NetBSD

[Der Geist der Maschine]

NetBSD über-hacker Jared McNeill started working on the Pinebook Pro. In the previous hours, he posted a series of Pinebook Pro related posts on his twitter account  https://twitter.com/jmcwhatever showing the boot up and even running xorg.

It's gotta get good

[BronzeBeard]

Absolutely great news! I hope he gets it working great and releases images before I get my hands on a laptop.

[mrgtwentythree]

with help from Jared i have display power off working properly
and i've added a u-boot package so we can run NetBSD with
a pure netbsd built system.

if you build or download an arm64 release, and follow the
instructions in the u-boot-pinebook-pro package to copy the
rksd_loader.img file to 32kb into the arm64.img, you can get
running yourself..


.mrg.

[babafou]

Hi,

Does anybody know the proper way to install NetBSD on eMMC? The only way I could get the PINEBOOK Pro to boot off the SD card is by disabling eMMC (switch 24 on https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/Pinebo...nd_Buttons) but then eMMC is unusable.

[mrgtwentythree]

for me, i was able to do this by having the emmc switch disabled for about 8--10s after poweron.. when efiboot has loaded, but before the kernel runs.
this requires having the lid open while the back is off. beware of moving the lid without the back as it has been known to break some part.
finding a usb emmc writer may be a safer method.

[Der Geist der Maschine]

I must miss something.

I assume you fail booting NetBSD off an SD card, but you can boot Linux from there, can't you? So, why not boot Linux from an SD card and flash from there NetBSD onto the eMMC?

[Lumat]

I must miss something.

I assume you fail booting NetBSD off an SD card, but you can boot Linux from there, can't you? So, why not boot Linux from an SD card and flash from there NetBSD onto the eMMC?

I am in same situation. So this is good idea. I am gonna try booting Linux from sdcard as rescue and if that works installing NetBSD on eMMC.

[Lumat]

Where can we get rksd_loader.img without NetBSD system? Thanks!

[mrgtwentythree]

I must miss something.

I assume you fail booting NetBSD off an SD card, but you can boot Linux from there, can't you? So, why not boot Linux from an SD card and flash from there NetBSD onto the eMMC?

I am in same situation. So this is good idea. I am gonna try booting Linux from sdcard as rescue and if that works installing NetBSD on eMMC.

no, i booted netbsd from SD and installed netbsd on emmc.

using the not-recommended open lid while back cover is off method, i had disabled emmc via switch 24, with a bootable netbsd sd image installed.  about 10 seconds after power up, i moved switch 24 back to enabled position.  this was after booting started, but before the netbsd kernel itself is running.  this allowed sd boot while emmc will be visible to netbsd, where you can dd arm64.img and reboot and let it resize etc.

by "not-recommended" i mean that many reports of broken hinge or hinge connector when moving the lid when the back plate is off. i spent about 30 seconds to slowly raise just enough to access the power button -- so the front edge was maybe 8-10cm (3-4") away from the keyboard. i was very careful and gentle with this process, and it appears to have been successful.

however, the idea of booting linux from sd (since it has a compatible with the emmc uboot bootable image), and using that to write netbsd arm64.img to the emmc sounds workable to me, and it won't require opening up the machine if it succeeds.

---

Where can we get rksd_loader.img without NetBSD system? Thanks!

you could build the netbsd package on any platform, i hope.  that would be generic using pkgsrc-on-linux or whatever info, please see pkgsrc.org.

alternatively, i've uploaded a copy of the most recent package here:


https://www.netbsd.org/~mrg/u-boot-pineb...rc5nb2.tgz

this has the 4 "normal" output files:
- idbloader.img (tpl/spl)
- u-boot.itb (u-boot itself)
- rksd_loader.img (first two combined for sd/emm)
- rkspi_loader.img (first two combined for SPI)

[Der Geist der Maschine]

I spent way too much time on my Pinebook Pro and hesitate installing NetBSD till these issues are resolved

• support for wifi
  
• bootable from micro sd - http://mail-index.netbsd.org/port-arm/20...06438.html
  

Could anyone running NetBSD review it, please? I'm super curious about the current state!


By the way, if we flash u-boot-pinebook-pro-2020.01.rc5nb2.tgz onto the eMMC card, can it boot Linux off an SD card?