markmcb: quick question on the lightbulb by the search button.. maybe a way to know that if you click it.. it goes from "dark" to "light" mode and visa versa? tooltip?

and surprsingly i like the light mode as a default over the dark mode.. but i could be picky

voy4g3r2: there should already be one that says "Switch to light/dark mode". i see it on mine.

sorry i may misunderstand, i should see a tooltip?

yes, if i hover my mouse over it, i see the "switch" text. if you don't, let me know your browser and i'll investigate. you may have to hover for a second or two for it to appear depending on your browser.

ohh.. there it is

took about 2 seconds.. never mind.. do not mind my nonsense

i as like.. oohh a cool button.. must press :)

as for light/dark default, it should default to whatever your browser reports as a preference, which may be set in the browser, or by your OS informing your browser

yeah, i default to dark mode.. i just checked.. i use brave on mac os 10.15.7 as a reference point

i think that is all i can find.. if you are looking for any more suggestions.. let me know, that was a fun activity.. sure as hell beats learning about an assay and degrandant method using gas chromotography machines

it makes my head hurt.. lab people are an "odd" group.. of nerds

sounds complicated :) thanks for all the feedback!

not too bad

trying to develop an interface between equipment and software.. is not easy when you are "lost" hearing.. well this peak has this indication but if you use this solvent in the pressurized gas chamber.. using a glass needle.. at this diameter the peaks may look the same.. but are not

The interesting people clearly hang out on #freebsd :)

>:)-|--/-<

markmcb: I dislike sticky headers, especially if they are that big and think the text in the header isn't really readable and the opacity thing makes it worse, no idea what foreground color would be good for that red background, also on the current main page, when you hover "Documentation" in the header you get a menu with more links (and for other topics there too)

nimaje: thanks. if you're referring to the overall site header, please ignore, along with the footer. i used a mkdocs-material template for a rapid prototype. i'll work on integrating with the header/footer you see on the the existing freebsd documentation page. (referring to freebsd.markmcb.com for anyone wondering)

Has anybody present ever installed FreeBSD on an RPi?

yeah

Any special problems/difficulties?

nope. dd the image, boot the pi, let it resize the partition, good to go

No installation -- just running from an image?

I ran it on a Pi awhile back. Can't recall any major issues

yep, just run from the image

I think not all of the hardware is supported quite as well as Linux, but that's to be expected and I can't remember specific examples

sd cards are so cheap, you've got nothing to lose trying it

just slap your old one in of you don't like it

I wonder if it will support RPi DAC+ <raspberrypi.com/products/dac-plus> .

hodapp, Indeed.

How do you guys set up media automounting on your desktop/laptop FreeBSDs? It seems not very easy to me...

ant-x: with autofs?

I have found and installed <github.com/vermaden/automount> -- a non-trivial shell script for devd. I think I installed after reading the criticism of autofs here: <vermaden.wordpress.com/2018/10/11/f…p-part-17-automount-removable-media> .

Can autofs mount media with rw permissions for unprivileged users?

ant-x: I suppose it depends on definition of unprivileged users. But, I don't think anything can mount anything for unprivileged users?

Well, aside from root or something. And, even then, only root would have those privs.

I didn't ask whether an unprivileged user could mount media, but whether automounting could be set up to make the media fully accessible for non-privileged users. In the context of the desktop FreeBSD, I mean my normal user account on PC.

No

Why not? I don't want to sudo, doas, or change to root to write an a USB flash drive...

The abovementioned `automount' mechanism by vermaden does mount removable media with rw permissions for normal users.

well then use that

OK, but I was wondering about what's available in FreeBSD natively, without resort to third-party solutions.

he mentioned autofs is native

Yes, it is. He also says it mounts on first access, rathe than when the media is inserted. And he does not say anything about the permissions on FSes mounted by autofs.

ant-x: allowing unprivileged system users to mount given devices can be set with devd(8) and devd.conf. Some stuff there is pre-set and you only need to add given user existing in /etc/group (group(5))

used autofs quite a bit. It only mounts when you actually do an operation on the mounted device

regis, Thanks. I have found that accounts can be configured to have mount permissions: <forums.freebsd.org/threads/mounting…t-user-freebsd-10.45860/post-256415> .

ant-x: Apologies, scratch it!

works quite well on networked devices like nfs and smb too

ant-x: it's devfs.rules(5)

BarnabasDK, I suspect it is not very convenient for USB sticks...

no, then it is the oter way around

ant-x: Yup - this stuff you've found by yourself. Again: apologies for my comment about devd.

but assuming the drive is inserted and not mounted

no systemd on freebsd fortunately

I am not calling for systemd.

no :-) did not think you where

Hmmmm. I downloaded <FreeBSD-14.2-RELEASE-arm64-aarch64-RPI.img.xz>, extracted the image, dd'ed to a MicroSD card and tried to boot my RPi 4 from it. It starts booting, but goes into reboot again after some 20 seconds into the boot process...

turn off secure boot? - just a guess

I don't think I needed to prepare the SD card in any way, because dd writes raw, didn't I?

then enroll the key and turn it on again

provided your bios cooperates

Let me check.

raspberry pi's have a secure boot?

what?

I think pi4+ do

never used it o

.. on a pi though

At least, I got me <eklhd.com/download/kvm_21ua_41ua.html> to use both two computers simultaneosly.

ant-x: I haven't played with RPi 4 (initial RPi 1 from 2011 works great 24/7 for 13 years now and suits my needs) but if you got it to boot - you likely dd'd the image properly. No idea about the Secure Boot stuff on RPi 4 though.

Well, it it fails after detecting my mouse, so I guess I am getting /past/ whatever BIOS barriers may be there...

ant-x, you definately do

Try to unplug USB devices, just to test if it boots without mouse and other such devices

so does it panic?

regis +1

I do not see any panic messages, will try without devices.

regis, it has booted without mouse and keyboard, and recognised the keyboard when I plugged it back in. Thank you.

There are tons of errors, however.

lets have it

Now, the prompt is mountroot> , and typing ls gives: Invalid filesystem specification.

It is rebooting again. I will check dmesg.

then the system really did not boot - not finding the root system

I think this is more a problem with the image you try to boot than the hardware you try to do it on

Yes. It prints that error in answer to /any/ command.

but it is just a gut feeling

ant-x: Doesn't seem right - it got up to the boot loader but there's nowhere to read kernel and userland from. Far from normal. Are you sure that dd image was written in full to the SD card? What's the size of the card?

Hmmm. Did I download the wrong image? There was only one for RPI, perhaps I misclicked..

dd took a long time to write it, and reported no errors, and about 5 GB of written data (IIRC).

ant-x: The image you mentioned (arm64-aarch64-RPI.img.xz) seems right. You did unpacked it to img before flashing the card, right?

regis, I do not think he would get to the mountroot> prompt then

Of course, I unxy'ed it.

The card is 64 Gb.

I have to recheck whether I downloaded the RPI image.

BarnabasDK: I've seen weird "compatibility layers" trying to make sense of stuff and failing. Just wanted to make sure.

regis, sure

but the system did pick up on some of the boot sector here

Yes, I downloaded the right one.

and I really don't think ARM does much in the way of compability - they mostly do their own thing

Check the controls sum, probably?

ant-x, good idea

or more specifically compability with amd64

Yikes, the control sums of the website are for .xz, rather than for .img.

ha ha

as one would expect

OK, re-downloading...

well, the latter would take into consideration faulty hw when unpacking

By the way, extracting takes time on RPi (with Raspbian).

ant-x, they where never made for speed

Were you extracting xz on RPi itself and flashing it on its own card...?

regis, extracting it on RPi, and flashing to another SD card, connected via a USB adapter.

ant-x: Any chance you could do this part on another hardware?

Yes, but not now.

All I can do now is repeat the process on RPi.

Or use RPi USB flasher program (could it work for third-party images?)

it has quite a list of images already

did you check to see, if FreeBSD was under the "headless" part?

wb7odyfred post

ant-x: I'm just guessing as you're quoting the proper procedure, but I never found using filesystems mounted under RPi's USB ports reliable. And while iirc the SD socket works under the USB stack, I've had issues with HHD and SSD drives connected to USB even when they had external powering. In your case under-powered SD card connected via an USD adapter is not an issue. But my point is: I've never

had issues like this when I was flashing SD cards on MacOS or PC Linux.

The native RPi Imager asks me for a root password, but there is none!

so blank?

I'll have to reconfigure my Raspbian for that imager to work.

RPi does not use root authentification by password by default.

the dude in the freebsd forum above seems to have made it work

eg using the rpi tool to install freebsd

Perhaps I can start the imager via sudo, for a simple solution.

sudo rpi-imager has helped with the permissions.

if you are to write directly to devices, you almost always need root

sudo isn't native to FreeBSD, but maybe available on RPi images as it's released under ISC and not GPL-like license. But if you haven't got an error after `su` and running `dd` it shouldn't be an issue calling for sudo.

Yes, and the Imager programs aks me for a root password, even thought password auth is disabled for root on Rpi.

ok .. then just be a rebel and do sudo bash ..

My RPi has Raspbian on it, where there is of course a sudo.

you should be at bash#

BarnabasDK: bash is definitely not available natively. See my license-related comment above.

Although, if it was done on Raspbian or such...

any shell then

BarnabasDK, I have found only one RPi image: <download.freebsd.org/releases/arm64….2-RELEASE-arm64-aarch64-RPI.img.xz> .

I am glad FreeBSD uses a more standard Bourne shell by default, and a more standard vi (nvi), rathen than vim.

regis, the image is flashing, and my cable shows a power of 4.4W.

ant-x: I'm not but it's just license discrepancies. I personally use a lot of GNU stuff on FreeBSD. It just can't be bundled with the default installation due to the licensing stuff.

Does FreeBSD has something like GNU screen, only non-GNU?

s/GNU/GPL/, duh.

Yes, I read it that way.

No, I didn't :-)

ant-x: screen and tmux are available via ports and pkg. These are mechanisms providing an easy way to install GPL software. It just can't be bundled within the default installation.

`pkg install screen`. That's it.

Yes, I know.

(about pkg)

It has bash and vim too, likely.

The native RPi Imager is doing more than dd: a) zeroing-out start and end of the medum, b) veryfing after burning.

I will be disappointed if it does not boot still.

ant-x: Back to your problem. My only idea is that you should test if the issue appears if you flash the image on another machine. It's only based on the fact that doing it this way always worked for me. I believe I never tried to flash images onto devices connected to RPi and somehow poor experience with RPi USB ports, both under booted FreeBSD and "native" Raspbian.

OK. If that fails, I'll try it. Perhaps, then, you got an broken RPi, a poor power-supply, or a poor power USB cable.

ant-x: Also, I don't know "RPi Imager" but you also have mentioned that "dd took a long time to write it" so I guess that you tried using plain dd, too?

regis, my first attempt was with the plain dd. Now trying with RPi Imager.

The news Raspbian uses a different GUI -- slow like cold honey. The verification is complete, I will not boot my RPi.

regis, rpi imager is a tool for writing flash images to your sdcard. Not ported to freebsd. But it is definately in debian related linuxes

It has booted with a similar wall of errors. It failed to mount rootfs with error 19.

BarnabasDK, I am using RPi imager from under Raspbian OS.

in all honesty maybe you are better of asking this question in #rasberrypi

I can try some other OS now -- just to make sure the problem is /not/ in the FreeBSD image.

I could try them, too

Well, my oldschool RPi 1 sports Raspbian as FreeBSD has no support for 1-wire sensors I slapped onto its GPIO. But I've never had issues with booting FreeBSD on RPi 1, 2 and 3. I just never bought 4 and tested it with FreeBSD, after the COVID-related chip market shitshow. I've switched with some of my basic needs to even less power-hungry ESP32.

BarnabasDK: I got the idea and am just mentioning that I never used it. Plain `dd` never failed me.

I have a Pi 4 which I use approximately never

it's in an awkward niche between way overpowered for a lot of tasks, and way underpowered for others

I have 11 pi 4s .. all running pios though ..

I still call it Raspbian because I always forget the name changed

Guys, I have gotten into the admin console somehow. If you have ideas what I can check from there, shoot!

"admin" console ?

What is it called on FreeBSD? The single-user mode, or somehing. The KVM switching makes it unresponsive, however.

It was some console with a limited set of functions.

It can be provided by the bootloader on the RPi image...

hodapp: very good description of the under/over-power abyss experience. I've seen folks running desktop on Pi 4 and folks wording the experience in a way I won't quote, when trying to run ML models on it even with some "hats" marketed as capable of image recognition and such.

it's like an overgrown microcontroller and/or anemically slow "real" processor

it's still neat what some people have done with it, in the same sort of way as older video game consoles where the hardware was fixed and people found a way to really exploit the fast paths it *did* provide

ant-x, the bootloader definatly does not provide single user mode

you need the kernel loaded for that

issue "boot -s" at command prompt

It's too difficult, becase KVM switching makes that console useless. I am not trying to boot another image, using the same procedure. If I succeed, it will prove something is wrong with the FreeBSD image.

add "-" to /boot.config

add "-s" to /boot.config

mzar, you mean locate it in the image from under another OS/machine? I can try that after this test with the Void Linux RPi .img .

mzar, we are not trying to boot into single user, just boot at all

first things first

Am I right that dd if=image.img of=/dev/sda is sufficient to burn an image to an SD card?

bs could be important

OK

aka block size

bs for speed-up?

I was using bs=1MB according to the official FreeBSD instructions.

should be ok then I guess

never used anything else than these three parameters

if,of and bs

bs most important if you write to a phys device I think

hodapp: remember the original raspberry pi was a ploy by broadcom to sell a really, really bad video processing microcontroller no-one would buy. they are what is available and popular (and many alternatives are much worse) so we're stuck with it

duncan, well this is version 4 of the pi

Void Linux booted perfectly, after dd with the default bs.

> bs for speed-up

flashing speedup only, it's the block size written by dd

Shall I try to dd without bs with the FreeBSD image, or is chance it helps near zero?

ant-x: please don't hesitate to do some experimentation

Void Linux event set the correct graphics mode for my 1600x1200 display connected via VGA.

bs only impacts writing/reading speed (in this case writing) and has no impact on whether the result is written properly on the destination. It can only speed-up the procedure of writing an image on the SD in this case.

mzar, +1

that's Linux, we are on #freebsd channel

mzar, well since it is compiled to a RPI image you might expect it to behave somewhat similar

I tried a Linux image to see if I should get the same error as with the FreeBSD image -- that's fair use.

ant-x, agree

mzar: read-up. He did everything properly and tried different tools. My only guess is that there's some flaw with the USB adaptor used on Pi to write an image on USB-attached disk, to only boot it later on the same Pi. I've suggested to flask this image onto the SD card using a separate Mac or Windows/Linux machine because in my case that always worked properly.

regis, noted. But observe that a different .img booted properly.

or .. maybe try an earlier image .. if you can find it - just to rule out any problems with the image you tested

ha.. so guys are flashing SD via usb sd-card reader from RPi ?

Yes, and it works in /some/ images.

The RPi Images has a verification stage, it passess OK.

ant-x: Cool! And sorry - I focused on another channel for a moment and haven't fully caught up here.

ant-x: Ah, so Linux booted but not any FreeBSD. Got it.

TBH I'd blame this USB device and it's support from FreeBSD, encountered problems wiht them in the past

mzar, but the image was written in linux?

regis, Yes, although I have tested only with one Linux image and one FreeBSD image. I can try another FreeBSD image for RPi if I find it.

or .. pios

BarnabasDK, both the images are downloaded, unpacked, and written on Raspbian on RPi.

yes

so .. freebsd drivers - not in the loop of failure

not until you boot that os at least

or am I wrong

Is there a way to pause the booting process to read all the errors from the screen. It has several register dumps.

I'd hate to record a video of the monitor to do that.

BarnabasDK: As I undersand: FreeBSD with mouse conncted is in a reboot loop, with USB devices connected only boots until bootloader but doesn't see any filesystems too boot from, but Linux loads fully(?)

ant-x: ^ do I get it right?

use dd with bs=1M at least, issue "sync" command later and wait for command prompt - should do the job

sorry, with USB devices DISconnected!

regis, I do not think we ever achived a fully running os

regis, somehow or other, it stopped loop-rebooting even with the mouse, after flashing with the RPi Imager. Sorry, if I did not report that.

mzar, why the sync command, if dd reports when it has finished? OK, I can try that.

ant-x: But with FreeBSD, it never got past the boot loader. With linux you got the actual OS loaded. Correct?

regis, confusion about "admin" consoles, no consoles and boot prompts

sync && sync && poweroff - old school

regis, In Linux -- all is well, yes. In FreeBSD -- I don't understand exactly where it breaks, but there is a wall of errors, and no rootfs at the end.

OK, I will now try the FreeBSD image again, and sync & sync & poweroff.

Can anybody point to an older version of an image for RPi 4?

ha.. one "sync" will be enough nowadays

Later I can try to record the video of the boot process with someone else's smartphone or a digital camera.

hmm is there any mandatory elements that need to be in the boot.conf for RPI?

that may not be there

I will try this one: <archive.freebsd.org/old-releases/IS….0-RELEASE-arm64-aarch64-RPI.img.xz> .

problem with the image then ..

BarnabasDK, I have not seen mentioned of any mandatory elements in any of the installation instructions.

no, and it should be a part of the image

BarnabasDK: The installer from public img *should* load just fine with no need to changes made to boot.conf. Where would one even do them?

yes

speculating out loud

afaik - it should boot

Now I'd really love to have a Pi 4 at hand to quickly test this case on my side and be able to say "works for me" or "yeah, seems fucked up".

That's mighty kind of you, regis. I am now downloading the 14.1 .

I do, but none I can just flash like that

they are all in production

how do they work for you? any issues with NIC ? is network performant ?

can you boot it emulated on hw

mzar, no mine are not running freebsd

pios

I see

The new Raspberry Pi OS is one big regression, UI-wise. (just a rant),

What do you suggest -- that I test both & sync, and a different FreeBSD version at once?

Anyway, I hardly believe the 14.2.img can be broken on the offical site, and no one noticed.

.. there is a UI to the PIOS freebsd thing?

Or are the so few RPi users?

expect a console I should think ..

BarnabasDK, I am talking about the Raspbian OS for Rpi.

As to FreeBSD, I can install Xorg and a window manager.

ah

That's a use-case thing. For me RPi was never a GUI thing but rather a low-power host to connects sensors to. And I mentioned that I switched some of these needs to ESP32 (even though I hate this weird Arduino C/C++ abomination).

regis, yes. But it used to have tolerable GUI by default, before this huge upgrade to wayland & co.

ant-x, obviously, but out of the box it will be a normal root>

BarnabasDK, that's expected.

yes

By the way, I have never managed to setup xfce of FreeBSD, only a bare window manager. But I am looking too much forward...

do you expect to run xfce on this rpi ?

Why not? It worked very well on the Raspbian.

With LXDE, IIRC.

ant-x, as long as X works, the rest will too

wayland .. maybe

NO wayland, please.

It will, after I manager to configure it.

well, if you look at linux, wayland does blow X out of the water

it is just faster

I remember, I installed the xfce package, but didn't know where to configure it so it really started.

but . I do not know the state of the implementation of FreeBSD

It may be faster, because of the tighter architecture.

and no network nonsense

Yes.

Rather, client-server nonsense.

ant-x: I appreciate and support your needs. I'm only mentioning that my use-case is different. And that's why I still have a 2011 Raspberry 1 A with no ethernet port still in use. It's a low power device, works perfectly to gather data from 433 MHz ESP32 devices and deliver it over 433 MHz to upstream with more interfacing options. Again - it's an use-case thing.

A friend of mine told me he didn't understand the use for RPi, because there are equally small devices that are more powerful and less expensive.

i know of very few that run X across a wire today - from a server to a dumb client

the client almost always is a full on host

It is an interesting feature, but very rarely used indeed.

aka death of dumb X11 xconsoles

I really want a vt 520 amber text console if I could find one

ps2 compatible

I hear there are still compatibliyty problems of old GUI programs with wayland. Does GTK2 stuff work well on it?

but the gui stuff, is just dead

Will, twm (the standard X11 window manager) work in Wayland?

wayland is supposed to implement the entire x11 protocol sans the network things

BarnabasDK, you have space for a CRT?

Not there yet, probably. But I am glad it does.

I want one in my kitchen - for recipies

there are some panel ones too, you could use for home automation etc

with touch ..

all in amber yellow

I'd like a CRT for old games: <datagubbe.se/crt> .

Ah, you mean modern devices, not the old style monochrome CRT terminals?

VT 520 is cool: a monochrome text temrinal from the age of color CRT displays.

if you do not want a crt, the final make is just the controller and a connected vga ebay.com/itm/141627229957

Here are some photos from a CRT display I gave away several years ago. Now I am missing it: <freeshell.de/~antonius/plusups/screens> .

works with your out of the box flat screen

but whats the difference from a ssh console then?

none

You do not typically run SSH with a physical historical display.

The same difference as between owning a retro PC or emulating it.

what I am saying is, if you want an actual console, it should be analouge to the port of the server

<- atypical

and to your display too

By the way, the official install instruction for RPi does not mention `sync': <freebsdfoundation.org/resource/installing-freebsd-for-raspberry-pi> .

and I just have played too much fallout

The 14.1.img is dd'ed and sync'ed, and the RPi poweroff'ed. Let us see what we shall see.

a vt420 in the kitchen, not mine

pro - none of your millenial plus kids would know anything about what to do with it ..

which also reveals my age I think

I think there was a "white" and a "green" and an "amber" version

The 14.1.img has had some of the same errors, but it booted, at least. It has failed to set the correct resolution for my display. The textmode console at the wrong resolution is killing my eyes, but it is there!

if you are considering "resolution" you are not in console mode

During the process, it said it had resized some partition.

ah

sorry my bad

I don't remember anything, including the root credentials.

I haved logged in as freebsd:freebsd.

There have been no actual installation or installer.

ant-x, all of these antics should not be necessary. Once you flash the image to the drive, provided you have a sane bios, that should be it.

so, something is wrong with the flashing process

BarnabasDK, antics like what? Since 14.1.img boots (as well as a Linux), 14.2.img does not boot, I think the 14.2 is broken.

yes ..

but it should boot completely to a root: login

It did.

I am there, at #

ok, so what is the problem now

you are probably at the single user prompt

Shall I run the TUI installer?

the "TUI" installer?

I think I am at the normal prompt, not single-user.

Yes, the FreeBSD installer with a pseudo-graphical interface.

This one: <docs.freebsd.org/images/books/handb…all-configure-network-interface.png> .

you already installed freebsd

how would you else boot it?

I think that program can be run again to change the configuration. Otherwise, I'll have to configure everything with by hand.

if you are at the # single user promt just "exit" and the boot process will continue to full user

load all services

and give you a real user login promt

It is fully booted to normal user, and it didn't even show a boot menu.

At the prompt, I logged in as `freebsd' with password `freebsd'.

so the entire system must be up

whats the problem?

First of all, thanks for helping me install FreeBSD, by tryging another image. The major problem is the 14.2 image seems broken, but I guess I can upgrade to 14.2 by hand.

do you know the difference between a boot menu login thing and an actual login prompt to our os

sorry if I am direct

I am Danish

we are like that

I have seen the boot menu a while ago, and do not remember the difference. No.

ok. so in order to move on, we need to figure out where you are in the boot chain

reboot from cold

what is the last thing your computer writes to your console

From cold -- by turning the power off?

yes

The last thing before the promt when it boots?

the last thing it outputs after it restarts

maybe you could cutn paste the entire thing

Cut and paste is out of the question -- between two machines, and one not connected to the internet yet.

dmesg is still there

basically, how do we know the boot was "bad"

where did you end up

The last thing before the login prompt is: FreeBSD/arm64 (generic) (ttyv0)

but you got a login promt?

BarnabasDK, I don't think it was "bad" this time!

ant-x, me too..

Yes, I got it: login:

seems ok

give it a login

and you should get a csh promt

Yes, 14.1 works.

Yes, I can login as root

sweet

although, you should not do that

Yumm.

ever

Why not, even for initial setup.

if you have direct access to the hw it is ok

else - no

My RPi is right here, so I do have direct access to the HW.

yes

so noone is fucking around with you with virtualized hw

speaking from exp

to get your keys, etc

Ah, I see.

usually aholes from India

anyways, I do not understand exactly what you did differently.

what worked for you

and for the sake of this channel

I think this is a global problem 14.2.img for RPi.

ah, so a different image fixed it?

Yes..

ah ..

What did you think?

had no idea

just a suspicion

It could have been & sync, too: because I used a differnt image /and/ added & sync to the dd command.

but if the image you tried is borked - this should be taken offline imho untill it can be re tested

or left offline for a new one

So, should pciconf list my videocard? All I see there is the network adapter and USB controller.

ah, you may need to load some drivers

I could report the problem via the official channle, only I'd hate to reinstall FreeBSD again. Perhaps I can reproduce it with another SD card.

nah, I think enough ppl have seen this chat

I thougth I could list the devices to determine which drivers I need.

well what is your gpu?

I have to lookup the RPi 4 specs to tell you. Will do.

sorry, I should have cought that one

... is the sd card bad?

i've never heard of anyone having this much trouble with it

sudo apt-get install raspberrypi-ui-mods lxde lxde-core lxterminal lxappearance lightdm

forget that

rtprio, I don't think the SD card is bad, but it may be. Now FreeBSD works, at least.

yes

I don't know how to configure hardware not listed by pciconf. E.g. the videocard is not even mentioned in the specs: <raspberrypi.com/products/raspberry-pi-4-model-b/specifications>.

so do you want a gui or just the console

which I believe you have

BarnabasDK, I will want a GUI, but not at this state. At this stage I want a nice console working the display's native resoltuion, 1600x1200.

Yes, I have the console.

the res really makes no sense with relation to the console

it is what is it is

chars one way and the other

BarnabasDK, it does make sense, because the display still shows pixels.

no pixels

Yes, chars are bitmaps made of pixels.

no

For example, the current mode in the console is 640x480.

they are definately not

that is a new thing

Console fonts are bitmaps.

yes

in new freebsd

for anyone else we are talking about ansi char mapping

The monitor is not a terminal: it receives a raster image, not character-cells.

yes

so - not a terminal

but a GUI

So, my first task is to cause it to work at its native reslutiohn -- which that Void linux picked up automatically.

I am talking about the text-mode console on my RPi, no GUI there yet.

Perhaps I need a framebuffer console...

How do I make sure that I use the vt driver: <man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=vt> ?

are you using GENERIC kernel?

ant-x: ?

Yes.

it's the default

I see. Thanks. I'll try setup the correct resolution for my console.

This is what I have in dmesg: VT(efifb): resolution 592x448

Ah, I didn't know there was no WiFi for RPi on FreeBSD: <wiki.freebsd.org/arm/Raspberry%20Pi> .

As to the console resolution, perhaps I need a KMS driver, which I must download first.