Re: Can't bootNetBSD 11 on RaspberryPi 4 from SDCARD - black screen (HDMI)

[Steve Rikli <sr%genyosha.net@localhost>]

On Thu, Oct 15, 2026 at 06:27:52PM +0200, Piotr Kolasiński wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 15, 2026 at 06:14:58PM +0200, Piotr Kolasiński wrote:
>  Correction 
>  Of course I've downloaded NetBSD 11:
>  https://nycdn.netbsd.org/pub/arm/NetBSD-11.0-release/NetBSD-11-aarch64--generic.img.gz

For HDMI monitors to work on rpi4 I believe you'll also need to add UEFI
firmware to the NetBSD boot image.  Otherwise it's only serial console.

At least, that was the case when I started with NetBSD 10 on my rpi4b,
same behavior you get: i.e. the HDMI monitor "woke up", but blank display.

Last time I added RPI4 UEFI firmware from here to get started:
    https://github.com/pftf/RPi4

You would unpack the bundle into the msdos partition created by the
NetBSD img on your sysdisk.

Cheers,
sr.


> >  I try to boot NetBSD 11 on RasPi 4 from sdcard and see (initalized, because monitor detected signal) 
> >  black screen. I've downloaded sdcard image from:
> >  https://nycdn.netbsd.org/pub/arm/NetBSD-10.2-release/NetBSD-10-aarch64--generic.img.gz
> >  and succesfully mounted the card on FreeBSD instance - seems to be good.
> >  
> >  When I boot writhout the card - I see RasPi bootloader screen with
> >  messages about boot mode, nd lacking of sdcard, but after inserting 
> >  the card - boot process is going to the black screen again. 
> >  Do I nedd special version of image, some diffrent settings in the boot
> >  screen or maybe soemthing else?