Will it run FreeBSD ? [Embedded Version]

i have no experience with rpi4 but the best start is to get and uart ttl to usb dongle and use serial console
there are also some posts on freebsd-arm related to rpi 4b/8gb you can check
also from what i found ghostbsd uses 13-STABLE as starting point so you may test with that
 
astyle said:
when are you gonna replicate the 'NetBSD on a toaster'?
Click to expand...
I would like to think there are alternative uses for this computer. At least parts wise. I am studying displays. I have the back off and it looks like an ITX board.
I will post some disassembly pictures.

FreeBSD on a Toaster doesn't spark my interest. I also like going for targets that could be successful. No sense pissing away good money.

User Balanga tried for years to get Seagate GoFlex to run FreeBSD and I always thought it was a silly target. Somethings are best left as is.

Android to me is a hard nut to crack. I have had trouble with most all attempts [1]. Android is different hardware. Not x86 in tradition.
PostMarket and those ilk do it good.

[1]
Aopen Chromebox w/Intel Celeron
ELO ESY10i1 w/RK3399 aka Toast POS
Reality Interactive 8" Thermal Monitoring Kiosk w/RK3399. (Currently Bricked)
 
I have the ePay box tore down. Here is the motherboard inside:
www.assured-systems.com

EMX-BSWP | Official Avalue Distributor and Integrator

Assured Systems is an official distributor and integrator of Avalue products, supplying the EMX-BSWP fully configured.
www.assured-systems.com www.assured-systems.com

2GB RAM and mSATA 32GB. Weird wireless module like on Arm Board. APSxxxxx chipset.

Flat Screen shows in BIOS as eDP to LVDS 18bit. There is a flat panel controller installed in the chassis.
 
Well I was impressed with J4105 and found another with similar specs. My first Gigabyte embedded offering. A used GigaIPC
www.gigaipc.com

QBiX-GLKB4125-A1 | Fanless industrial system with Intel® Celeron® J4125 Processor

Industrial system with Intel® Celeron® J4125 Processor/ Lockable DC Connector/ 2 x HDMI / 2 x LAN Ports/ 1 x Headphone Jack
www.gigaipc.com www.gigaipc.com
Here is the board.

GIGABYTE Industrial Motherboard - QBi-4125A

GIGABYTE QBi Series Industrial Motherboard, Industrial Compact Design, Powered by Intel Celeron J4125 Processor
shop.gigabyte.eu shop.gigabyte.eu
 
scottro said:
Do Beelinks count? I have a Beelink SER5 running 14.3 with no problems. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C4GWLBTS?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_1&th=1. The only issue I had was that sound didn't work till a post on these forums gave me the answer which is to add to /boot/device.hints

hint.hdaa.1.nid20.config="as=1"
hint.hdaa.1.nid27.config="as=1 seq=15"
Click to expand...
Those mini-PCs can run a complete FreeBSD system, complete with KDE and whatnot. It's just a matter of shopping for specs, just like you do with laptops and aftermarket parts like SSDs and GPUs. Nothing embedded or special-flavored about them, just get the amd64 flavor of FreeBSD and install your ass off.

The only special thing about those mini-PCs is the form factor so that they can be placed nearly anywhere, as long as you're willing to pay for enough cables and electricity.
 
Actually, with this Beelink and 14.3, I didn't even need ethernet cable--the AX200 wireless card that it uses, with the new improvements in wireless, was pretty much Linux wireless speed. (Although I did use cabled ethernet because I use it for several bhyve VMs, and it was easier to have them on the local LAN. So, for particular, one I didn't *need* an ethernet cable. Though its plug for power is one of those large ones, requiring 2 spaces on a surge protector--actually, I used a 6 inch extension cord.
 
scottro said:
Do Beelinks count? I have a Beelink SER5 running 14.3 with no problems.
Click to expand...
Since 'embedded' really has no set definition it does count. NVMe is a really nice feature in a mini-PC.

I would say under the embedded moniker we have different classes. These NUC style PC are less rugged than some other embedded offerings. But for the price they have utility.

astyle said:
Those mini-PCs can run a complete FreeBSD system, complete with KDE and whatnot. It's just a matter of shopping for specs, just like you do with laptops and aftermarket parts like SSDs and GPUs
Click to expand...
I think I would draw the line at external GPU. That's not embedded. These days you just buy a better CPU with onboard graphics.

I am doing a shootout with SimplyNUC w/7200U versus IntelNUC with 7260U. The latter providing IRIS graphics. The only difference between the chips. Graphics.

That seems to me to be a key IntelNUC selling point. They use IRIS graphics on some models that don't seem mainstream. It's too bad they folded up shop.

Strangely the Version NUC10 had no Iris offerings that I see. Starting with Intel NUC11 they have IRIS XE.
 
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Phishfry said:
I think I would draw the line at external GPU. That's not embedded. These days you just buy a better CPU with onboard graphics.
Click to expand...
What I meant was:

Those mini-PCs can run a complete FreeBSD system, complete with KDE and whatnot. It's just a matter of shopping for specs, just like you do with (laptops and aftermarket parts like SSDs and GPUs),

NOT

Those mini-PCs can run a complete FreeBSD system, complete with KDE and whatnot. It's just a matter of shopping for specs, (just like you do with laptops) and aftermarket parts like SSDs and GPUs.

I guess the commas and parentheses have the power to throw ppl off...

This may be just me pulling an Andy Rooney here ;) I loved watching him complain about nonsensical stuff, and how the English grammar skills are disappearing. He'd throw a fit if somebody said to him, "Let's Walmart!".
 
I was blow away when I saw Intel SKU's with AMD Vega onboard. I would not consider that an external GPU though.
www.intel.com

Products formerly Kaby Lake G

Products formerly Kaby Lake G product listing with links to detailed product features and specifications.
www.intel.com www.intel.com


Will this ScreenCloud run FreeBSD??? I bought a pair to try. I don't see how they could block me...
https://www.ebay.com/itm/396491902616

The Station P1 Pro offers NVMe slot in M.2 2242 form factor.

Firefly | Make technology more simple , Make life more intellingent.

Station P1 Pro is powered by a Rockchip hexa-core RK3399 processor, a server-level (dual-core Cortex-A72+quad-core Cortex-A53) big.LITTLE architecture. It features frequency of up to 1.8GHz and an integrated Mali-T860 quad-core GPU. This mini PC supports Gigabit Ethernet, dual-band WiFi, and...
en.t-firefly.com en.t-firefly.com
I will give them props. They truthfully state 400MB/s for NVMe. That is about all you will see from my experience.

I will report back when they arrive.
 
Phishfry said:
Will this ScreenCloud run FreeBSD???
Click to expand...


Well, the specs for the Firefly device that you linked to - they make me think that it's not impossible. Do pay attention to the arch of the CPU - I think those devices require arm64 variant of FreeBSD...
 
Custom bootloader on the SPI Flash could be trouble. I am pretty sure you can short some pins on the 40 pin header to disable SPI at boot.

My second offering from FireFly. Face2face was prior RK3399 experience..

I have a ton of Rock4-SE but they need adapters for NVMe. I like a toploading M2-2242.

There seems to be a defconfig:
roc-pc-rk3399_defconfig

Here is the underlying board:
www.firefly.store

ROC-RK3399-PC Pro Single Board Computer | Firefly SBC

Equipped with high-performance RK3399 processor and adopts multiple power supply modes. It supports WIFI or BT wireless connection and can be connected to the expansion board, making the performance stronger and superior. When combined with the all-alumin
www.firefly.store www.firefly.store
 
Phishfry said:
Will this ScreenCloud run FreeBSD??? I bought a pair to try. I don't see how they could block me...
https://www.ebay.com/itm/396491902616

The Station P1 Pro offers NVMe slot in M.2 2242 form factor.
Click to expand...
Well it did take me for a wild ride.

How I defeated Android on Station PC-Pro OEM'ed as ScreenOS
I had to use the SPI Header J16 and use the 4 pin header (ground and clock). With these leads I shorted Pins 1-2 for a short while at boot-up.

That led me to a u-boot console > where I could work my magic. I only had a short time window where the device would reboot. Maybe 60 seconds.

So I did a quick mmc erase 0 20000 and that took care of the eMMC sectors under u-boot..
That did not erase all the eMMC disk but enough that next reboot I got my USB FreeBSD aarch64 Memstick installer working. No intervention.
It also booted off my custom u-boot port for the ROC-PC-RK3399 on microSD instead of original u-boot on the eMMC.
I think the original u-boot used the SPI Flash for u-boot environment and when SPI was shorted out it failed to boot.

Hurray for the $15 dollar box. I bought several 2242 NVMe for these. Now I can buy them all up.

www.firefly.store

Station P1 Pro Mini PC | Firefly Computers

Station P1 Pro is equipped with Rockchip's six-core RK3399 processor, and adopts a server-level (dual-core Cortex-A72 + quad-core Cortex-A53) big.LITTLE architecture, with a main frequency of up to 1.8GHz and an integrated Mali-T860 quad-core GPU. This mini computer supports Gigabit Ethernet...
www.firefly.store www.firefly.store

To recap: Use 2.0mm/pitch shunt on SPI header Pin1 and Pin2 on ScreenOS OEM box for shorting SPI.
I was locked out of original u-boot command prompt with no chance to escape. Straight to Linux/Android booting off eMMC.

Now I can scrape the rockchip-spl.bin out of my custom u-boot port work files and flash it to the SPI. Install OS on 2242 M.2 NVMe.

Had to back off the number of disk blocks to erase compared to here:
Phishfry

Post in thread 'MMC Disk Utility'

What I have discovered is that the boot0/boot1 partitions are not usable.
I did flash my efi partition to mmcsd1 and flashed u-boot.imx to it.
That works but sort of bricked it as cant find currenv.
So I had to dig deep and discovered that uboot command line tool mmc has the needed tools to unbrick.
Notably mmc erase saved my day.
Here is a sample.
Code: 
mmc - MMC sub system

Usage:
mmc info - display info of the current MMC device
mmc read addr blk# cnt
mmc write addr blk# cnt
mmc erase blk# cnt
mmc rescan
mmc part - lists available partition on current mmc device
mmc dev [dev] [part]...
 
Phishfry said:
Problem is watchdog rebooting every 10 min.. I need to flash the firmware to the VEP1425.
Click to expand...
I happen to read somebody having the same trouble on another Denverton Platform with same results. Rebooting on watchdog timer.

Stupidly the solution was load module ichwd.
ICH watchdog driver.

ichwd

man.freebsd.org man.freebsd.org

Dell Edge610 and Edge620 now usable. I may look at Edge680 now. No good storage solutions except one M.2 slot.

/boot/loader.conf
ichwd_load="YES"
 
What about Beckhoff computers? Do these run FreeBSD? I see TwinCAT/BSD as supported. What is that? Custom FreeBSD build? Is it free?

www.beckhoff.com

Embedded PC with Intel Atom® E3815

The CX5120 has an Intel Atom® single-core processor with a clock rate of 1.46 GHz. The hardware interfaces in this series are oriented and implemented ...
www.beckhoff.com www.beckhoff.com
What does this use for GPIO drivers on FreeBSD? Does it use Baytrail SOC GPIO?
 
Phishfry said:
What about Beckhoff computers? Do these run FreeBSD? I see TwinCAT/BSD as supported. What is that? Custom FreeBSD build? Is it free?

www.beckhoff.com

Embedded PC with Intel Atom® E3815

The CX5120 has an Intel Atom® single-core processor with a clock rate of 1.46 GHz. The hardware interfaces in this series are oriented and implemented ...
www.beckhoff.com www.beckhoff.com
What does this use for GPIO drivers on FreeBSD? Does it use Baytrail SOC GPIO?
Click to expand...
Beckhoff does industrial automation, this is a PLC or a controller. Nothing from them is free. And you can't download the software unless you have paid for a product that requires said software.
 
tingo said:
Beckhoff does industrial automation, this is a PLC or a controller. Nothing from them is free. And you can't download the software unless you have paid for a product that requires said software.
Click to expand...
Point is to recognize that even Beckhoff is using standards-compliant hardware. Sure, Beckhoff has the expertise to put together a useful product, and it's the expertise they really charge for. The brains of whoever put together the said controller, and adapted the whole package for a job.

Anyone can play with sand, but it takes someone with brains to convert sand into amazing, irreplaceable artwork. One pays for the brains that they don't have, not the sand.
 
Beastie7 said:

It looks like Lenovo has what appears be a non-Apple equivalent of ARM desktops running Snapdragon processors.

Any Ideas if this will run FreeBSD? This could be a nice system for building aarch64 ports and architecture development.
Click to expand...
bare metal probably not or to shitty to be worth the trouble
but you can still probably run a freebsd vm with near native performance
i run freebsd in a vm on mac mini m4 and its very fast (38 mins build world)
 
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