FreeBSD Developer Summit: arm BoF
September 22, 2017 (Sunday), 11:00-12:00 in Dendérah
Notes
onboard ramp
gnn@ : potential new FreeBSD-based ARM users fall into 2 main categories:
- embedded: throw-away SoC development in use for a year or two and then discarded by the vendor in favour of some other kit
- systems: classic server type usage, longer term where support and interaction w/ community evolves
objectives should be:
- ensure the throw-away SOCs work without much effort using a GENERIC kernel
- andrew@ important to have GENERIC kernel network booting easily
- both packages and customistable poudriere need to be availabl
industry usage
- gnn@ will check via kylie@ who mentioned the Chinese railway is using FreeBSD for signage is it on ARM?
- gnn@ cloudy ARMy rumours at microsoft
- semihalf is still doing bulk of development
- stormshield - france based
- various indecipherable rumours and grumblings about super secret projects from unnameable entities
- getting hardware - gnn@ has good contacts via the foundation make use of them
wifi
mainly manu & kibab
- sdio is a bus extension
- used to connect wifi and similar devices
- mmc-cam is similar
- not enabled by default
- reaching feature parity between mmc/sdio is not so difficult
- many people are interested in faster SD cards
- better debugging would a big help
- somebody is working in NetBSD on the wifi
gnn:
- marius/steve have a bunch of patches
- please discuss on bsd mips
kabib & gnn to make some contacts to move this along
hardware support
gnn@ - rasppi says they expect stable h/w for the next couple of years (rpi3 & rpi0) so lets make that as solid as possible and $PROFIT$
- manu@ - BBB is still the better board, better support, but less well known
- manu@ : both bbb and rasppi have *some* touchscreen support
- ??IDX support what even was that about
arch changes
manu@ - armv6 (rpi0+1) & armv7 split (everything else) is coming soon
- thumb is only 32 bit
packages and poudriere
reminder that 11 & 12 now have official packages from the project
- poudriere cross-compilation needs more tutorials
- madpilot@ offered to write his notes up, dch@ will test them
- madpilot@ reports that poudriere builds in a qemu jail still work after the soft/hard fp switch (NOTE: jails need to be rebuild from scratch across such changes)
adding new boards
- start small with low expectations
- boot loader support is first, uboot is required with a special ABI/API enabled
- all you want to start with is a serial console avoid the rest
feature requests
- linux has a post-boot netconsole over udp a la netcat - this would be super handy
- would it be possible to get a base system "vagrant up" type thing will all the
dev things? it would be great for newcomers to get them started fast
arm target mode
- aka arm-to-go / a plugin usb gadget
- beagleboneblack, rpi3, rpi0
- is this actually finished? gnn to follow up as its used at Cambridge
documentation
- netbooting stuff is a bit out of date
- more generic docs are needed
- kabib@ offered to write them and dch@ will test them