BeagleBone AI

[Dr. Rolf Jansen]

> Am 31.05.2020 um 14:04 schrieb Ian Lepore <ian at freebsd.org>:
> 
> On Fri, 2020-05-29 at 23:21 -0300, Dr. Rolf Jansen wrote:
>> ...
>> 
>> First Question:
>> 
>> What modern SBC with more than 1 I²C bus and which can run FreeBSD 13++ would you suggest?
>> 
>> ...
>> 
>> Two more Questions:
>> 
>> Is it reasonable to assume that FreeBSD would run on a BBAI in the future, let’s say in 2 to 3 years?
>> 
>> Perhaps I could help porting FreeBSD to a BBAI. What would be the general steps?
>> 
>> 
>> Many thanks in advance for any suggestions, advices and clarifications.
>> 
>> Best regards
>> 
>> Rolf
> 
> The only problem with the Beaglebone is that the TI linux developers
> are continually tinkering with their drivers and DTS source, and they
> seemingly don't care about the devicetree rules for maintaining
> compatibility, so freebsd tends to break on BB boards every time we
> import new DTS sources.

Yes, this is really annoying. For getting the BeagleBone Black working with 13-CURRENT, I need to replace the DTS at sys/gnu/dts/arm, which is currently v5.6, with v4.2 (r347365), and then rebuild the kernel.

> If you want to stick with armv7/32-bit stuff, I would say your best bet
> for long term freebsd support would be Allwinner or imx6.

My concern is not 32 or 64bit. These unit controllers will never ever run a desktop environment, so it won’t even come close to touch any 32bit memory limit. That said, 64bit is not exactly needed but would not harm either.

> I keep hearing mumbling about freebsd throwing all 32-bit support
> overboard in a future release.  I have no idea how serious any of that
> mumbling is, but if there's any truth to it at all, then switching to
> one of the low-cost well-supported arm64 boards, such as pine64, might
> be a better option.

Well, if longterm support for 32bit of FreeBSD is questionable, this would be a huge road block for the BeagleBone AI. I will also respond to your other message.

Best regards

Rolf