# RPi 3B+ & Xorg & Linux compat layer



## lib13 (Oct 29, 2018)

Hi,

I'd like to know about FreeBSD in a Raspberry Pi 3B+, mainly about the aarch64 version.
1. Does Xorg work as well (or better) than the official Linux distros?
2. Is there a Linux compatibility layer for this platform?  I'd like to run some software that has no FreeBSD version.
3. What does RaspBSD have different from the FreeBSD official images?


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## George (Oct 29, 2018)

1. Xorg works. Just do a pkg install xorg, and startx.
I used Fluxbox as Window Manager and it works.
There is no browser working atm, I think. Firefox depends on Rust, which doesnt compile. Chrome wont compile either. Other browsers in ports collection just produce coredumps. Elinks works.

2. Havent tested it yet.
3. RaspBSD site uses an old Freebsd 12 snapshot (r320146). The official Freebsd site has RPI3 images for 12-Beta and 13.
Also, RaspBSD still writes, that there are no packages for Freebsd 12. But packages have been added.

Also, check out the Freebsd-arm mailing list for help.


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## Phishfry (Oct 30, 2018)

I agree with above.
1) I have ran Mate, LXDE, and OpenBox desktops on Arm. GPSd with OpenChartPlotterNavigator. USB cellular modem via USB.
Browser situation is not good. Dillo is what I used and it is not very usable for general purpose viewing.
I made an HTML application for GPIO toggling and it worked fine for those. So depends on your expectations.

2) I would not consider this route. Porting apps from Linux is not that hard. Check out the porters handbook.

3) brd put together RASPBSD when Arm was very turbulent. It is nothing more than a working  -CURRENT image.
Many times Arm images are broke and you need to keep up with the status to know which one worked.
RASPBSD took the guess work out of it. Plus it ships with debugging disabled. It is enabled by default on -CURRENT
and for new people compiling a GENERIC-NODEBUG kernel on Arm can be very challenging.


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## lib13 (Oct 31, 2018)

Phishfry and Elazar: If Netsurf is available, can be an alternative to dillo and elinks.

I get the idea about what can be done and the challenges involved.
Porting this app to Linux is beyond my horizon.  I've built simple Makefiles in the past, but to have it all assembled demands knowledge, time and will that I have not.

I've read that 12.0 brings much better support for arm.   I guess there will be a 12.0 STABLE image for aarch64, right?  If so, debugging should be disabled, no?

Regarding Xorg and application speed, are there noticeable differences to Raspbian?   I ask this because I tried another Linux distro and apps loaded slower than in Raspbian.


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## acheron (Oct 31, 2018)

There is a patch for chromium here https://reviews.freebsd.org/D17207


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## ronaldlees (Dec 1, 2018)

Phishfry said:


> I agree with above.
> 1) I have ran Mate, LXDE, and OpenBox desktops on Arm. GPSd with OpenChartPlotterNavigator. USB cellular modem via USB.



OpenCPN?  Sailor?  Ketch? Cutter? Schooner? You're NOT one of those power boaters? ...


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## Phishfry (Dec 1, 2018)

I did migrate to www/netsurf-gtk on RPi2. It does work much better than dillo.
Still not very usable on most websites. Good for a utility browser.
I use it with net/mpd5 and Vadims GPIO program.


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## MojoDwarf (Jan 17, 2019)

midori works on rpi3 aarch64 if you disable scripts in the browser preferences, otherwise it was seg faulting after a few seconds


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