BPI-R2 FreeBSD support/ZRouter.org support

Banana Pi Router design
61

Oh, sorry. Was busy, then forget to answer. I’m forget what it was, but you can check it with FreeBSD commits if you interesting (ray@ it’s me) IIRC there was two:

  1. Extra check to not add same memory range twice
  2. Fix to elfcopy to allow boot with binary kernel (kernel.bin)

One left is big - automatic device reordering (by dependency) on attach.

Here it is https://reviews.freebsd.org/D21478 . It’s work, but will not be applied. We with Natan Whitehorn working on better one, as time permit.

give me your email, I will send you copy of MT7623 related sources I did.

62

Ok I understand. I will go through it and see how much I can understand out of it. Will be looking for more support from you to package all the sources to have something running to test.

Thanks again.

63

Hello,

What is the latest status of FreeBSD support for the BananaPI R2 box ?

@ray - is your work already ported in the main FreeBSD sources ?

Thanks,

64

Was broken more than month ago by adding new feature :slight_smile:

As time permit working on current uboot support for both R2 and R64.

Nope, few core FreeBSD issues have to be resolved before. Working on it when able.

65

Thank you for the update.

1 Like
66

Hi all, but on freebsd.org website there are the official images for banana, has anyone tried them?

Freebsd Official images

67

That would be a waste of time. Bananapi listed on FreeBSD site is totally different hardware.

68

Hi guys!

Yeah, listed one is some of Allwinner based.

I’m too busy currently.

But my plan for free time is:

  1. to done R2/R64 better U-Boot support.
  2. to done FreeBSD driver attachment based on dependency in FDT.
  3. to done basic R2 port.
  4. to done basic R64 port.

Thanks!

1 Like
69

Hello Ray, I hope you’re doing well.

Did you get time to look into R2?

Thanks.

70

Hi @spikerguy.

Yup. Thanks! Hope you too

Not so :slight_smile:

But indeed it’s time to return to that question.

Let’s define future event to trigger:

There is work by Chunfeng Yun, almost ready to merge into u-boot [https://patchwork.ozlabs.org/cover/1265863/]

When it will be merged, I will do quick tune of current u-boot to build both R2 and R64 with that things that will work (in my u-boot fork, since u-boot will not accept things that vendor don’t like). And continue to other cool features, like FreeBSD support :slight_smile:

Thanks.

71

Nice looks good :slight_smile: Thanks for the response. Will wait for this to get merged.

72

Hey,

I was going through opnsense and found out that with 20.01 release they have moved to freebsd so we can get opnsense to work once freebsd is stable on the device. Also some freebsd devs have got armv7 and aarch64 images for rk3399 and rpi.

If we can boot freebsd on r2 then we can easily compile opnsense and install it.

I will be receiving a sample of h5 soc which have good support with freebsd and opnsense. Will try to learn bsd methods to port to different devices with same soc.

Then finally I might be of some help to opnsense on R2.

73

Hi,

opnsense and pfsense were always based on FreeBSD :slight_smile: and FreeNAS too :slight_smile:

So yes, it is possible.

But I have to do good NIC driver for it :slight_smile:

1 Like
74

Hello @ray

I hope everything is fine at your end. I have received on sample of a tiny router sbc with Rk3328, 2 Lan and I have started to work on it and get freebsd to boot but there is some kernel issue which I have reported to the freebsd devs.

Thought I would ask if you have got any time to look into R2 build. If atleast you can get freebsd image with minimal io working then I can try adding support to opnsense using the opnsense tools.

Thanks.

75

Hello @ray

I was able boot in freebsd on radxa rockpie board with the help of sergey from freebsd arm member. Can I make a group with you, sergey and me so you can share the source of BPI-R2 maybe sergey or sir ganbold can help us with this.

Please do let me know. Thanks.

76

Hi @spikerguy !

Looks like job loves me. Maybe even too much.

Sure, about group. Well know Ganbold. We did many things together. But which Sergey?

Sorry for breaking your plans.

77

Thought so. That is the reason, I don’t want to disturb you much.

S199pwa1k9r He have worked on crochet and updated it and added many new arm boards support to crochet.

No worries, I don’t really have any plan as I am still learning with the help with S199pwa1k9r so I was thinking if you can pass on some information to the dev’s working on arm support maybe that will speed up the process, at least we can have a base freebsd running on it.

I have joined freebsd-arm mailing list. Should I drop an email regarding BPI-R2 ?

Thanks for the reply though.

78

They know. I’ve posted dmesg into IRC channel :slight_smile:

Maybe it will help a bit. But I think anybody will join. Because R2 here since 2018.

When I commit it to try I will drop note to list. Maybe at least some pplz join to do testing for it.

1 Like
79

Dear Ray and others,

I am very interested in the BananaPi R2 being ported to FreeBSD!

This is an interesting board for many reasons. It allows for a nice router setup, it has USB3, at least 2GB RAM, MiniPCIe, multiple Gbit NIC and it has a nice casing that makes it look like a ‘real’ router appliance. I would love to see this working under FreeBSD!

Ray, I understand you have worked on this in the past, and maybe are still working on it?

Could you please consider releasing the code what you already have, even though it is not finished yet? A simple dd-image uploaded somewhere would be just great.

I hope to also write to freebsd-arm mailinglist, perhaps you can get help to finish the last parts.

I am concerned that not uploading the sourcecode somewhere would make this project disappear. I mean, I understand you have other priorities in your life and this is just a side project. But that is why it’s important to share your work, so if you lose interest or progress stalls, other people can continue your work.

If you upload it somewhere, I can write to freebsd-arm mailinglist, and others will be able to try your test image. They might be able to help you with finishing the project, so it gets committed to FreeBSD 13-CURRENT.

If you are willing to do this, and release your current work that allows FreeBSD to be booted in SMP environment, I would be willing to pay you for the work that you already have done! Not 1000’s of dollars, but still I hope this is a motivation for you. :slight_smile:

I suggest the following:

  • upload code to a personal git - even if it is dirty, share your work!
  • create a short list of what works (you already did in this thread)
  • make a list what still needs to be done (TODO)
  • upload a working dd-image that can be written to SATA disk to boot the R2 into FreeBSD SMP

If you are willing to do this, I trust that with added help this board gets in a usable state for FreeBSD in 2021!

Thanks all!

  • Mike
80

@ray Any update?

If you can just share the codes then someone else might pick you.