two Zpools:  one Raidz, the other a mirror. My end goal is to make a circuit that is digitally controlled to turn the drives on and off, so as to extend their operating lives, but allow for 24/7 availability of the drives.


Since this NAS is as much a NAS as it is a lab for tinkering, I hardwired a switch for the eMMC module/SD card jumper pins, and mounted it to the NAS case in the rear. I also hardwired a 1/8" (2.5mm) stereo jack to the UART pins of the GPIO (pins 6, 7, & 8) and it is physically compatible with the USB UART serial adapter for the PinePhone, PineTab, and PineBookPro. It should be noted that when doing an installation of FreeBSD using UART from an iso from FreeBSD.org, that using both minicom and picocom, the installer graphics do not translate well to a terminal. I found it easier to use a monitor and keyboard for the installation until first boot.

[diizzy]

I've been running FreeBSD 13-STABLE on my boards for quite some time and they do run really well in general (using external Intel NIC). I'm fairly sure the NIC driver has improved in 13-STABLE branch compared to 13-RELEASE.

[MNtinkerer]

I've been running FreeBSD 13-STABLE on my boards for quite some time and they do run really well in general (using external Intel NIC). I'm fairly sure the NIC driver has improved in 13-STABLE branch compared to 13-RELEASE.

Are you also running a Desktop Environment? While my focus is a backup server, using FreeBSD as a thin client for media streaming seems reasonable. I've been using Fluxbox with Anti-X (Linux Debian fork) on an old HP-Mini netbook with success, with a 188Mb Ram footprint, would imagine it will be pretty close with FreeBSD.