This page attempts to document and coordinate efforts towards NetBSD/evbarm on Raspberry Pi. All board variants are supported.

Initial, limited, Raspberry Pi support was introduced in NetBSD 6.0. NetBSD 7.0 adds complete support for the board, along with introducing support for the quad-core Raspberry Pi 2 board.

Installation
Installation with sshramdisk image
Updating the firmware
Updating the kernel
Wireless Networking
GPU
What works (NetBSD 7.0+)
What needs work

(Raspberry Pi image by Christopher Lee used under CC-By-2.0 license)

Installation

The automatic nightly builds on nyftp.netbsd.org provide image files that can be used for installation. The Raspberry Pi and Pi 2 ports will be part of the NetBSD 7 release.
- The 'evbarm-earmv6hf/binary/gzimg/' directory contains an rpi.img file that can be used as a single image for both boards.
- The 'evbarm-earmv7hf/binary/gzimg/' directory, as of August 6th 2015, contains an armv7.img file that is optimized for Raspberry Pi 2.
- The stable build directory will be under netbsd-7/YYYYMMDDHHMMZ/ (for example, http://nyftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD-daily/netbsd-7/201412161700Z/evbarm-earmv6hf/binary/gzimg/)
- The HEAD/current directory build will be under HEAD/YYYYMMDDHHMMZ/ (for example, http://nyftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD-daily/netbsd-7/201508062150Z/evbarm-earmv7hf/binary/gzimg/)
You can build your own version of these images using (for example) './build.sh -m evbarm -a earmv6hf -u release', or './build.sh -m evbarm -a earmv7hf -u release'
gunzip and dd this img to your sd card. For example,

dd if=rpi.img of=/dev/disk1
Using a serial console
- By default the rpi.img is set to use the HDMI output; to change to using a serial console first mount rpi.img (it's a FAT filesystem)
  
  edit cmdline.txt and remove '"console=fb"'
- Most (all?) USB-to-TTL serial adapters only connect Tx, Rx and ground, and do not connect any flow control lines. An effect of missing flow control is that you see console output, but cannot type anything. If so, adjust your serial console application's flow control settings to "none".
  
  In Kermit, the command is "set flow none".
  
  In minicom, run "minicom -s" and set hardware flow control to "no"
Growing the root file-system (not required with NetBSD -current after 2015-04-07, or by NetBSD 7 after 2015-08-06)
- During the partitioning process, do not delete or format the first MSDOS (FAT) partition, as the Raspberry pi firmware is hard coded to boot on the SDCAD / 1st MSDOS partition / Firmware updates and boot loader.
- Copy /boot/cmdline.txt to /boot/cmdline.txt.orig
- Edit /boot/cmdline.txt and add the '-s' flag to the end of the first line of text to boot into single-user mode.
- For the next steps, the root filesystem mustn't be mounted rw. So reboot, and at the prompt to enter the pathname of shell, press return for the default (/bin/sh).
- At the # prompt, type
  
  "disklabel -i ld0" and press return.
- At the partition> prompt type "A" and press return.
```
  Adjust disklabel sector from 4194304 to 62333952 [n]?
  Type "y" and press return.
```
- partition> prompt type "a" and press return.
```
  Filesystem type prompt, press return to use the current value (4.2BSD).
  Start offset prompt, press return to use the current value.
  Partition size prompt, type "$" and press return to grow the
  partition to use all available free space.
```
- partition> prompt type "W" to save the changes to the disklabel.
```
  Confirm this choice by typing "y" at the Label disk prompt.
  Type "Q" and press return to quit disklabel.
```
- At the # prompt (shell), type
```
  fsck -fy /dev/rld0a
  resize_ffs -y /dev/rld0a
```
- This may take a few minutes, be patient!
```
  fsck -fy /dev/rld0a
  mount_msdos /dev/ld0e /boot
  mv /boot/cmdline.txt.orig /boot/cmdline.txt
  reboot
```
- When the system comes back up, the root file-system will have been expanded to fill the SD card.

Installation with sshramdisk image

You may use the rpi_inst.img.gz file created by an evbarm build.
Connect Ethernet Cable to RPI.
After starting DHCP client, SSH login to with user "sysinst", and password "netbsd".
- Be careful to note the ip address given during DHCP so you don't lose your connection
- Also for after the sysinst is done and the system reboots
sysinst started!

Updating the firmware

You probably don't want to do this. Firmware updates can break things, and the latest firmware that's been tested is already included in the NetBSD build you installed.

If you're feeling adventurous (or are the port maintainer), here's what to test whenever you try new firmware:

Audio
OMXPlayer (and vchiq)
Serial/framebuffer console
CPU frequency scaling

That goes for all of rpi[0123].

Upstream firmware releases are on GitHub. Copy all files except kernel*.img into /boot and reboot.

Updating the kernel

Build a new kernel, e.g. using build.sh. It will tell you where the ELF version of the kernel is, e.g.

  ...
  Kernels built from RPI2:
   /Users/feyrer/work/NetBSD/cvs/src-current/obj.evbarm-Darwin-XXX/sys/arch/evbarm/compile/RPI2/netbsd
  ...

Besides the "netbsd" kernel in ELF format, there is also a "netbsd.bin" kernel that is in a format that the Raspberry can boot.
Depending on your hardware version, copy this either to /boot/kernel.img (First generation Pi, Pi Zero hardware) or to /boot/kernel7.img (Pi 2, Pi 3 hardware)
reboot

Wireless Networking

A Realtek 802.11n USB adaptor configures as urtwn(4).
- Configure with wpa_supplicant in /etc/rc.conf -
```
  ifconfig_urtwn0=dhcp
  dhcpcd=YES
  dhcpcd_flags="-q -b"
  wpa_supplicant=YES
  wpa_supplicant_flags="-B -i urtwn0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf"
```
- A sample wpa_supplicant.conf can be found at /usr/share/examples/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

GPU

Video playback

Accelerated video playback is supported in NetBSD 7 with the OMXPlayer application and through GStreamer with the omx plugin.

OpenGL ES

Accelerated OpenGL ES is supported in NetBSD 7. The GL ES client libraries are included with the misc/raspberrypi-userland package.

Quake 3

A Raspberry Pi optimized build of ioquake3 is available in the games/ioquake3-raspberrypi package. To use it, the following additional resources are required:

pak0.pk3 from Quake 3 CD
additional pak files from the games/ioquake3-pk3 package
read/write permissions on /dev/vchiq and /dev/wsmouse

Place the pak0.pk3 file in the /usr/pkg/lib/ioquake3/baseq3 directory.

RetroArch / Libretro

Using emulators/retroarch it is possible to run many emulators at full speed the Raspberry Pi. Emulator cores for various gaming consoles are available in the emulators/libretro-* packages. To begin using retroarch:

Install emulators/retroarch
Install the libretro core for the system you would like to emulate (lets take emulators/libretro-gambatte, a GameBoy Color emulator, as an example).
Plug in a USB HID compatible Gamepad, such as the Logitech F710 in "DirectInput" mode (set "D/X" switch to "D").
Create a config file for your gamepad using retroarch-joyconfig.

$ retroarch-joyconfig -o gamepad.cfg

Launch the emulator from the command-line (no X required):

$ retroarch --appendconfig gamepad.cfg -L /usr/pkg/lib/libretro/gambatte_libretro.so game.gbc

What works (NetBSD 7.0+)

multi-user boot with root on SD card
serial or graphics console (with EDID query / parsing)
DMA controller driver and sdhc(4) support
Audio: works. man page missing.
I²C: works, could use enhancements, man page
GPIO
RNG
SPI: could use enhancements, man page
GPU (VCHIQ) - 3D and video decode. man page missing.
USB (host) - dwctwo(4)
USB Ethernet - usmsc(4)
X windows.
RaspberryPi 2 SMP

What needs work

USB (host); isochronous transfers.

RSS Atom

Solve installation step issue, and a few other things

Hello,

it seems one of the first steps during the installation process is misleading, on the evbarm / raspberry pi platform. I ran into the issue, so as two mailing lists members recently did (and probably more people giving a try to netbsd on raspberry pi).

I would like to edit this page http://wiki.netbsd.org/ports/evbarm/raspberry_pi/ and add a note about selecting the HEAD installation sets rather than the default:

(A) IP Address during setup: As the net_rp.img install image uses DHCP at boot time, you will need to select DHCP during network configuration, or give your initial setup the very same IP received at boot time. You could change this later, but not on first boot and install run, else it will disconnect your remote connection.

(B) Install sets: As the raspberry pi port is still not part the stable release, you will want to use the HEAD branch to download installation sets. Have a look at http://nyftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD-daily/HEAD/ and watch for the current YYYYMMDDHHMMZ branch. Use this timestap to adjust host and directory settings:

a: Host nyftp.NetBSD.org b: Base directory pub/NetBSD-daily/HEAD/YYYYMMDDHHMMZ (it will look like pub/NetBSD-daily/HEAD/201305220150Z)

(C) Partitioning: During the partitioning process, do not delete or format the first MSDOS (FAT) partition, as the Raspberry pi firmware is hard coded to boot on the SDCAD / 1st MSDOS partition / Firmware updates and boot loader.

When selecting partition types, remember you are using a SDCARD, nonvolatile flash memory wears slowly as writes are done. You may consider using non journaled filesystems (no log or LFS) and adjust mount options (noatime, nodevmtime).

Kind regards, Mat

Comment by mat [clavid.com] — early Saturday morning, June 1st, 2013

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thanks, Mat

Hey I integrated some of your notes into the page.

Comment by mspo — mid-morning Saturday, June 1st, 2013

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Installing packages

I have successfully installed NetBSD to my pi from the supplied images, but it is just the core system with no X server. I am a relative newby to Linux, let alone BSD and am slowly working my way around it, but I am struggling with pkg_add because I can't find a source file to match...

I downloaded rpi.img.gz from here: http://nyftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD-daily/netbsd-7/201501031030Z/evbarm-earmv6hf/binary/gzimg/

I followed the instructions on this page, but fall down when trying to add packages

but when following the instructions here: https://www.netbsd.org/docs/pkgsrc/using.html and here: http://www.netbsd.org/docs/guide/en/chap-boot.html

I cannot find a matching distribution.

uname -a reports: NetBSD rpi 7.0_BETA NetBSD 7.0_BETA (RPI_201501031030Z) evbarm

but the closest I can get is ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/pkgsrc/packages/NetBSD/evbarm/6.1

Should I be looking elsewhere for the repository?

Comment by Jonathan — Sunday night, January 4th, 2015

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@Jonathan

You might want to check out installing pkgsrc and building your own packages - this article may help http://www.cambus.net/netbsd-on-the-raspberry-pi/

Comment by Nick — late Monday afternoon, January 5th, 2015

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NetBSD error

if you get the following error while trying to fetch sets;

ftp: Can't LOOKUP `nyftp.NetBSD.org:http': Temporary failure in name resolution

Please use the nyftp's IP address instead: 128.59.23.63

As reported by http://stackoverflow.com/questions/27690637/installing-netbsd-sets-via-http-on-raspberry-pi-fails

Comment by Youri — Sunday afternoon, March 22nd, 2015

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Development environment for compiling netbsd for raspberry pi 2

Can someone please post link to netbsd 7.0 sources? I want to compile latest netbsd for my raspberry pi 2 board.

Comment by alakesh — late Sunday afternoon, April 5th, 2015

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firmware update

Can anyone explain if all files (including the subdirectory overlays/ ) need to be copied? "Copy all files except 'kernel*.img' into /boot and reboot"

Or would a subset be sufficient?

Thanks very much -- Tobi

Comment by Tobias N. Sasse — at lunch time on Wednesday, April 15th, 2015

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Thanks

Thanks for all the great work and for updating your instructions to reflect the new RPI2 images. Which by the way are awesome and right on par now with what the top competition has, in other words *dora has nothing us now with regards to tuning with gcc on this arch.

Last week I took the armv7 gzimg and added the new RPI2 kernel from another snapshot. Wow it worked, and I felt pretty special until the next time I looked 5 minutes later...and I saw I had just took the long route to reproduce what was already done in the new armv7 rpi2 images. LOL.

On a site note. Please consider updating the "Installation" section example to clarify HEAD/Current images vs Stable. If it's important.

Currently it reads:

"The HEAD/current directory build will be under HEAD/YYYYMMDDHHMMZ/ (for example, http://nyftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD-daily/netbsd-7/201508062150Z/evbarm-earmv7hf/binary/gzimg/)"

I would change the "netbsd-7" to "HEAD" as below, if I'm understanding correctly.

"The HEAD/current directory build will be under HEAD/YYYYMMDDHHMMZ/ (for example, http://nyftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD-daily/HEAD/201508142040Z/evbarm-earmv7hf/binary/gzimg/)"

NetBSD 4 Ever!

Comment by George — early Saturday morning, August 15th, 2015

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Hard float vs Soft float on rpi 1 model b

Most of the userland and the kernel in NetBSD 7.0 seem to be built with -mfloat-abi=soft (this is from earmv6hf). Indeed, if you look at the Makefile generated when you're preparing to build a new kernel you will see -mfloat-abi=soft is defined. For example the openssl in base has the following performance characteristics:

Doing md4 for 3s on 16 size blocks: 91199 md4's in 2.68s

If I build a new openssl with -march=armv6k -mfloat-abi=hard -mfpu=vfp' in my/usr/pkg/etc/mk.conf`, I get the following:

Doing md4 for 3s on 16 size blocks: 221820 md4's in 2.85s

That's quite a substantial improvement. Could you please tell me the reasoning behind not doing this in the default distribution?

Thanks!

Comment by josh64 — late Wednesday night, October 15th, 2015

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Does the DS3231 RTC module works?

Hi,

I am kaku. How can I use the DS3231 RTC module for raspberry pi ?

Thank you very much!

Comment by hchguoyq — at lunch time on Wednesday, December 16th, 2015

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Accelerated X

Just wondering whether anyone is working on porting either xserver-xorg-video-fbdev or xf86-video-fbturbo to NetBSD? It would be great to have an accelerated X driver. I'd be more than happy to test any driver that is being worked on.

Comment by nickdate — Thursday afternoon, December 24th, 2015

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NetBSD working on the Raspberry Pi Zero

Trying to boot the latest snapshot on my Pi Zero resulted in 8 flashes of the OK/ACT LED (bootcode.bin and/or start.elf problems, according to the documentation).

This image boots fine on my Pi B+ and Pi 2.

I over-wrote bootcode.bin, start.elf and start_cd.elf on the freshly imaged SD card from an Arch Linux MicroSD that works in the Pi Zero. It now boots. I don't know if these are exactly the correct files, but I suspect they likely require updating in the base image.

I've included MD5 sums of the files for your convenience: From the NetBSD Image (20151231): MD5 (bootcode.bin) = 9a4ad6a12ad7dc1aae279888c25d2252 MD5 (start.elf) = a2c4b9ea3ae986f88ea01e05bef46904 MD5 (start_cd.elf) = 85924312c9b51d1ef5b7ca301bb18d54

Files I copied over that make it bootable (from my Arch Linux Pi Zero environment): MD5 (bootcode.bin) = 6cc6560c0178c10928d14b8768969dab MD5 (start.elf) = f5b2a422d863efe5d47b1ac291ccaa3a MD5 (start_cd.elf) = f0dfc1462c5d9b003b64428fd52406ed

Hope this helps!

Comment by ax0n — in the wee hours of Friday night, January 2nd, 2016

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Install earm6hf on RPi Mod B Ver 1

Hello,

I am a total NetBSD-noob and today I figured out how to install NetBSD on my RPi Mod B Ver 1.

I used rpi_inst.img and in order to make pkgin work I had to edit the default ftp repositories.

Browsing the FTP, I saw that inside the following dir: ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/pkgsrc/packages/NetBSD/earmv6hf/

there was not a dir named 7.0 so I used the only path that made me install pkgin, this one: ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/pkgsrc/packages/NetBSD/earmv6hf/7.0_2015Q1/All/

Now I am trying to install vim, but inside this dir there is not a vim package. However I can see two vim packages, one for each of these paths:

ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/pkgsrc/packages/NetBSD/earmv6hf/7.0_2015Q2/All/ ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/pkgsrc/packages/NetBSD/earmv6hf/7.0_2015Q3/All/

Said that, my question is: Did I messed up the selection of the mirror? Why only the first path had all the dependecies needed by pkgin? (I am sorry I do not remember which package was missing) Can I (and should I) add all the three paths to install other packages?

For those interested, I wrote down all the steps I followed during installation. https://blog.apsu.it/netbsd-rpib1-install

Regards agz

Comment by aggaz — late Sunday evening, January 10th, 2016

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Want to Boot evbarmeb in Raspberry Pi

Hi,

I want to boot my Raspberry Pi with evbarmeb. evbarmeb - is the Big-endian version of Netbsd, please correct me if I'm wrong.

I'm not able to boot it. I tried the following steps to create the bootable SD Card : 1. wget http://nyftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD-daily/HEAD/201602270000Z/evbarm-earmv7hfeb/binary/gzimg/armv7.img.gz 2. gunzip armv7.img.gz 3. dd if=armv7.img of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=4M

But I'm able to boot it with the normal evbarm7hf image.

Thanks, Reemus Kumar

Comment by reemuskumar — at lunch time on Saturday, February 27th, 2016

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Raspberry 3 Support

What is the state of supporting of the newest hardware generation?

Comment by daniel.oelschlegel — Saturday afternoon, April 16th, 2016

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Raspberry PI 3 support

I want to lift-up this theme. This RPi uses slightly different Broadcom chip and I expected, that either evbarm6hf or evbarm7hf kernels will function. But for a moment I'm sitting in front of colorful square on the screen for 10 minutes. I'm newbie in NetBSD, but I have a feeling, that it was stopped for some reason.

Comment by vkhutkO — early Wednesday morning, April 27th, 2016