Re: Installing NetBSD on Jetson Nano

[Dan MacDonald <allcoms%gmail.com@localhost>]

It seems those u-boot files may not be needed after all.

I tried booting the latest current arm64.img without burning any
u-boot to the sd card but this time with a serial cable attached
and I realised that it does start to boot, it just doesn't bring up
HDMI so I wasn't seeing the boot messages.

I don't get as far as the login prompt tho. I get a kernel panic when
its initiating the PCI it seems:

https://controlc.com/35294c1c

I've sent this log to Jared McNeil but I'm not sure he even has a Nano
so its looks like we could be out of luck. Despite the existence of
nano u-boot files (which we don't need) Jared has only tested NetBSD
on the Jetson TK1.

It seems FreeBSD may have better support for the Nano but I'd have to
build that myself:

https://dmesgd.nycbug.org/index.cgi?do=view&id=5197

On Mon, Jan 24, 2022 at 12:06 AM Lloyd Parkes
<lloyd%must-have-coffee.gen.nz@localhost> wrote:
>
> I went and plugged my Jetson Nano back in and here is the serial console
> log from it. U-Boot stopped and waited for about three seconds for a key
> press and it didn't see to pay any attention to keys I had pressed
> before it started to wait. I was banging away that the space bar FWIW.
>
> Once Linux had booted, I was able to log in on the serial console. That
> is a way to check that your serial cable is TX and RX. I have already
> run the first time setup on the HDMI console and I'm running the
> standard image from NVidia.
>
> https://controlc.com/c74ca574
>
> Cheers,
> Lloyd
>
> On 24/01/22 10:58, Dan MacDonald wrote:
> > I do have a serial cable for it yes. The problem I'm having is that
> > when u-boot says to hit a key to interrupt boot, boot doesn't get
> > interrupted if I hit a key on the USB keyboard attached to the Jetson
> > or if I send a keystroke via the serial console.
> >
> > Here's the boot log from the most recent (if not the most up-to-date)
> > Armbian image I was testing.
> >
> > https://controlc.com/26bca970
> >
> > On Sun, Jan 23, 2022 at 9:24 PM Jason Mitchell <jmitchel%bigjar.com@localhost> wrote:
> >>
> >> U-Boot is written directly to disk, but for NetBSD there's also a DOS partition that contains the EFI bootloader (in EFI/BOOT/bootaa64.efi).
> >>
> >> Now that I think about it, the U-Boot supplied from Nvidia probably looks for a Linux kernel on an ext4fs filesystem. It might not be configured to boot via EFI at all, not even as a fallback. It's possible/probable that you could configure the existing U-Boot to boot from EFI, but I don't know the commands to do so.
> >>
> >> Earlier I found a page that contained instructions on removing U-Boot from the QSPI-NOR so the Jetson will use U-Boot on the SD card, but I can't locate it now. I think that's another way to boot NetBSD, as the NetBSD U-Boot will be configured to look for an EFI loader on a DOS partition by default And a serial console, would be most helpful, if you don't already have one.
> >>
> >> HTH,
> >>
> >> Jason M.
> >>
> >> Get BlueMail for Android
> >> On Jan 23, 2022, at 2:09 PM, Lloyd Parkes <lloyd%must-have-coffee.gen.nz@localhost> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On 23/01/22 22:00, Dan MacDonald wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>   I installed Jetpack 4.5 a while back which changed the boot process
> >>>>   for the Nano and now allows booting from USB which the recent Armbian
> >>>>   releases take advantage of. The Jetpack 4.5 release notes say:
> >>>>
> >>>>   "Boot firmware for all Jetson Nano developer kits updated to relocate
> >>>>   boot firmware to integrated QSPI-NOR."
> >>>>
> >>>>   https://forums.developer.nvidia.com/t/jetpack-4-5-production-release-with-l4t-32-5/166475
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Nice. I saw experimental images for this, but I left it alone because I
> >>> didn't want to encourage anyone to change horses in midstream.
> >>>
> >>>>   On Sun, Jan 23, 2022 at 2:51 AM Jason Mitchell <jmitchel%bigjar.com@localhost> wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>   Okay, this is confusing to me. There's no U-Boot at all, unless it's further on. Where does the DOS partition start? Maybe hexdump up to the start of the DOS partition?
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> As I said earlier, I don't think there is a DOS partition. U-boot is
> >>> (almost certainly) written directly to its partition without a file
> >>> system. On the QSPI-NOR it'll be a proprietary partition scheme.
> >>>
> >>> Do you guys have serial consoles for your Jetson Nanos? All the early
> >>> boot messages and user input is done via the serial console. I have a
> >>> https://www.sparkfun.com/products/9717 and I have replaced the
> >>> connectors so that I can plug in RX, TX and GND without any of the
> >>> others (plugging the 5V line by accident might (probably will) destroy
> >>> your Jetson. Drop me an email off list if you want more details about
> >>> dealing with the connector.
> >>>
> >>> I don't see how you can "press any key" to interrupt U-Boot if you don't
> >>> have a serial console, and if you can't interrupt U-Boot then you can't
> >>> ask it to boot NetBSD.
> >>>
> >>> Cheers,
> >>> Lloyd