September 22, 2017 (Sunday), 11:00-12:00 in Dendérah

gnn@ : potential new FreeBSD-based ARM users fall into 2 main categories:

• embedded: throw-away SoC development in use for a year or two and then discarded by the vendor in favour of some other kit
• systems: classic server type usage, longer term where support and interaction w/ community evolves

objectives should be:

• ensure the throw-away SOCs work without much effort using a GENERIC kernel
• andrew@ important to have GENERIC kernel network booting easily
• both packages and customistable poudriere need to be availabl

• gnn@ will check via kylie@ who mentioned the Chinese railway is using FreeBSD for signage is it on ARM?
• gnn@ cloudy ARMy rumours at microsoft
• semihalf is still doing bulk of development
• stormshield - france based
• various indecipherable rumours and grumblings about super secret projects from unnameable entities
• getting hardware - gnn@ has good contacts via the foundation make use of them

• mainly manu & kibab
• sdio is a bus extension
• used to connect wifi and similar devices
• mmc-cam is similar
• not enabled by default
• reaching feature parity between mmc/sdio is not so difficult
• many people are interested in faster SD cards
• better debugging would a big help
• somebody is working in NetBSD on the wifi

gnn:

• marius/steve have a bunch of patches
• please discuss on bsd mips
• kabib & gnn to make some contacts to move this along

• gnn@ - rasppi says they expect stable h/w for the next couple of years (rpi3 & rpi0) so lets make that as solid as possible and $PROFIT$
• manu@ - BBB is still the better board, better support, but less well known
• manu@ : both bbb and rasppi have *some* touchscreen support
• ??IDX support what even was that about

• manu@ - armv6 (rpi0+1) & armv7 split (everything else) is coming soon
• thumb is only 32 bit

• reminder that 11 & 12 now have official packages from the project
• poudriere cross-compilation needs more tutorials
• madpilot@ offered to write his notes up, dch@ will test them
• madpilot@ reports that poudriere builds in a qemu jail still work after the soft/hard fp switch (NOTE: jails need to be rebuild from scratch across such changes)

• start small with low expectations
• boot loader support is first, uboot is required with a special ABI/API enabled
• all you want to start with is a serial console avoid the rest

• linux has a post-boot netconsole over udp a la netcat - this would be super handy
• would it be possible to get a base system “vagrant up” type thing will all the

dev things? it would be great for newcomers to get them started fast

• aka arm-to-go / a plugin usb gadget
• beagleboneblack, rpi3, rpi0
• is this actually finished? gnn to follow up as its used at Cambridge

• netbooting stuff is a bit out of date
• more generic docs are needed
• kabib@ offered to write them and dch@ will test them