NetBSD

[KC9UDX]

I'm building KDE4 at the moment.  If I succeed, there may be ways I can get you the binaries.  I use XFCE4 a lot.  Others prefer Mate (I've never used that).

The Uboot I'm using is what comes with the NetBSD image.  I don't really understand Uboot or even OpenBoot so I can only assume that you're right; that must be the difference.  Incidentally, I could not get NetBSD to boot at all with other Uboots that I had found when I first got my PBP.

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Maybe everyone here has already seen this.  But if not, you will want to check out the NetBSD update from Jun Ebihara: https://github.com/ebijun/NetBSD/blob/ma...ook/README

I'd like to just paste the text here but I'm not sure if that's kosher.

[Lumat]

Well, I have half a clue, can kind of fumble my way around, however for those ....
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My computers broken, help me
(and often, with little detail, you're a mind reader aincha?)
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and the 2nd line is far more annoying than the 1st
Anyway, don't try to boot usb, if you succeed you're far better than me
copy the pbp.dtb to root of boot (change type to ms basic data for ease of mounting)
comment out line with broadcom  in config.txt (or did I edit it to rockchip, forget, doing update, no vt's)
Simple enough to make right, why not do it right to begin with?
And it did do a hard lockup while figuring it out (today), only 1
internal wifi seems to work OK, has been doing update for 20 min so far
Only sysinst has right repository
--edit--
os_prefix=dtb/rockchip/  (this in config.txt, instead of dtb/broadcom/)

All you need is /boot/EFI/BOOT/bootaa64.efi and /boot/dtb/rockchip/rk3399-pinebook-pro.dtb

the rest you can delete.

[KC9UDX]

This is a sad day. twm is no longer the default wm for ARM.

I have always been a fan of the way NetBSD is preconfigured as the least workable, leaving user preference entirely up to the user.

[Lumat]

Replaced by ctwm that's good news. And one can always build from sources.

[KC9UDX]

ctwm isn't bad, but I installed it myself. If I didn't want it, twm would be adequate.

[KC9UDX]

Something a little more concerning than the DTB files for other hardware platforms, is the fact that the kernel we are using (GENERIC64) is compiled with support for all those machines. I am trying to build one without all of that, but I am running into issues.

[mrgtwentythree]

This is a sad day.  twm is no longer the default wm for ARM.

I have always been a fan of the way NetBSD is preconfigured as the least workable, leaving user preference entirely up to the user.

twm is still available in the base sources, you just have to have your own .xsession / .xinitrc to choose.

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The Uboot I'm using is what comes with the NetBSD image.  I don't really understand Uboot or even OpenBoot so I can only assume that you're right; that must be the difference.  Incidentally, I could not get NetBSD to boot at all with other Uboots that I had found when I first got my PBP.

the netbsd uboot for rockchip devices is derived originally from ayufan's releases, which are different to the standard mainline uboot in one key way. the second stage (u-boot.itb) is loaded from 256KB instead of 8MB.  the main benefit is that you have one file to write to the device, vs two separate parts.
one thing that many uboot builds for other platforms have missing is the EFI support that netbsd efiboot relies upon. it may be possible to directly boot netbsd from uboot, but i am not at all familiar with this.