# FreeBSD on Raspberry Pi



## mariosangiorgio (Oct 26, 2014)

Hello, I am considering installing FreeBSD on my Raspberry Pi for a personal server. I read the documentation on the wiki and a few discussions on the forum but I still have a few doubts.

The wiki says:


> As of January 2013, FreeBSD-CURRENT fully supports either a video console (you'll need a USB keyboard and display connected) or it can be configured to use a serial console (you'll need a serial adapter cable such as the one sold by Adafruit.com).


Does it mean that by default the access via the serial adapter is not enabled and it needs to be configured?

I found links to a few unofficial package repositories compatible with the Raspberry Pi. Is there any official (or a recommended) repository? I assume that compilation on the device would be quite slow, so I'd prefer to avoid it.

Does FreeBSD have any special command to update Raspberry PI firmware? Linux package managers have it and I am wondering what the FreeBSD equivalent is.


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## sossego (Oct 28, 2014)

Okay, you need to contact the FreeBSD ARM mailing list. Here is the information you need: https://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-arm. Try asking if someone has ported the firmware update to FreeBSD.


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## Oko (Oct 29, 2014)

mariosangiorgio said:


> Does FreeBSD have any special command to update Raspberry PI firmware? Linux package managers have it and I am wondering what is the FreeBSD equivalent.


Of course not! Raspberry Pi is closed Linux-only hardware. Why would anybody need any "firmware" if the hardware was open? There are much more beautiful and powerful open hardware ARM boards. They are not even much more expensive than the Raspberry Pi. Check out misc@openbsd for discussions. You can also check ports@netbsd for the rant of that Linux deleted who created Raspberry Pi after somebody dared to port NetBSD to the Raspberry Pi.


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## Crow (Oct 30, 2014)

Oko said:


> There are much more beautiful and powerful OPEN HARDWARE arm boards.


Could you give me some example? I'm really interested in some ARM single-board computer that works well with FreeBSD or another BSD.


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## Oko (Oct 30, 2014)

My favorite is http://beagleboard.org/black, but there are many other choices: 

http://pandaboard.org/
http://www.pcduino.com/
http://cubieboard.org/
http://boundarydevices.com/products/sabre-lite-imx6-sbc/
http://boundarydevices.com/products/nitrogen6x-board-imx6-arm-cortex-a9-sbc/

Note all of the above work with the armv7 port of OpenBSD. YMMV with FreeBSD but I know that ARM is getting lots of love these days from the FreeBSD Foundation.


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## SirDice (Oct 30, 2014)

There's a list of supported boards here: https://wiki.freebsd.org/FreeBSD/arm


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## Crow (Oct 30, 2014)

Oko, SirDice, thank you.


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