On Tue, Sep 26, 2017 at 06:28:41PM +1000, Jonathan Gray wrote: > On Mon, Sep 25, 2017 at 03:35:45PM +0000, Eichert, Diana wrote: > > First, I have an RasPi 3 which I've tried to get running with OpenBSD. I'm > > running into the previously noted USB flash drive issues where > > Uboot does not recognize some flash drives. I've installed OpenBSD on > > several flash drives but can't boot any. > > > > I'm looking for recommendation for supported hardware that does not have > > h/w oddities like RasPi 3. I want to use an small arm64 box > > as a relayd system in front of a single system. From the list of supported > > hardware on http://www.openbsd.org/arm64.html which is > > the best supported with a minimum of issues? > > > > Also, after reading Patrick Wildt's twitter page I see there may be > > additional functioning hardware. > > > > thanks > > > > diana > > The usual problem with arm is you have a class of machines that have a > boot rom in the chip and a small amount of static ram that require > loading code off a storage device shared by the operating system to do > things firmware normally would like initialise memory. > Because of that each of of those systems needs a board specific miniroot > that includes firmware for it. Or have that manually added to the install > media before installation. > > Of systems that fall into that category the arm64 miniroot handles the > raspberry pi 3 and the earlier pine64 boards that use Allwinner A64 SoCs > (not the pine64-lts which is a different variant with a different memory > controller). In snapshots as I understand it the pine64/pine64+ should > have working sdmmc, ethernet, usb (except the otg port which is not > yet switched into host mode) but hdmi is pending on U-Boot changes. > Other Allwinner A64/H5 systems require adding a U-Boot image to the > miniroot/install device. The port optimistically builds most of the > A64/H5 configurations available: > a64-olinuxino \ > bananapi_m64 \ > nanopi_a64 \ > nanopi_neo2 \ > orangepi_pc2 \ > orangepi_prime \ > orangepi_win \ > pine64_plus \ > sopine_baseboard > > While not small/fanless the SoftIron OverDrive 1000 on the other hand > comes with uefi firmware in flash, pcie gigabit ethernet, xhci, ahci and > the only thing that doesn't work is getting at the rtc which requires > going through uefi runtime services. Though even having an rtc is an > improvement over other systems. Having the serial console only > accesible via a usb type b connector instead of a db9/rj connector is > annoying for some uses. Oh and AMD never released any public > documentation for the Opteron A1100 and seems to have largely abandoned > the product line... > > Snapshots are built on OverDrive 1000 but ports bulk builds run into > trouble with what are likely lurking pmap bugs. arm64 still needs more > work, relinking the kernel with a gap is pending on a llvm/lld update to > be able to handle more complicated linker scripts. >
Hi Diana, I can only agree to what Jonathan said. I would say that the Pine64 is the best supported low-end machine we have. The rPi is not that nice because of the interesting interrupt controller and the horrible usb controller. I'm currently also looking at the NanoPi Neo2, which is very similar to the Pine64, but I want to use that tiny little box only as simple VPN gateway. Are you looking for a machine with more than one Ethernet? Or are you going to use a usb based ethernet? Patrick
