From owner-freebsd-arm@freebsd.org Thu Apr 14 05:12:16 2016 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-arm@mailman.ysv.freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) by mailman.ysv.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DDB78B10059 for ; Thu, 14 Apr 2016 05:12:16 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd-arm@dino.sk) Received: from mailhost.netlabit.sk (mailhost.netlabit.sk [84.245.65.72]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-CAMELLIA256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (Client did not present a certificate) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 642FC16F2 for ; Thu, 14 Apr 2016 05:12:15 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd-arm@dino.sk) Received: from zeta.dino.sk (fw1.dino.sk [84.245.95.252]) (AUTH: LOGIN milan) by mailhost.netlabit.sk with ESMTPA; Thu, 14 Apr 2016 07:12:12 +0200 id 00130CD4.570F26AC.00016381 Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2016 07:12:12 +0200 From: Milan Obuch To: Russell Haley Cc: freebsd-arm Subject: Re: Orange Pi One Message-ID: <20160414071212.770949f0@zeta.dino.sk> In-Reply-To: References: <20160413232414.3a37907e@zeta.dino.sk> X-Mailer: Claws Mail 3.13.2 (GTK+ 2.24.29; i386-portbld-freebsd10.3) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-BeenThere: freebsd-arm@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.21 Precedence: list List-Id: "Porting FreeBSD to ARM processors." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2016 05:12:17 -0000 On Wed, 13 Apr 2016 15:13:48 -0700 Russell Haley wrote: > On Wed, Apr 13, 2016 at 2:24 PM, Milan Obuch > wrote: > > Hello, > > > > today I got this cheap board. After verifying it works with provided > > linux based image I am trying to put FreeBSD on it. I would like to > > understand boot process, but I did not find much info yet. > > > > Analysing image I see there are two partitions, first one being FAT > > despite gpart telling both partitions are linux-data... and it seems > > there are just two files important, script.bin and uImage in root > > directory. > > It seems to be somewhat explained here: > > http://linux-sunxi.org/Manual_build_howto > Thanks for this pointer. I see a lot of references here, so it will take some time for me to understand everything. > script.bin is a hardware description file and uImage is (of course) > the Linux kernel. It sounds like the specific instance of u-boot for > the Orange-pi is maintained by the sunxi group and loads the kernel > directly from fat instead of from the rootfs. > > The specifics of your board seem to be here: > http://linux-sunxi.org/Xunlong_Orange_Pi_One > I did see this already, just did not understand it yet enough to get anything usable from there. Again, some more time is needed on my part... > After some poking the FreeBSD info is here: > > http://linux-sunxi.org/FreeBSD > > What a nice little community page. Sure makes Allwinner specific > stuff easy to find! > Sunxi group is great. They work with various devices, so there is much interesting for anybody interested :) > > As both files are binary, there is nothing more to reveal from > > cursory view and I am going to look for more details on > > www.orangepi.org page, just would like to know if someone already > > did something. If yes, please let me know - I have no problem > > building kernel and userland binaries, but first I need to get a > > way to load kernel... > > It doesn't look like the Allwinner H family of processors is supported > at all by FreeBSD. > > http://linux-sunxi.org/FreeBSD > > and my limited hardware understanding tells me it's a very different > beast from the A10/A20 (meaning lots of work to port). > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allwinner_Technology > > BUT if you're interested, here is the starting page for Allwinner > stuff: > > https://wiki.freebsd.org/FreeBSD/arm/Allwinner > > Either way, I'll hazard a guess that if you can place the FreeBSD > kernel in the fat partition and update the u-boot environment > variables with the file name and address, you may be able to get a > kernel to load but that's just the first hurdle because (probably) > nothing is going to work. > Well, the moment I understand boot process so I can boot some kernel we'll see... Being able to run FreeBSD on this board (it'just ~ 9 EUR + 3 EUR shipping, really cheap) would make me a way to create many interesting things. Thanks for all pointers provided. Really appreciated. Regards, Milan