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Date:      Fri, 20 Oct 2023 00:31:50 -0700
From:      Mark Millard <marklmi@yahoo.com>
To:        Rahul Rameshbabu <sergeantsagara@protonmail.com>
Cc:        Warner Losh <imp@bsdimp.com>, freebsd-arm@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: State of the freebsd/crochet project?
Message-ID:  <19481390-118F-4527-BEDC-9935C695A27D@yahoo.com>
In-Reply-To: <8734y5amia.fsf@protonmail.com>
References:  <87ttqrqnal.fsf@protonmail.com> <ZS6FAjRlRimUVoWR@int21h> <CANCZdfq%2B4L-guWeEck5OqgFTuXLv%2B6BLOfcDuqVgUSvm7X9SUg@mail.gmail.com> <ZS6PuBrr9wChkhov@int21h> <CANCZdfqAhAeuc-K6O3T-E6FGgy-Lktutc3NSfcmRO5OrhSxYJg@mail.gmail.com> <87wmvjjkae.fsf@protonmail.com> <33693188-5C53-4C9E-8F67-647655E957BD@yahoo.com> <8734y5amia.fsf@protonmail.com>

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On Oct 19, 2023, at 22:30, Rahul Rameshbabu =
<sergeantsagara@protonmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, 19 Oct, 2023 00:45:25 -0700 "Mark Millard" <marklmi@yahoo.com> =
wrote:
>> On Oct 18, 2023, at 21:41, Rahul Rameshbabu =
<sergeantsagara@protonmail.com> wrote:
>>=20
>>> On Tue, 17 Oct, 2023 09:01:33 -0600 "Warner Losh" <imp@bsdimp.com> =
wrote:
>>>> On Tue, Oct 17, 2023, 7:44 AM void <void@f-m.fm> wrote:
>>>>=20
>>>> On Tue, Oct 17, 2023 at 07:13:28AM -0600, Warner Losh wrote:
>>>>=20
>>>>> Crochet has no active maintainers. Most people have moved on to =
poudriere.
>>>>=20
>>>> Does poudriere handle the msdos uboot *and* efi part when
>>>> creating the image?
>>>>=20
>>>> Yes. I worked with manu years ago to put all the needed metadata =
for the different boards into the ports...
>>>=20
>>> It does but it seems to have an unfortunate caveat. It assumes that
>>> FAT16 is supported by all embedded targets. The Raspberry Pi 4 and I
>>> assume the Pi 5 as well drop support for FAT16
>>=20
>> The snapshot images booted the RPI4B's that I have access to just =
fine
>> last I tried such. But release/arm64/RPI.conf and =
release/tools/arm.subr
>> which are used to build such uses (selective axtractions across =
files):
>>=20
>> FAT_SIZE=3D"50m -b 1m"
>> FAT_TYPE=3D"16"
>> . . .
>> gpart add -t efi -l efi -a 512k -s ${FAT_SIZE} ${mddev}
>> newfs_msdos -L efi -F ${FAT_TYPE} /dev/${mddev}s1
>>=20
>> FreeBSD release images are also build with such: efi partition
>> type and a FAT16 file system.
>>=20
>> Looking at a (my abbreviation) RaspiOS64 boot media used to boot
>> the RPi4B's (official RPi* media content, not FreeBSD materials):
>>=20
>> # newfs_msdos -N /dev/da0s1
>> /dev/da0s1: 523984 sectors in 32749 FAT16 clusters (8192 =
bytes/cluster)
>> BytesPerSec=3D512 SecPerClust=3D16 ResSectors=3D1 FATs=3D2 =
RootDirEnts=3D512 Media=3D0xf0 FATsecs=3D128 SecPerTrack=3D63 Heads=3D255 =
HiddenSecs=3D0 HugeSectors=3D524288
>>=20
>> But it does have a partition type of fat32lba:
>>=20
>> # gpart show -p /dev/da0
>> =3D>       63  468862065    da0  MBR  (224G)
>>         63       8129         - free -  (4.0M)
>>       8192     524288  da0s1  fat32lba  (256M)
>>     532480  468329648  da0s2  linux-data  (223G)
>>=20
>> Do you know some specific RPi4B EEPROM content for which a FAT16
>> file syatem is not supported? (The EEPROM has the RPi4B boot
>> loader.) Or are you saying some U-Boot vintage is restricted to
>> FAT32 file systems for loading FreeBSD's EFI/BOOT/bootaa64.efi ?
>=20
> Yes, I believe that newer EEPROMs in 2020 and above (don't have the
> exact release version but I can bisect if we need to know) no longer
> support FAT16 unfortunately.

I just booted a RPi4B Rev 1.5 "C0T" part that has:

RPi: BOOTLOADER release VERSION:8ba17717 DATE: 2023/01/11 TIME: 17:40:52
BOOTMODE: 0x06 partition 63 build-ts BUILD_TIMESTAMP=3D1673458852 serial =
c740af3c boardrev d03115 stc 421180
Halt: wake: 1 power_off: 0

off the (what I call) RaspiOS64 media that I referenced earlier.

That means FAT16 with a partition indicating fat32lba.

There have been bug fixes, such as the 2022=3D01-31 EEPROM release that
reported: "FAT/GPT fixes and file-system performance improvements."

> Here is a relevant link on Raspberry Pi
> forums but I can experiment with pinning an exact EEPROM version from
> the Raspberry PI repository if need be. When I got my Raspberry Pi 4
> board recently, I did an upgrade to the latest EEPROM version and
> noticed this issue.
>=20
> * https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=3D278295#p1685235

At that point (2020-06) there were only 2 tagged EEPROM content
releases:

v2020.04.16-137ad
v2019.09.10-137ad

There are 11 from after 2020-06.

> * https://github.com/raspberrypi/rpi-eeprom/releases
>=20
> I am using the BOOT_UART feature of the Raspberry Pi 4 for this
> debugging. I was debugging why the image I created at the had failed =
and
> noticed the bootloader was failing to actually access/read any content
> from the boot partition of the SD card. Switching to FAT32 resolved =
the
> issue for me immediately, making me trust the assumption about the =
state
> of later EEPROM releases from the repository.

As I've indicated, the official releases of official RPi*
images have FAT16 files systems for the RPi* firmware --and
they boot just fine when dd'd to the USB3 media that I use.

Similarly, the modern official FreeBSD images boot just fine
and also have FAT16 for the msdosfs for the RPi*
firmware+U-Boot+FreeBSED-UEFI-loader.

FreeBSD has had problems with a U-Boot vintage that was messed
up for 8 GiByte RPi4B's. But that is now in the past.

> I noticed in that first link I added here, there seems to be mixed
> opinions on whether the FAT16 file system is supported or not on =
latest
> EEPROM releases for the Pi 4. Let me go back and test once again with =
a
> FAT16 file system for my boot partition. I am currently running Jan =
11,
> 2023 release (I see they have a new release for Oct 18, 2023).

I've not tested the 2023-10-18 release.

> On a side note for myself, might be nice to throw the rpi-eeprom tools
> into a port for others to easily grab.
>=20
>>=20
>> Or may be you are referencing the partition type (expressed here
>> in gpart terms), instead of the actual file system type that is
>> contained? :
>>=20
>>     efi                    The system partition for computers that =
use the
>>                            Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI).  The =
scheme-
>>                            specific types are "!239" for MBR, and
>>                            "!c12a7328-f81f-11d2-ba4b-00a0c93ec93b" =
for GPT.
>> . . .
>>     fat16                  A partition that contains a FAT16 =
filesystem.  The
>>                            scheme-specific type is "!6" for MBR.
>>=20
>>     fat32                  A partition that contains a FAT32 =
filesystem.  The
>>                            scheme-specific type is "!11" for MBR.
>>=20
>>     fat32lba               A partition that contains a FAT32 (LBA)
>>                            filesystem.  The scheme-specific type is =
"!12" for
>>                            MBR.
>>=20
>> (It has been some time since last I tried it, but last I tried
>> partition type fat16, the RPi4B's boot from it just fine if I
>> remember right. But GPT is supported, not just MBR.)
>>=20
>=20
> I am not referring to the partition type rather than the real =
filesystem
> type, but thanks for checking. In my boot flow with the image I
> generate, I am using the efi partition type.
>=20
>>> , so the boot partition
>>> needs to be FAT32.
>>>=20
>>=20
>> Not for the actual file system for any fairly modern vintage of
>> RPi4B EEPROM content or U-Boot that I'm aware of. I've less
>> certainty about the range of partition types, not having tested
>> such in recent times.
>>=20
>> Is there a chance you are using so large of an msdos file
>> system that a FAT32/FAT32LBA file system is a requirement?
>=20
> Great question but I believe that is not the case since for the same
> msdos file system (though with different components from =
rpi-firmware),
> I am able to boot the Raspberry Pi 3 up correctly. Let me verify once
> more FAT16 (the filesystem) was indeed problematic for me since I was
> debugging other issues like not realizing the Pi 4 needed different
> components from the rpi-firmware project compared to previous boards.
>=20

=3D=3D=3D
Mark Millard
marklmi at yahoo.com




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