This page attempts to document and coordinate efforts towards NetBSD/evbarm on Raspberry Pi.

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

Installation

• You may use the rpi.img file created by an evbarm build - evbarm-earmv6hf is recommended.

  • The Raspberry Pi port will be part of the NetBSD 7 release.
  • The automatic nightly builds can be found in the 'evbarm-earmv6hf/binary/gzimg/' directory on nyftp.netbsd.org.
    • The stable build will be under netbsd-7/YYYYMMDDHHMMZ/evbarm-earmv6hf/binary/gzimg/
    • The HEAD/current build will be under HEAD/YYYYMMDDHHMMZ/evbarm-earmv6hf/binary/gzimg/
    • For example, http://nyftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD-daily/netbsd-7/201412161700Z/evbarm-earmv6hf/binary/gzimg/
  • 'releasedir/evbarm/binary/gzimg/' if you run (for example) './build.sh -m evbarm -a earmv6hf -u release'

  • gunzip and dd this img to your sd card.

    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"'

• Growing the root file-system

  • 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

• rpi firmware files
  • Copy all files except 'kernel*.img' into /boot and 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.

What needs work

• USB (host); isochronous transfers.