Re: NetBSD on Raspberry PI5

[mlelstv%serpens.de@localhost (Michael van Elst)]

john%klos.com@localhost (John Klos) writes:

>Hi,

>>> "Running" is a strong word - the uSD slot does not work when booting

>I plan to run a USB attached SSD, and since booting directly from SSD is 
>already an option, this isn't a big issue.

FYI, NVME on a PCIe card works too.


>I was wondering about this bootloader:

>NOTICE:  BL31: v2.6(release):v2.6-239-g2a9ede0bd
>NOTICE:  BL31: Built : 14:26:57, Jun 22 2023

That is the Arm Trusted Firmware that is part of UEFI.

% strings RPI_EFI.fd | grep BL3
BL31: %s


>But even though Raspberry Pi OS, rpi-config and rpi-eeprom-update refer to 
>bootloader firmware, what they're talking about isn't this, apparently. No 
>matter - rpi5-uefi does load and boot over serial.

It's something like that, which is stored in the SPI EEPROM.

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2097152 Aug 15 17:55 pieeprom-2024-07-30.bin



>However, even though I'm using GENERIC64, my dmesg has 8 megabytes more 
>total / avail memory and no genfb0.

The RPI5 firmware has stripped most of the GPU functionality, there is
only minimal code for a 640x480 bootloader diagonostic screen. The OS
(also UEFI) is expected to have its own drivers.

NetBSD and the UEFI code just talk to the RPI0-4 firmware to get
the address and dimensions of a preconfigured framebuffer.