January 21, 2023
NetBSD on the Orange Pi
I looked at this briefly back in May of 2018, and now in January of 2023 I am putting more energy into it.
NetBSD sources
They now have sources on github, although they say they are an automated conversion
of CVS. They were CVS only back in 2018, so this is a happy step forward.
The NetBSD project was using only CVS as of May, 2018.
Back then, you could obtain sources via CVS or as tarballs.
It is probably only sensible to use CVS if you are an active
participant in NetBSD development.
Notes on NetBSD 9.3 (circa 1-15-2023)
The idea here is to get NetBSD onto an SD card and try running it.
NetBSD 9.3 was released in August of 2022.
I have tried running the H3 chip code, but it gets UVM memory faults and will not run
in any way that is useful.
Try this thing NetBSD calls "Orange Pi 2"
I thought perhaps this was 64 bit code for the "PC 2", but it ain't.
It is an H3 based board like the PC or PC plus.
So why are there so many almost identical H3 based cards? Some have emmc, some have wifi, maybe some have 1000 Mbit ethernet.
And so it goes.
What about NanoPi images
There are 4 choices among the NetBSD offerings.
- Neo and M1 are both H3 based boards.
- Neo2 and Neo Plus2 are both H5 based boards.
My bet is that the Plus2 (or Neo2) image will run on the H5 based Orange Pi PC 2.
Feedback? Questions?
Drop me a line!
Tom's Computer Info / tom@mmto.org