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Re: need your advice before new Raspberry Pi purchase



On Sat, 20 Apr 2024, Ramiro Aceves wrote:

 Date: Sat, 20 Apr 2024 11:46:51 +0200
 From: Ramiro Aceves <ea1abz%gmail.com@localhost>
 To: netbsd-users%netbsd.org@localhost, port-arm%netbsd.org@localhost
 Subject: need your advice before new Raspberry Pi purchase

 Hello,

 I am thinking about buying a more powerful Raspberry Pi than my actual
 Raspberry Pi ZeroW. I like very much how NetBSD operating system is working
 although I was a bit dissapointed with WIFI driver for the builtin WIFI
 device, I feel that I can control the OS and it is the OS I was looking for,
 simple and straightforward without bells and whistles.

 In general NetBSD works fine in the Pi once you get used to it, everything
 makes sense soon, you fell confortable and why not to say, I am in a new
 world after many years using Linux and needed new sensations. On the Zero W
 WIFI bwfm driver did not work well and overcome that buying a USB WIFI
 dongle with RTL 8188EU chip that works almost ok (with no channel switching
 in the router). Now I am going to use only ethernet network connection so
 WIFI will not be a problem.


 I have been reading https://wiki.netbsd.org/ports/evbarm/raspberry_pi/ but
 information is a bit confusing.

 "As of early 2024, NetBSD does not support the Raspberry Pi 5."

 Reading that I inmediatly discarded the Raspberry Pi 5 choice. Being
 realistic I think It does not work in NetBSD 10 now and I estimate it will
 not work well for perhaps some years. Life is short, I cannot wait and so I
 think RaspberryPi 4 should be my buying target.


 "NetBSD 10"

    "RPI4 general support (but there are issues)"

 Seems explained below.


    "RPI4 ethernet (Broadcom GENETv5) (but the man page for genet(4) is
 missing)"

 Can I be sure that ethernet will work fine and reliable? Network speed?


    "builtin bluetooth on RPI3 (RPI0W? RPI4?)"

 Does bluetooth work on the Pi4?


    "builtin WiFi on RPI0W, RPI3 and RPI4 - bwfm(4)"

 Does WIFI bwfm  driver work as badly as in the ZeroW? Not relevant for my
 future use of the Pi 4 cause I will use it through ethernet but that will be
 a bonus, just curious.


    "RPI4 xhci does not work with a straight netbsd-10 install"

 I seems that below is the explanation.

    "RPI4 hardware rng does not work with a straight netbsd-10 install"

 I seems that below is the explanation.


 The following chapter is very confusing for me:


 "Issues and Workarounds"
 "RPI4 xhci"

 "With the netbsd-10 arm64.img on a RPI4 (most of them), the pci driver is
 missing and therefore xhci will not attach, so the USB ports will not work.
 One workaround is to switch to UEFI, but that leads to a 3GB memory limit
 and needing a monitor. Another is to add kernel config. One can also add the
 hardware rng. Adding the following to GENERIC64.local results in both
 working; you likely also need a dtb that includes the RNG. \todo Explain why
 this isn't in GENERIC64 or link to a PR.

 GENERIC64

 bcm2838pcie* at fdt?                    # STB PCIe host controller
 bcm2838rng* at fdt?                     # RPI4 RNG

 There is some need to load firmware for the xhci driver, but apparently that
 works, once the above is added"


 Does it mean that using  "traditional booting" you end with non working USB
 ports? Will you even end without keyboard? I mainly will use the Pi headless
 via ssh but need the keyboard in the first configuring steps.

 After switching to UEFI you will make USB ports work but 8 GB RapberryPi
 will be reduced to 3 GB only with no workaround? What do "needing a monitor"
 mean? Why?
 If the fix for USB and rng is recompiling the KERNEL, why is not enabled by
 default in the standard image?


 "RPI4 UEFI 3 GB"

 "To work around bugs in hardware (that may or may not be fixed in recent
 RPI4) and because not all OSes have workarounds, the UEFI firmware's default
 is to limit RAM to 3GB. NetBSD 10 can be used with more, so this needs to be
 configured in UEFI."

 That should be explained more in detail for newcomers.

 Last questions:

 Do GPIO pins work ok?

 Does I2C work? That is important for me cause I plan to read some sensors.

 Does HDMI output work or should I use serial console? traditional boot vs
 UEFI difference in this matter?

 What is your final opinion about NetBSD in that board? Are there better
 supported boards perhaps?

 Many thanks and sorry for so many questions, just I want to be sure that I
 am going to make a good and useful purchase. If I purchase a Rpi 4 instead
 of Rpi 5 to have NetBSD support and It does not work ok, it will be a
 absolute nonsense.

 I appreciate your work very much and your comments and advice will be
 welcome and very valuable for me.

 Thanks in advance.


 Ramiro.

Thas what happens when you have an official wiki, people write
wrong information even after been told that that information is
not correct and doing an effort to explain in detail, after people
pointing to that errors are ignored, after people asking to at least
been able to comment to the wiki are ignored.

Now you have a new user that wants to learn and have the little
trouble to "read" before even purchasing a new machine, the kind
of user you want around here, absolutely confused.

Good job.

adr



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