FreeBSD support

[matosys]

Does anyone have any news about FreeBSD on the Pinebook Pro? I see that there are builds labeled for "PINEBOOK" at https://download.freebsd.org/ftp/snapsho...0/?C=M&O=D but I'm guessing those are for the regular Pinebook and not Pinebook Pro.

it's still the same state it was in a bit back. freebsd boots - but not with video support. Jared McNeill developed a display/video driver for NetBSD, OpenBSD ported this driver to their codebase. As it seems, all eyes are on the rPI currently as the 8GB model seems to have *some* issues, and people seem to be dead set on getting virtualization running on it as stably as possible, which i can relate to with a 8gb device. Apart from that, while the RockPro64 does work, there are some issues with the cpu clusters, which is a bigger issue from my point of view. All in all, there seems quite some work to do for the pbp and RK3399 to work reliable on FreeBSD.

I think I covered anything recently happening in the FreeBSD space concerning the pine community in general

edit: in terms of compatibility, there's no way around linux, as far as I see. NetBSD still crashes on me quite regularly, I cannot get OpenBSD running (i can't figure out, which u-boot they built against, so for me I can get either display or keyboard working, but not both xD )

I'm generally defaulting to voidlinux, if i need linux. It just feels about right as a BSD user.

[Samuel Venable]

it appears it should be working for some people although i messed up my pinebook's microsd reader so im going to try emmc next:

https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/freeb...sbc.76090/

[cmicallef]

@Samuel Venable Thanks

I note that in the FreeBSD forums, SleepWalker said that he used crochet. That's one way of doing it but you should be able to use the release scripts contained in the FreeBSD src (see "man release" on FreeBSD if you haven't used it before).

I'm expecting my PBP soon. When I do, I'll first try building an image with release and let you all know how I go. Otherwise, I'll try crochet as SleepWalker had done. If I'm successful, I'll cross post on both forums.

EDIT: There is a PINEBOOK.conf in src/release/arm64

[Arwen]

...

EDIT: There is a PINEBOOK.conf in src/release/arm64

It's likely that reference is for the non-Pro version, (11" & 14" LCDs), which uses a different SoC, from a different manufacturer. Thus, likely in-compatible.

But, to be clear, I don't know.

Ideally their would be a separate "PINEBOOK_PRO.conf".

[cmicallef]

@Arwen Many thanks, re PINEBOOK.conf but I'm aware. The PINEBOOK.conf will not work with the Pinebook Pro. Among other things, it does not reference the correct boot loader files. If my EDIT to my post gave the impression that it could be used, I'm sorry and please don't waste your time trying to use it.



I'm presently a little time poor because of work. I'm hoping to revisit this on the weekend.



My PBP was just delivered yesterday. Haven't even opened it.



If you have some time and want to start working on this, maybe have a read of/look at-



https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/free...20968.html



https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/free...20985.html



https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/free...21286.html



https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/free...21798.html



https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/free...22145.html



https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/free...22510.html



https://www.freshports.org/sysutils/u-boot-pinebookpro/



https://svn.freebsd.org/base/head/releas...PRO64.conf



https://people.freebsd.org/~manu/

[cmicallef]

Sorry everyone,  I won't be able to do anything on the weekend or in the foreseeable future. I have a problem with my Pinebook Pro delivery.

[cmicallef]

Sorry everyone,  I won't be able to do anything on the weekend or in the foreseeable future. I have a problem with my Pinebook Pro delivery.

I've only got my PBP operational today. Booted FreeBSD using images from this thread.

[ScarFez]

Does anyone have any news about FreeBSD on the PinebookPro?

[MNtinkerer]

Does anyone have any news about FreeBSD on the PinebookPro?

Follow the thread, linked in the previous post, where there has been activity through October. One of the users has been sharing a bootable desktop image they have been working on. Some of the versions work, some require tweeks depending on your media. (SD card, eMMC, NVMe)