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Date:      Fri, 7 Feb 2025 21:00:02 -0800
From:      Mark Millard <marklmi@yahoo.com>
To:        Dennis Clarke <dclarke@blastwave.org>, freebsd-arm <freebsd-arm@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Re: Trying an install to a Raspberry PI5 unit
Message-ID:  <E3BC9056-75BE-4EF5-8366-A8FDA1CD279D@yahoo.com>
References:  <E3BC9056-75BE-4EF5-8366-A8FDA1CD279D.ref@yahoo.com>

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Dennis Clarke <dclarke_at_blastwave.org>  wrote on
Date: Fri, 07 Feb 2025 21:15:09 UTC :

> On 2/7/25 16:09, Dennis Clarke wrote:
> >=20
> > All :
> >=20
> >     Today I will be trying to follow the instructions at :
> >=20
> >         https://wiki.freebsd.org/arm/Raspberry%20Pi%205
> >=20
> >     Instantly the instructions are not clear. Not at all.
> >=20
> >     I will try to follow along but expect many problems for someone
> >     that has zero experience with the arm platform. Almost zero.
> >=20
>=20
> At the very least be clear that I need :
>=20
> FreeBSD-14.2-RELEASE-arm64-aarch64-RPI.img.xz

An issue is that there are multiple alternatives, currently
including:

Weekly Snapshots of 15.0, 14.2, 13.5, or 13.4
Releases of 14.2, 14.1, 13.4, or 13.3

Most folks are not likely to try to set your policy for you
as far as which you pick and why. (None of this is RPi5
specific unless it is discovered that some do not work.)

Some of those currently available are:

=
https://download.freebsd.org/ftp/snapshots/ISO-IMAGES/15.0/FreeBSD-15.0-CU=
RRENT-arm64-aarch64-RPI-20250206-9ef38a01aea8-275290.img.xz

=
https://download.freebsd.org/ftp/snapshots/ISO-IMAGES/15.0/FreeBSD-15.0-CU=
RRENT-arm64-aarch64-RPI-20250206-9ef38a01aea8-275290.img.xz

=
https://download.freebsd.org/ftp/snapshots/ISO-IMAGES/14.2/FreeBSD-14.2-ST=
ABLE-arm64-aarch64-RPI-20250130-9c72da889424-270259.img.xz

=
https://download.freebsd.org/ftp/snapshots/ISO-IMAGES/14.2/FreeBSD-14.2-ST=
ABLE-arm64-aarch64-RPI-20250206-f28415489639-270318.img.xz

=
https://download.freebsd.org/ftp/releases/ISO-IMAGES/14.2/FreeBSD-14.2-REL=
EASE-arm64-aarch64-RPI.img.xz

The snapshots only go back a few weeks at most. So the names
change over time. Even for releases, the likes of 14.2 eventually
changes over time. It is unlikely that instructions are going to
be kept in synchronization with such naming variations.

You can look around, starting via the likes of:

https://download.freebsd.org/ftp/snapshots/ISO-IMAGES/?C=3DN&O=3DD
and:
https://download.freebsd.org/ftp/releases/ISO-IMAGES/?C=3DN&O=3DD

for URL's that match:

=
https://download.freebsd.org/ftp/releases/ISO-IMAGES/*/*-arm64-aarch64-RPI=
*.img.xz

> How hard would it be to write clear docs here ?

Very because little is know about most of the vintages or
variations of the RPi5 vs. what the EDK2 happens to support
in a way that interacts well with the FreeBSD kernel as
thigns are.

You have not even reported on which RPi5B variant you have. As
far as I know, only the oldest variants work --those using
bcm2712-rpi-5-b.dtb (as its content was at the time) and not
any using newer bcm2712*-rpi-*.dtb names. (The EDK2 release
does not even contain any of those.)

For reference:

# ls -lodT /RPi5-edk2/bcm2712*.dtb
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root wheel - 76038 Mar 15 21:46:12 2024 =
/RPi5-edk2/bcm2712-rpi-5-b.dtb

(As I understand, bcm2712-rpi-5-b.dtb is for the bcm2712c1 variant of =
the part.)

# ls -lodT /mnt/bcm2712*.dtb
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root wheel uarch 81163 Jan 27 17:19:54 2025 =
/mnt/bcm2712-rpi-5-b.dtb
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root wheel uarch 81119 Jan 27 17:19:54 2025 =
/mnt/bcm2712-rpi-500.dtb
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root wheel uarch 81620 Jan 27 17:19:54 2025 =
/mnt/bcm2712-rpi-cm5-cm4io.dtb
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root wheel uarch 81682 Jan 27 17:19:54 2025 =
/mnt/bcm2712-rpi-cm5-cm5io.dtb
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root wheel uarch 81661 Jan 27 17:19:54 2025 =
/mnt/bcm2712-rpi-cm5l-cm4io.dtb
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root wheel uarch 81723 Jan 27 17:19:54 2025 =
/mnt/bcm2712-rpi-cm5l-cm5io.dtb
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root wheel uarch 81167 Jan 27 17:19:54 2025 =
/mnt/bcm2712d0-rpi-5-b.dtb

If you have a RPi5 that requires one of those newer
bcm2712-rpi-*.dtb files or the newer content of
bcm2712-rpi-5-b.dtb then it may be unlikely that the
combination of the EDK2 and FreeBSD available will be
of use to you. What I have access to works, only because
it is one of the early vintage RPi5 's that the old
bcm2712-rpi-5-b.dtb file supports via the code in the
EDK2 and the FreeBSD kernel.

FreeBSD did not do the RPi5 EDK2 work. The implementation is
not part of FreeBSD at all. FreeBSD just happened to work
with the EDK2 via FreeBSD's pre-existing ACPI support. FreeBSD
normally does not put a lot if effort into documenting what it
does not develop/support.

Going in another direction as far as documentation goes:
FreeBSD normally does not put a lot of effort into
documenting things determined by the RPi* folks that is
information also useful without FreeBSD involved. You
are expected to use the RPi* materials for that kind of
information.

You are asking for help for an unsupported context. Expecting
it to be like a well-supported context is likely going to be a
disappointing experience.

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




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