# SheevaPlug



## balanga (May 18, 2019)

I just bought a SheevaPlug and thought it would be nice to run FreeBSD on it. According to the Wiki, FreeBSD 8.0 or newer is supposed to work on it. There is even a YouTube video showing it booting.

Does anyone have one of these running FreeBSD or know which is the latest version which will run on it?


----------



## Nicola Mingotti (May 18, 2019)

it is not clear to me what are the benefits of and embedded computer without basically any electronics interfacing capabilities. no GPIO, no PWM, no ADC, i2c .

IMO, your time would be better invested exploring the BeagleBone Black or the the RPi. 

bye
n


----------



## Phishfry (May 19, 2019)

Maybe you could make it your package builder for arm5t.
It uses similar stuff to your dockstar build. Different kernconf, same processor family.
Probably better supported as they were very popular 10 years ago.
One of the first cheap embedded devices.


----------



## Lamia (May 19, 2019)

FWIK/FWIW, Openbsd seems to be the best BSD for sure ARM device. I play with my Pandaboard very often.... The board boot loader needs an update but it's not coming soon. By the way, the board's production is now discontinued


----------



## Nicola Mingotti (May 19, 2019)

Lamia said:


> FWIK/FWIW, Openbsd seems to be the best BSD for sure ARM device. I play with my Pandaboard very often.... The board boot loader needs an update but it's not coming soon. By the way, the board's production is now discontinued



i respectfully disagree, between 1 and 2 years ago i moved from OpenBSD to FreeBSD because in Open even the USB was not working on BeagleBone Black !


----------



## Spartrekus (May 19, 2019)

balanga said:


> I just bought a SheevaPlug and thought it would be nice to run FreeBSD on it. According to the Wiki, FreeBSD 8.0 or newer is supposed to work on it. There is even a YouTube video showing it booting.
> 
> Does anyone have one of these running FreeBSD or know which is the latest version which will run on it?


Just contact them.





						Contact Us
					






					www.newit.co.uk
				




They have a bootable BSD for the SheevaPlug ! 

They have superbe support. 

there is too a forum newit for the plug. 

I have two plugs, they are cool.


----------



## Spartrekus (May 19, 2019)

NOTE:
FreeBSD may run well on the Plug.

FreeBSD is more reliable and work better than NETBSD for that.


----------



## Lamia (May 19, 2019)

Nicola Mingotti said:


> i respectfully disagree, between 1 and 2 years ago i moved from OpenBSD to FreeBSD because in Open even the USB was not working on BeagleBone Black !


And to be honest, I have not tested OpenBSD on ARM before. I saw a URL few days that made me infer OpenBSD might be better off that FreeBSD.

Here is the link: https://www.openbsd.org/armv7.html .

And here is another: 





						OpenBSD/arm64
					

the OpenBSD/arm64 page



					www.openbsd.org
				



.

I have tried FreeBSD on Pandaboard though. Here is a thread on it:








						FreeBSD-on-Pandaboard does not Boot UP by itself
					

I have always had to intervene in the boot process of FreeBSDARM on pandaboard before it boots to the login screen. And it takes minutes of trial-by-error. They include interrupting the boot loader and typing "boot" then ENTER.  Below is the log via minicom:   U-Boot SPL 2017.01-rc3 (Jul 21 2017...




					forums.freebsd.org
				



.


----------



## Phishfry (May 19, 2019)

I tried to keep silent about your Poudriere package building.
From what I could see all you wanted was misc/mc and some small utilities. Using Poudriere for that is way overkill.
Now that you have another Arm5 board you can build ports from it natively. No crossbuilding at all.
It is very simple. Just `make package` from the ports directory.
So get FreeBSD running on it and `portsnap auto`. You have a Arm5 package builder. *USB drive required*


----------



## Nicola Mingotti (May 20, 2019)

Lamia said:


> And to be honest, I have not tested OpenBSD on ARM before. I saw a URL few days that made me infer OpenBSD might be better off that FreeBSD.
> 
> Here is the link: https://www.openbsd.org/armv7.html .
> 
> ...



i can't help you much on the Panda Board. But, this is the list of what works in Beaglebone. Almost all. I have worked on it for quite some time now, i can tell for certainty that stuff works. 

imho, the freebsd foundation is putting some effort on ARM and embedded. Give it a shot; better you choose a platform that has some amount of followers. Sample the arm mailing list for that.

Now the max hype is on RPI, for me BBB is superior under many point of view, so i use that.


----------



## Lamia (May 20, 2019)

Nicola Mingotti said:


> i can't help you much on the Panda Board. But, this is the list of what works in Beaglebone. Almost all. I have worked on it for quite some time now, i can tell for certainty that stuff works.
> 
> imho, the freebsd foundation is putting some effort on ARM and embedded. Give it a shot; better you choose a platform that has some amount of followers. Sample the arm mailing list for that.
> 
> Now the max hype is on RPI, for me BBB is superior under many point of view, so i use that.


Yeah, I will FBSD11 a shot and perhaps 10. I will then try minor update to say 11.2 if that would work. I must tried it with FBSD12 back then.


----------



## balanga (May 20, 2019)

Spartrekus said:


> Just contact them.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I just looked through their forum and did manage to find a reference to FreeBSD






						FreeBSD 8.2 kernel for eSATA SheevaPlug
					

FreeBSD 8.2 kernel for eSATA SheevaPlug




					newit.co.uk
				




This was from 8 yrs ago and it mentioned FreeBSD  8.2!

And I could not find a FreeBSD option in their pre-configured cards:-






						Sheeva Pre Configured SD's
					

These are the pre configured cards that we sell with the NEW (1st March 2011) multi boot White SheevaPlugs.  <br />  <big><strong><font color="blue">In Stock</font></strong></big&a




					www.newit.co.uk
				




Looks like I will have to create one myself... but where to start?

Just wondered what was on these cards? Is it just an ARM installation of Debian/Ubuntu?


----------



## Lamia (May 20, 2019)

balanga said:


> I just looked through their forum and did manage to find a reference to FreeBSD
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Why not slot in the SD card and power the device? If it's got an OS on it, it will boot up and you can get to see what it is. You must have been told what is in it via the manual though.

I have installed several OSes on my device - FirefoxOS, Ubuntu, Android, FreeBSD etc. If there is nothing in the SD card, you will need use a tool like DD(Data Destroyer) to write on it. There are several guides on the Internet for various OSes on the Internet. Some OSes also have a custom image writer.

This is what is on the FreeBSD website and it is not for the faint hearted.


			Setting up FreeBSD/arm on IQ31244/IQ80321:
		


If I see one or two soon, I will post them here.


----------



## balanga (May 20, 2019)

Lamia said:


> Why not slot in the SD card and power the device? If it's got an OS on it, it will boot up and you can get to see what it is. You must have been told what is in it via the manual though.



I got it cheap on Ebay - no manual, no SD card. It comes with Ubuntu installed. 

The nice thing is that you can access the system via a terminal emulator and USB cable so I can see what's going on without having to take it apart... and I already have some experience install uBoots and OSes on embedded systems, but haven't yet figured out how to install things on a SheevaPlug yet.



> I have installed several OSes on my device - FirefoxOS, Ubuntu, Android, FreeBSD etc. If there is nothing in the SD card, you will need use a tool like DD(Data Destroyer) to write on it. There are several guides on the Internet for various OSes on the Internet. Some OSes also have a custom image writer.
> 
> This is what is on the FreeBSD website and it is not for the faint hearted.
> 
> ...



I'd be grateful for any info you can provide.


----------

