Re: Can't boot NetBSD from eMMC storage on rock64?

[Matthias Geiger <werdahias%riseup.net@localhost>]

On Fri, 16 Oct 2026 02:10, Steve Rikli <sr%genyosha.net@localhost> wrote:
> Can you tell if the system may actually be booting, even blind? E.g.
> from DHCP server logs and hopefully responding to ping or similar?
>
> In my initial experiments with rpi4 I was fortunate to have a serial
> port available, so I sympathize with your no-monitor plight.
Hi,

for me, I was missing the creds.txt file and the ssh pubkey, so classic 
layer 8.
> > i have never tried hdmi here, and it doesn't work indeed.  i get
> > nothing in both u-boot or netbsd.  i suspect there is both work
> > to do in both.  netbsd says:
> >
> > [     1.000004] rkdrm0 at simplebus0
> > [     1.000004] rkdrm0: error: no display interface ports configured
> > [     1.000004] rkdrm0: error: couldn't register DRM device: -6
> >
> > for me.  i'll try figure out something, but we'll see..
>
> Perhaps a more general question...
>
> Is it (still?) necessary to install u-boot board-specific files into the
> NetBSD image for Rock?  I.e. from these Installation section examples:
>
>  https://wiki.netbsd.org/ports/evbarm/rockchip/#index3h1
>
>  http://cdn.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-11.0/evbarm-aarch64/INSTALL.html#Installation%20for%20Armv7%20and%20AArch64%20devices%20with%20U-Boot
>
> I don't have a PINE or Rock yet (just rpi4) but it seems like some of
> these sbc gadgets want u-boot (or UEFI) files added to the NetBSD
> sysdisk image at some point, and I don't know if it's included in the
> modern downloadable NetBSD img files these days.

After fixing the ssh issue, the image from armbsd.org (which already has 
u-boot) just works for me.

best,

--

Matthias Geiger <werdahias>

Debian Developer -- KiCad Contributor
GPG: ECBEDBB607B9B2BE