Re: need your advice before new Raspberry Pi purchase

[Ramiro Aceves <ea1abz%gmail.com@localhost>]

Hi John

El dom, 21 abr 2024 a las 23:44, John Klos (<john%klos.com@localhost>) escribió:
>
> Hi,
>
> > "As of early 2024, NetBSD does not support the Raspberry Pi 5."
>
> I've lost interest in any new Raspberry Pi models since the
> corporatization of the Raspberry Pi Foundation. For higher performance ARM
> machines than the Raspberry Pi 4 hardware I already have, I'd go for a
> Rock Pro 5 or Orange Pi 5.

Interesting...

>
> >    "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?
>
> There were some issues last year with npf which I observed on one of my
> RPi 4 systems, but that's been addressed(-ish - not fixed, but mitigated).
>

Fine

> I've been running a RPi 4 with an uptime of 225 days as an NFS server for
> a fleet of machines that're running pkgsrc bulk builds.

Good!
>
> > "Issues and Workarounds"
> > "RPI4 xhci"
>
> I've never run any RPi 4 hardware without UEFI, although I tried a few
> times and don't remember any successes.

I will do it with UEFI as everybody says it is the way to go. Perhaps
the Install document should document this better in
https://cdn.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-10.0/evbarm-aarch64/INSTALL.html,
showing the different booting options.

>
> One of the things that UEFI does provide is that it makes having a serial
> console very easy. My colocated RPi 4 was connected to an RPi 3 so that I
> could boot the 4 with a serial console, get access to UEFI menus, boot
> single user, et cetera. This, together with a GPIO on the RPi3 wired to be
> able to reset the RPi 4, makes the RPi very useful as a remote server.

That is a good tip, one Rpi can resurrect the other in case of hang.

>
> > What is your final opinion about NetBSD in that board? Are there better
> > supported boards perhaps?
>
> I think different hardware has different uses. For almost instant booting,
> low power and small size, I use NanoPi Neo. For hardware-based VPN,
> for NAT / IPv6 / DNS / DHCP, et cetera, I use NanoPi R2S. For systems that
> need PCIe, I use RockPro64.
>
> I picked the Raspberry Pi 4 with a Flirc case for my 1U server because at
> the time it was not easy to find boards with 8 gigs of memory and with two
> USB 3 ports. I'm using the USB 3 ports to connect two large (8 TB)
> spinning rust disks in a raidframe mirror. For this configuration, it was
> ideal.
>
> What do you plan to use your Pi for?

Well, lighhttpd little personal web server, minidlna film server for
home. I am also thinking to use the RPi 4 to record audio from amateur
radio receivers with external USB cards (amateur radio and electronics
is my other hobby) or data from SDR network receivers. Also GPIO for
some automated tasks.

>
> > 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.
>
> Indeed. It's no fun to get something we can't use. The RPi 4 is very
> usable with NetBSD, although all of my experiences with things working
> very well is based on using UEFI.

Having received several positive reviews from you and others, I  have
just ordered my new RPi4,  is coming home on thursday. I think I am
going to have fun with it!.

We'll keep in touch, I will share the experience.
Regards.
Ramiro.


>
> > I appreciate your work very much and your comments and advice will be welcome
> > and very valuable for me.
>
> :)
>
> John Klos