PINE64 - BSD on Pine A64(+)

Install OpenBSD 7.2 on Pine64+ (2Gb)

Sun, 04 Dec 2022 10:35:17 +0000

Hey there,

anyone managed that ?
My Pine64 was taking dust in a box with an old debian distro on it.
Then I decided I could maybe use it if I could put an OpenBSD on it, to replace another machine I have.

Unfortunately it keeps hanging at different points in the install process and is left in such a way that I have to reflash everything again.

To reach that point I overcame the hurdle of using screen appropriately on my mac (found the best info here and here). In short identifying correctly the serial device to use )

Then I was able to check that that page (explaining how to do with an LTS version) applied easily enough to the Pine64+ if taking appropriate files (not those of the LTS )

And now, I'm kinda stuck and it's bugging me.

Note : I tried to follow the instructions from OpenBSD.org for the PIne64+ but did not quite understand, or they don't work
That paragraph of the arm64 install page :

Code:
Firmware which provides an UEFI interface with a Device Tree Blob

(DTB) file or ACPI support is required to boot.  In most cases this is

provided by images of U-Boot 2016.07 or newer on SD/MMC devices or in

SPI flash.  If the miniroot or install images are used, U-Boot and

DTB files are distributed as part of the images.

turned out to be optimistic for example.

Anyway, any help would be appreciated.
That being said I see this section of the forum is very quiet since 2019

NetBSD will does not install to eMMC

Tue, 14 May 2019 20:53:21 +0000

I downloaded the NetBSD Pinebook image from invisible.ca (https://www.invisible.ca/arm/) and created a microSD card, as directed using Etcher. My Pinebook (1080p) booted, but when I dd'd the image to /dev/rdl2c I got a ton of errors. Now my Pinebook does not boot, unless there is a SD card inserted.

arm64# dd if=NetBSD-evbarm-aarch64-201905120950Z-pinebook.img of=/dev/rld2c bs=1m conv=sync
    dd: /dev/rld2c: Input/output error
    30+0 records in
    29+0 records out
    30408704 bytes transferred in 11.143 secs (2728951 bytes/sec)
This generated a ton of "ld2c: error writing fsbn..." errors. When I reboot I get a blank screen.

My disklabel looks like this:
arm64# disklabel ld2

    # /dev/rld2:

    type: ld

    disk: ld2

    label: default label

    flags:

    bytes/sector: 512

    sectors/track: 63

    tracks/cylinder: 32

    sectors/cylinder: 2016

    cylinders: 1040

    total sectors: 2097152

    rpm: 3600

    interleave: 1

    trackskew: 0

    cylinderskew: 0

    headswitch: 0           # microseconds

    track-to-track seek: 0  # microseconds

    drivedata: 0

    5 partitions:

    #        size    offset     fstype [fsize bsize cpg/sgs]

     c:   2097152         0     4.2BSD      0     0     0  # (Cyl.      0 -   1040*)

     e:    163840     32768      MSDOS                     # (Cyl.     16*-     97*)

    disklabel: boot block size 0

    disklabel: super block size 0
    disklabel: partitions c and e overlap

Any ideas on how to get NetBSD running on my brand new Pinebook?

[url=http://www.invisible.ca/][/url]

NetBSD binary pkgsrc-current for Pinebook

Fri, 23 Nov 2018 10:28:24 +0000

Hello,

if interested Im building pkgsrc-current packages for the arm64 Pinebook, you can check the progress here - http://45.76.81.249/pkgsrc/pinebook/netbsd-aarch64/All/

I post progress updates on my twitter here https://twitter.com/astr0baby

Some cool games compiled for the Pinebook
- Exult (Ultima VII)
- Pentagram (Ultima VIII)
- freesynd (Syndicate)
- Ur-Quan Masters (Starcontrol2)
- Scummvm 2.0
- Doom
- Quake 1, 2
- FreeCiv

OpenBSD on Pine64

Mon, 02 Jul 2018 15:18:07 +0000

https://www.openbsd.org/arm64.html

FreeBSD on pine64

Mon, 02 Jul 2018 10:54:53 +0000

http://www.raspbsd.org/pine64.html

NetBSD images for the pine (and other boards)

Mon, 02 Jul 2018 10:53:54 +0000

Thanks to for creating the builds!!!

Download latest from http://www.invisible.ca/arm/
dd'it to a microsd. In linux:

Code:
sudo dd if=./NetBSD-evbarm-aarch64-201811042130Z-pine64.img of=/dev/sdb

First boot

Plug the microsd into the pine
Boot the pine and wait for a couple of reboots (disk expansion)
Login as root (no password)
Configure password for root user

Code:
passwd

Create user (in my case, 'edu') and add it to the wheel group

Code:
useradd -m -G wheel edu

passwd edu

Edit /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf with the appropriate ssid/psk:

Code:
ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant

ctrl_interface_group=wheel

network={

        ssid="my favourite network"

        key_mgmt=WPA-PSK

        psk="hunter2"

}

Editing /etc/rc.conf to enable wpa_supplicant at boot. Notice my usb wireless adapter is urtwn0 (ifconfig will show you all the adapters):

Code:
wpa_supplicant=YES

wpa_supplicant_flags="-i urtwn0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf"

Start wpa_supplicant service:

Code:
chmod 600 /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf

/etc/rc.d/wpa_supplicant start

Verify it:

Code:
ifconfig urtwn0

Update to latest current

As root user:

Code:
# Create a temporary directory

mkdir -p /root/tmp/kernel

cd /root/tmp/kernel

# Backup the current NetBSD kernel

cp /netbsd /onetbsd

# Download a full tar with kernel and dtb files

ftp https://nyftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD-daily/HEAD/latest/evbarm-aarch64/binary/sets/kern-GENERIC64.tgz

tar xzvf /root/tmp/kernel/kern-GENERIC64.tgz

# Overwrite the current NetBSD kernel and dtb files

cp ./netbsd /netbsd

cp sun50i-a64-pine64* /boot/dtb/allwinner/

# Reboot

reboot

After reboot

Code:
mkdir -p /root/tmp/sets

cd /root/tmp/sets

# Download and untar all sets

for x in base comp games man misc modules tests text xbase xcomp xfont xserver; do ftp https://nyftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD-daily/HEAD/latest/evbarm-aarch64/binary/sets/$x.tgz; done

for x in base comp games man misc modules tests text xbase xcomp xfont xserver; do tar -C / -zxvpf $x.tgz; done

Update the /etc/ configuration

Code:
for x in etc xetc; do ftp https://nyftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD-daily/HEAD/latest/evbarm-aarch64/binary/sets/$x.tgz; done

etcupdate -s etc.tgz -s xetc.tgz

Verify everything works, then clean up and reboot

Code:
rm -Rf /root/tmp

reboot

Based on instructions:

Code:
 Updated sets are on the autobuild server: http://nycdn.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD-daily/HEAD/latest/evbarm-aarch64/binary/sets/

 Backup current (working) kernel: cp /netbsd /onetbsd

 Then take "./netbsd" from kern-GENERIC64.tgz and put it as /netbsd

 and you probably want to update the dtb in /boot/dtb/allwinner/ to match

 (latest dtb is in that same file)

 reboot with the new kernel, make sure it works..

 (you need to be running the new kernel for this latest step -- old kernel may not support new userland)

 then extract sets..

 for x in base comp games man misc modules tests text xbase xcomp xfont xserver; do tar -C / -zxvpf $x.tgz; done

 note that I skipped the debug sets (they are big) and etc/xetc sets (we upgrade those separately)

 To see what sets you have installed, ls /etc/mtree/set.*

 Then to update etc and xetc: etcupdate -s etc.tgz -s xetc.tgz

Source https://gist.github.com/e-minguez/0f637c...ddbc5575f5