Hello BSDler,
my first post here in the BSD area at all. Please be patient.
I used FreeBSD before in some virtual environments, compiled simple applications / driver. But not that much.
Instead, I have several years of experience in linux. Just as a sideinfo about me.
I want to use FreeBSD on one or two ARM devices. Because the support for BananaPi M1 A20 SoCs seems good enough (source: https://wiki.freebsd.org/arm/Allwinner#Supported_devices), I start there.
I got it up and running with linux.
Even all documentations and howto's I found were uncomplete about the process how to boot freebsd on arm, because with GENERICSD for armv7 sdcard images found on https://download.freebsd.org/ftp/releases/ISO-IMAGES/13.0/, it does not boot just plain written on a blank sdcard. The u-boot files where needed too. (A little bit this is a rant on why is it so difficult to find useful information)
This thread shows the progress of installing FreeBSD on an embedded device.
1. Create FreeBSD for embedded devices from Linux
2. TODO: Create FreeBSD for embedded devices from FreeBSD
3. Create a custom Banana Pi image
3a. FreeBSD preparation for SDcard - the sector size
3b. Use FreeBSD to create an image ready to write on sdcard
Create embedded FreeBSD operational system with linux:
Within linux, write the downloaded image (in example https://download.freebsd.org/ftp/re...eeBSD-13.0-RELEASE-arm-armv7-GENERICSD.img.xz) onto a sdcard:
Then mount the EFI partition (first MS-DOS partition) of the sdcard:
Download precompiled u-boot files for FreeBSD 13 as a package from https://freebsd.pkgs.org/13/freebsd-amd64/u-boot-bananapi-2021.07.pkg.html, extract the package and copy u-boot files to the mounted EFI partition:
See the Warning several lines below NOT to copy the boot.scr file.
Now write the u-boot bios file u-boot-sunxi-with-spl.bin, also extracted from the package, to the sdcard's boot sector:
So 8192 Bytes will be skipped from the beginning before writing u-boot-sunxi-with-spl.bin.
As shown on the FreeBSD wiki for ARM (https://wiki.freebsd.org/arm/Allwinner/booting), the u-boot bios file is written after the MS-DOS partition table (MBR). Here the table again, which depends on a sector size of 512 bytes per sector:
Covacat commented in this thread:
Other embedded devices not depending on a bios file needed on the boot medium could start at sector 1024.
Warning: Do _NOT_ copy the boot.scr file onto the boot partition. Yet, if you do, u-boot boots, but stucks on finding the root partition. Here is a UART console output of the failed boot:
This was the only way, the FreeBSD GENERICSD image was able to boot on BananaPi M1.
I've read that the error: ERROR: cannot open /boot/lua/loader.lua: device not configured. is known since years and hit several people and user of different system architectures. Yet no fix is available.
So, deleting boot.scr boots the system up and I could login via ssh, because ip address was successfully fetched via dhcp.
TODO: Create embedded FreeBSD operational system with FreeBSD:
TODO
Either way, lets create a custom (or better) image of FreeBSD within FreeBSD itself.
Create a custom Banana Pi image
But still, alignment needs to be tested. Therefore, alignment-topic unfinished.
Questions:
Why does the user Fulda in the Thread https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/bananapi-m1-problem-with-ahci-channel-0-freebsd-12-2.81148/ have the scsi command, which is not available in my FreeBSD 13r? Is it not available anymore or do I have to install a package? I tried to find scsi command of freebsd in search sites or any command if pkg provides a package name which installs scsi. No luck so far. Because ahci0 is not working for me either, but that should be solved if u-boot for bananapi is configured and compiled. Answered in next post of this thread: https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/...to-and-dontknowhowto-resume.83723/post-551205
Another question came up.
With the command gpart show -p /dev/mmcsd0 the hidden partition is visible within the freebsd partition of the msdos partition table (as I wrote about in the updated text above), so... does, of the hidden partition mmcsd0s2a as shown by the command gpart show -p /dev/mmcsd0s2, the beginning sector add to the unaligned sector of the freebsd mmcsd0s2 of the msdos partition table?
-
In other words:
The freebsd slice mmcsd0s2 starts at sector 104391.
The freebsd-ufs partition mmcsd0s2a starts at sector 57.
Does both sector start add, so the real sector of the partition start is 104448 and fits also not so smooth with the 4k boundary, which should be calculated with?
Currently FreeBSD is running and usable on bananapi. I will update this thread/post after creating a ready to write image made within FreeBSD or the progress of it.
my first post here in the BSD area at all. Please be patient.
I used FreeBSD before in some virtual environments, compiled simple applications / driver. But not that much.
Instead, I have several years of experience in linux. Just as a sideinfo about me.
I want to use FreeBSD on one or two ARM devices. Because the support for BananaPi M1 A20 SoCs seems good enough (source: https://wiki.freebsd.org/arm/Allwinner#Supported_devices), I start there.
I got it up and running with linux.
Even all documentations and howto's I found were uncomplete about the process how to boot freebsd on arm, because with GENERICSD for armv7 sdcard images found on https://download.freebsd.org/ftp/releases/ISO-IMAGES/13.0/, it does not boot just plain written on a blank sdcard. The u-boot files where needed too. (A little bit this is a rant on why is it so difficult to find useful information)
This thread shows the progress of installing FreeBSD on an embedded device.
1. Create FreeBSD for embedded devices from Linux
2. TODO: Create FreeBSD for embedded devices from FreeBSD
3. Create a custom Banana Pi image
3a. FreeBSD preparation for SDcard - the sector size
3b. Use FreeBSD to create an image ready to write on sdcard
Create embedded FreeBSD operational system with linux:
Within linux, write the downloaded image (in example https://download.freebsd.org/ftp/re...eeBSD-13.0-RELEASE-arm-armv7-GENERICSD.img.xz) onto a sdcard:
xzcat -d -c https://download.freebsd.org/ftp/releases/ISO-IMAGES/13.0/FreeBSD-13.0-RELEASE-arm-armv7-GENERICSD.img.xz | dd of=/dev/mmc0 oflag=direct status=progressThen mount the EFI partition (first MS-DOS partition) of the sdcard:
mount /dev/mmc0p1 /mnt/removableDownload precompiled u-boot files for FreeBSD 13 as a package from https://freebsd.pkgs.org/13/freebsd-amd64/u-boot-bananapi-2021.07.pkg.html, extract the package and copy u-boot files to the mounted EFI partition:
tar xf u-boot-bananapi-2021.07.pkg cp {uboot,ubldr} /mnt/removable/See the Warning several lines below NOT to copy the boot.scr file.
Now write the u-boot bios file u-boot-sunxi-with-spl.bin, also extracted from the package, to the sdcard's boot sector:
dd if=u-boot-sunxi-with-spl.bin conv=notrunc,sync of=/dev/mmc0 bs=1k seek=8So 8192 Bytes will be skipped from the beginning before writing u-boot-sunxi-with-spl.bin.
As shown on the FreeBSD wiki for ARM (https://wiki.freebsd.org/arm/Allwinner/booting), the u-boot bios file is written after the MS-DOS partition table (MBR). Here the table again, which depends on a sector size of 512 bytes per sector:
| sector start | size | usage |
| 0 | 8192 Bytes | MS-DOS partition table |
| 16 | 32768 Bytes | Initial SPL loader |
| 80 | 524288 Bytes | U-boot bios |
| 1104 | 472 KB | reserved |
| 2048 | Free for partions / slices |
Covacat commented in this thread:
That seems the reason the HowTo for the beaglebone - even booting via u-boot - does not need bios data written after the MS-DOS partition table on the boot medium.
Other embedded devices not depending on a bios file needed on the boot medium could start at sector 1024.
Warning: Do _NOT_ copy the boot.scr file onto the boot partition. Yet, if you do, u-boot boots, but stucks on finding the root partition. Here is a UART console output of the failed boot:
Code:
U-Boot 2020.10 (Jan 24 2021 - 07:06:32 +0000) Allwinner Technology
CPU: Allwinner A20 (SUN7I)
Model: LeMaker Banana Pi
I2C: ready
DRAM: 1 GiB
MMC: mmc@1c0f000: 0
Loading Environment from FAT... *** Warning - bad CRC, using default environment
Setting up a 720x576i composite-pal console (overscan 32x20)
In: serial
Out: vga
Err: vga
Net: eth0: ethernet@1c50000
starting USB...
Bus usb@1c14000: USB EHCI 1.00
Bus usb@1c14400: USB OHCI 1.0
Bus usb@1c1c000: USB EHCI 1.00
Bus usb@1c1c400: USB OHCI 1.0
scanning bus usb@1c14000 for devices... 1 USB Device(s) found
scanning bus usb@1c14400 for devices... 1 USB Device(s) found
scanning bus usb@1c1c000 for devices... 1 USB Device(s) found
scanning bus usb@1c1c400 for devices... 1 USB Device(s) found
scanning usb for storage devices... 0 Storage Device(s) found
Hit any key to stop autoboot: 0
switch to partitions #0, OK
mmc0 is current device
Scanning mmc 0:1...
Found U-Boot script /boot.scr
199 bytes read in 1 ms (194.3 KiB/s)
## Executing script at 43100000
462412 bytes read in 27 ms (16.3 MiB/s)
## Starting application at 0x42000000 ...
Consoles: U-Boot console
Compatible U-Boot API signature found @0x7af6d138
FreeBSD/armv7 U-Boot loader, Revision 1.3
DRAM: 1024MB
Number of U-Boot devices: 1
U-Boot env: loaderdev not set, will probe all devices.
Found U-Boot device: disk
Probing all <unknown> devices...
Checking unit=0 slice=<auto> partition=<auto>...
Found U-Boot device: net
Booting from net0:
net_probe: no network devices found, maybe not enumerated yet..?
netboot: couldn't probe uboot_eth0
net_open: netif_open() failed
ERROR: cannot open /boot/lua/loader.lua: device not configured.This was the only way, the FreeBSD GENERICSD image was able to boot on BananaPi M1.
I've read that the error: ERROR: cannot open /boot/lua/loader.lua: device not configured. is known since years and hit several people and user of different system architectures. Yet no fix is available.
So, deleting boot.scr boots the system up and I could login via ssh, because ip address was successfully fetched via dhcp.
TODO: Create embedded FreeBSD operational system with FreeBSD:
TODO
Either way, lets create a custom (or better) image of FreeBSD within FreeBSD itself.
Create a custom Banana Pi image
FreeBSD preparation for SDcard - the sector size:
Checking and learning I found that it seems the downloaded and written GENERICSD image is not aligned to sector size boundary? Because of:
gpart show /dev/mmcsd0
Code:
=> 63 31116225 mmcsd0 MBR (15G)[/INDENT]
[INDENT] 63 2016 - free - (1.0M)[/INDENT]
[INDENT] 2079 102312 1 fat32lba [active] (50M)[/INDENT]
[INDENT] 104391 31008825 2 freebsd (15G)[/INDENT]
[INDENT] 31113216 3072 - free - (1.5M)
It seems FreeBSD does sub-partition the freebsd partition/slice of the MS-DOS partition table, because with the command:
gpart show -p /dev/mmcsd0...it does show the same information with additional the device name.
Code:
=> 63 31116225 mmcsd0 MBR (15G)[/INDENT]
[INDENT] 63 2016 - free - (1.0M)[/INDENT]
[INDENT] 2079 102312 mmcsd0s1 fat32lba [active] (50M)[/INDENT]
[INDENT] 104391 31008825 mmcsd0s2 freebsd (15G)[/INDENT]
[INDENT] 31113216 3072 - free - (1.5M)But mmcsd0s2 (freebsd) itself is partitioned:
gpart show -p /dev/mmcsd0s2
Code:
=> 0 31008825 mmcsd0s2 BSD (15G)[/INDENT]
[INDENT] 0 57 - free - (29K)[/INDENT]
[INDENT] 57 31008768 mmcsd0s2a freebsd-ufs (15G)Whereas mmcsd0s1, the boot slice is not sub-partitioned.
gpart show -p /dev/mmcsd0s1
Code:
gpart: No such geom: /dev/mmcsd0s1.
It is not clearly visible in the simple device overview and at least the command lsblk shows another partition mmcsd0s2a within the mmcsd0s2 slice of the msdos partition table:
Code:
DEVICE MAJ:MIN SIZE TYPE LABEL MOUNT[/INDENT]
[INDENT]mmcsd0 0:96 15G MBR - -[/INDENT]
[INDENT] <FREE> -:- 1.0M - - -[/INDENT]
[INDENT] mmcsd0s1 0:97 50M fat32lba msdosfs/MSDOSBOOT /boot/msdos[/INDENT]
[INDENT] mmcsd0s2 0:98 15G BSD - -[/INDENT]
[INDENT] <FREE> -:- 29K - - -[/INDENT]
[INDENT] mmcsd0s2a 0:101 15G freebsd-ufs ufs/rootfs /[/INDENT]
[INDENT] <FREE> -:- 1.5M - - -
For a beginner like me this is something BSD that does not show of clearly and a new user should be aware of!?
Side-information: As SirDice stated in his post (https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/...to-and-dontknowhowto-resume.83723/post-551216), MS-DOS partition are called slices in FreeBSD. Because FreeBSD and UNIX is way older than MS-DOS.
This rises a question... (See in the question area).
Slices start of fat32lba and especially freebsd are not alignet properly to 4096 boundary?
Code:
echo "104391/4096" | bc -l[/INDENT]
[INDENT]25.48608398437500000000
As commented here (https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/microsd-card-partition-not-aligned-warning.79559/post-502833) the performance could be bad.
diskinfo -c mmcsd0
Code:
mmcsd0[/INDENT]
[INDENT] 512 # sectorsize[/INDENT]
[INDENT] 15931539456 # mediasize in bytes (15G)[/INDENT]
[INDENT] 31116288 # mediasize in sectors[/INDENT]
[INDENT] 4194304 # stripesize[/INDENT]
[INDENT] 0 # stripeoffset[/INDENT]
[INDENT] SDHC SU16G 8.0 SN 012345678 MFG 08/2012 by 3 SD # Disk descr.[/INDENT]
[INDENT] 0343B946 # Disk ident.[/INDENT]
[INDENT] # Attachment[/INDENT]
[INDENT] Yes # TRIM/UNMAP support[/INDENT]
[INDENT] 0 # Rotation rate in RPM[/INDENT]
[INDENT]I/O command overhead:[/INDENT][/INDENT][/INDENT]
[INDENT] time to read 10MB block 0.481722 sec = 0.024 msec/sector[/INDENT]
[INDENT] time to read 20480 sectors 8.433074 sec = 0.412 msec/sector[/INDENT]
[INDENT] calculated command overhead = 0.388 msec/sector
Half a second for reading 10 MB block does not sound that good, does it? Have to check further...
So far compared to other distributions freebsd does not seem to provide a "ready for good (am)usement" image, or am I to unexperienced to not see the beauty of the work a user does have to do before using FreeBSD?
Creating a new sdcard slices/partition layout within FreeBSD 13, lets say via dmarion's HowTo (https://people.freebsd.org/~dmarion/beaglebone/creating_bootable_sd_card/) does seem to make the layout more worse and disaligned? (unproven):
Code:
root@freebsd13onarm:~ # gpart show da0[/INDENT]
[INDENT]=> 63 122814401 da0 MBR (59G)[/INDENT]
[INDENT] 63 131072 1 !14 [active] (64M)[/INDENT]
[INDENT] 131135 16777216 2 freebsd (8.0G)[/INDENT]
[INDENT] 16908351 105906113 - free - (50G)But still, alignment needs to be tested. Therefore, alignment-topic unfinished.
Use FreeBSD to create an image ready to write on sdcard:
Installing pkg within FreeBSD to be able to install packages:
pkg ...Questions:
Another question came up.
With the command gpart show -p /dev/mmcsd0 the hidden partition is visible within the freebsd partition of the msdos partition table (as I wrote about in the updated text above), so... does, of the hidden partition mmcsd0s2a as shown by the command gpart show -p /dev/mmcsd0s2, the beginning sector add to the unaligned sector of the freebsd mmcsd0s2 of the msdos partition table?
-
In other words:
The freebsd slice mmcsd0s2 starts at sector 104391.
The freebsd-ufs partition mmcsd0s2a starts at sector 57.
Does both sector start add, so the real sector of the partition start is 104448 and fits also not so smooth with the 4k boundary, which should be calculated with?
If so, then everything freebsd writes to is only aligned if both sector beginnigs are added and therefor the comment https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/microsd-card-partition-not-aligned-warning.79559/post-502833 is missing some facts.
Currently FreeBSD is running and usable on bananapi. I will update this thread/post after creating a ready to write image made within FreeBSD or the progress of it.
Last edited:
(Don't answer this, really.)