FreeBSD for VIMs

General Discussion
1

Hi Khadas community!

I propose to discuss in this forum thread
the ability to create a bootable FreeBSD image
for SBC based on Amlogic S905/S912/A311D.

Any information on this subject is welcome.

There is an Amlogic branch in the FreeBSD source tree,
but no one has tested this for 4 years,
some people think this code no longer works.

The last mention I know here
Mail list

2 Likes
2

I guess that the after the last attempt to port FreeBSD to the Amlogic environment, all the required drivers etc. has been lost, we need to a lot of digging to get all those back, with a bit of time I believe we can can get it to work on the VIM1 & 2, however VIM3 is a longshot as those requirements don’t exist, no way will it be easy, but let us try our best to get it for the other 2 boards, :slight_smile:

3

I already tried building the kernel for the S905 8 months ago.
And I’m skilled, but I don’t have hardware.
Need a volunteer who has VIM1 and a console cable :smile:

4

Maybe hyphop could help you.
:blush:

5

@Vladimir.v.v do you have a VIM1 ? :wink:, are you interested in testing?
you could help @SleepWalker with testing

6

Electr1,

I have no experience with this

as far as I understand SleepWalker is ready to work with any processor on Amlogic, I think you’ll better deal with this
:yum:

7

Ok, thank you @Vladimir.v.v :slightly_smiling_face:

8

I am up for it, We can do freenas or opnsense for vim1 as it is powerful enough for it.

I will join freebsd_arm mailing list soon. Subscribed.

Update:
Getting vim1 to boot will be hard either we prebuilt patched Mainline uboot from hyphop repo or using the boot scripts, I think bootscripts might be easier just to test freebsd kernel once kernel works then we can move to mainline uboot.
@SleepWalker

3 Likes
9

Great, we have a person for testing the other boards, Thanks for joining in @Spikerguy :slight_smile:

10

Excellent!
It remains to find a guy who understands in u-boot.
I have already compiled u-boot-2020.07-rc4 for VIM1.
But I do not understand how to write it to an SD card.
Anyone interested in the procedure for creating a bootable FreeBSD image.
It is described on my website https://freebsd.hopto.org
True for another SBC and in Russian.
But the principle is the same.

11

There is guide available here https://dl.khadas.com/Firmware/uboot/mainline/README.txt

 # write to sd / emmc - example
    dd if=VIM?.u-boot.sd.bin of=/dev/mmcblk? conv=fsync bs=442 count=1
    dd if=VIM?.u-boot.sd.bin of=/dev/mmcblk? conv=fsync bs=512 skip=1 seek=1

Thanks for this I was looking for it. I will try to translate it using google translate.

1 Like
12

Is it your webpage ? If yes then please use a different DDNS domain name, as hopto is block in my country for unknown reasons.
Have to use vpn to check it but I don’t want to use VPN for this as I will need it open all the time.

Thanks.

13

Ok

This was written by the FreeBSD commiter Emmanuel Vadot

Porting FreeBSD to a new ARM Board Рart1 , Part2 , Part3.

14

@SleepWalker what is the possibility of adding support for the mipi devices?
ie mipi camera, TS050 display etc.

15

It is difficult. There is no such support.

17

Hi Bro,

Any update on FreeBSD on VIMs particularly VIM3 Pro? Are you still working on it or given up? Do you need testers, debuggers or such?

Regards

18

It is very difficult to work without equipment at hand.
So I deferred for now FreeBSD for Khadas VIM

1 Like
19

Can you guide me towards some porting tips or help if I want to try it out myself?

20

@Yasir_Javed

Yes, of course I can help, but besides your desire to do this,
you must have experience with FreeBSD :wink:

If you are ready to learn and try, write me a private message.

3 Likes
21

I’d like to help out here too. I’ve got a VIM3 and would like to try getting FreeBSD booting on it. Is anyone still working on this, that could point me in the right direction and share some info etc?