I've used NetBSD for a while, but this is my first time with ARM. My
setup:
- Raspberry pi4 model B, 8GB RAM, microSD sysdisk, serial HAT with db9
- connected serial console, plus HDMI monitor and USB keyboard,mouse
- installed with dd image NetBSD-10-aarch64--generic.img.gz from
https://nycdn.netbsd.org/pub/arm/
as I understand it, these images come with UEFI.
During first boot I watched both serial and HDMI consoles. At poweron,
the serial console quickly showed output, but while the HDMI monitor
woke up right away, like it was getting a signal, no output ever
appeared there.
I was able to complete setup on serial console, and since that's how
I run most of my servers this is good enough to get started.
Is HDMI supposed to work at this point?
I'm confident in the HDMI monitor and cables, and the rpi4's HDMI; they
work with the original Raspbian OS, and I see rpi bootloader text output
on the monitor when I remove the microSD and power on.
From NetBSD, the 'drvctl -l wsdisplay0' rc.conf routine doesn't find a
device, and 'dmesg' doesn't list anything that looks like "display"; I
do see these lines:
[ 1.000004] /soc/hdmi@7ef00700 at simplebus1 not configured
[ 1.000004] /soc/hdmi@7ef05700 at simplebus1 not configured
Presumably that's all related, but I don't know what to expect here.
I've sysupgrade to the daily NetBSD from Jul 12 as a matter of course,
but it didn't change HDMI behavior.
Do I need to add to (or replace?) any UEFI files which came along with
the NetBSD-10-aarch64--generic.img ? Also, is there a way to check
the version of the UEFI file(s) there?
Newer/different kernel required? Or load some additional module?
Fwiw the full 8GB RAM appears available, I didn't have to do anything
to enable it.
I tried a few suggestions from rpi forums and wikis, e.g. hdmi_safe=1
in /boot/config.txt and similar things; no change. I don't know how
much NetBSD makes use of some of those settings -- I'm guessing some
functionality from NetBSD /boot.cfg is handled there for evbarm?
I'm thinking of updating the rpi4 bootloader using the "Raspberry Pi
Imager", the version this unit came with is dated 2022/01/25.
I'm not roadblocked without HDMI, but it'd be nice to know what I'm
missing here -- ideas and suggestions always welcome.
Thanks,
sr.