On a Pi 4, the serial console (when enabled) comes out on GPIO14/15 (pins 8/10 on the 40‑pin header). You could try Pi 4, make sure all your system components are working: Power Supply, SD Card, connections.
On a Pi 5, enabling the serial console now targets the 3‑pin debug UART connector near the HDMI ports, not GPIO14/15. Raspberry Pi Forums+1
You can still put the console on GPIO14/15 on a Pi 5 by adding, for example, in
/boot/firmware/config.txt:That maps UART0 to GPIO14/15 and makes it the console, just like older boards.
(NOTE: I have not actually tried this! So if you do this, please let us know if it works).
8,N,1 115,200 baud I use these Adafruit cables: https://www.adafruit.com/product/954 which can comfortably go to 921.6K (via PuTTY Windows, presumably others)
CP2012 USB Serial Chip, Micro Semi.
I keep trying NetBSD on RPI5 but nothing works. I have tried the standard arm_64.img, the rpi_inst.img and even the 2025-10-10-netbsd-raspi-earmv6hf.img from "jun" that is on the NetBSD site. Nothing works. As soon as the netbsd kernel image starts to load, the HDMI screen goes blank. The rpi_inst.img is supposed to enable SSH so you can log in and complete the install that way. No luck. The network light never comes on (either on the hub or the RPI itself). As HDMI is broken, nothing works. If anyone has gotten these to work, could you post your EXACT steps? I'd appreciate it.
Thanks