NetBSD 10.1_RC1 boots fine from SD after Manjaro, but if I shut it down and then boot it again - two NetBSD sessions in a row - the second session goes to a black screen after the first green boot print page. In at least one case I was able to log in, blind, so this seems to be entirely a display issue. To get back, I have to pop the SD, boot to Manjaro , reseat the SD and restart. I don't have to do anything in particular during the NetBSD session - just log in as root and shut down, and I've used up my NetBSD quota of 1.
11-16-2023, 11:31 AM
(This post was last modified: 11-16-2023, 11:33 AM by donn.)
I installed tow-boot on SPI, and that got around the problem - in effect tow-boot serves as the alternate session, I guess. But when booted from tow-boot, neither OS can see my USB wifi, I suppose tow-boot was too interested in it as a boot device. So until I sort that out, I'm back to popping the SD every time.
Not that tow-boot worked very reliably anyway.
The problem is the U-Boot that comes with Manjaru. It only wants to boot Manjaru. If you install the U-Boot that comes with NetBSD, you can boot NetBSD or Manjaru or anything else at any time.
I'm surprised tow-boot even worked!
As it happens, I did try out the NetBSD u-boot. I then removed the back of the case, to find that shorting SPI pin 6 to ground isn't so easy as presented in the pine64 wiki, now that there's a cover plate that would have to be pried off. Luckily, I found that Manjaro would sometimes boot from the eMMC if I held the power button down long enough, and from there I could zero the SPI device up to a point. So luckily I'm back where I started.
I don't know why the NetBSD rockpro64 u-boot didn't work, but it sure didn't. Possibly the device isn't adequately supported right now as something that can be dd'd to, and if I carted it over to Linux and flashcp'd it it would be fine. Or I could get myself into a situation where I have to take a chisel to the board, so ... I don't know, maybe not.
tow-boot was mainly just erratic - sometimes it couldn't boot the SD, but if you keep trying, it would get it eventually. Or it would freeze up. I'd be using it, if it didn't knock out the USB wifi device. It's ragged, but it can choose a boot device.
Anyway ... the black screen problem returned right away after I zeroed the SPI, which didn't fit the normal pattern since it was after a Manjaro session.
I don't think the RockPro one is compatible. I wouldn't flash it to SPI at all, but that's me. The one for the Pinebook Pro does work, and of all the ones I've tried it works the best. (I haven't tried tow-boot). It does look for the dtb file in a different place than where it comes in the distribution though, IIRC.
02-21-2024, 10:44 PM
(This post was last modified: 02-26-2024, 07:31 PM by additionlung.)
It seems like you're encountering a display issue with NetBSD 10.1_RC1 after booting it for the second time in a row from SD. While the system boots fine initially, subsequent boots result in a black screen after the first green boot print page.
This issue could be related to the display driver or configuration settings. Since you mentioned being able to log in blind, it suggests that the system is running but not displaying properly.
I sometimes lose wscons display (NetBSD 9.3). Something happens to the virtual console and nothing but console messages will display. Sometimes switching to a different virtual console and back works, sometimes it doesn't. I wonder if it's similar to what you're experiencing. (I have not tried the 10 RCs)
