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

• Use the latest HEAD/-current which builds for install

  • As the Raspberry Pi port is still not part the stable release, you will want to use the HEAD branch to download installation sets.
  • You may use the rpi.img file created by an evbarm build - evbarm-earmv6hf is recommended, but this is not currently available on nyftp. For now, evbarm-earmhf is best.
  • An example can be found in the 'evbarm-earmhf/binary/gzimg/' directory under releng.netbsd.org
    • On nyftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD-daily/HEAD/YYYYMMDDHHMMZ (it will look like pub/NetBSD-daily/HEAD/201305220150Z)
  • '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

Additional links

• ARM userland utilities

What works

• multi-user boot with root on SD card
• serial or graphics console (with EDID query / parsing)
• X windows.
• USB (host) - dwctwo(4)
• USB Ethernet - usmsc(4)
• RNG: works
• I²C: works, could use enhancements, man page
• SPI: works, could use enhancements, man page
• VCHIQ: work in progress. man page missing. (-current)
• Audio: works. man page missing. (-current)

What needs work

• USB (host); isochronous transfers.
• DMA controller driver / dmover(9) backend
• Teach sdhc(4) about dmover; not Raspberry Pi specific
• GPIO