# Raspberry Pi 4 UEFI Firmware - efi partition information - trying to get zfs on root on usb working



## decuser (Dec 19, 2022)

Where can I find more information about the msdosboot efi partiton?

I am trying to get my Raspberry Pi 4 working with ZFS on Root on an external usb drive. What I have done that worked follows https://www.reddit.com/r/freebsd/comments/v4b5oj/freebsd_on_zfs_on_raspberry_pi/  and https://www.reddit.com/r/freebsd/comments/rzh6xh/comment/hrv68l2/ :

1. Get the FreeBSD-13.1-RELEASE-arm64-aarch64-RPI.img and burn it to a big sdcard (big enough to hold freebsd and copy of the image as well as whatever intermediate files are required... this process would prolly work from a regular system too, but hey, it works on the pi itself, too, given enough disk space)
2. Boot the pi
3. Get the FreeBSD-13.1-RELEASE-arm64-aarch64-RPI.img onto the booted freebsd fs
4. Insert the USB drive
3. Burn the image to the USB and resize the partitions to fill (run edited (da0, not da1) version of poster's dd.sh)
3. use mdconfig to create a memory device with the image
4. mount it
5. Blow away the USB ufs, create zfs - zroot, and populate it (run edited (zroot, not zpi) version of poster's zfs.sh)
6. Shutdown and remove the SD card
7. Boot the pi

It 'works' as in it boots up and can be used the same way the ufs version.

What is bothersome is the video. It comes up low res. After commenting out hdmi_safe=1 in config.txt (mount -t msdosfs /dev/da0p1 /mnt), it comes up high res, but the beastie menu is all ascii and ugly (window border is made of characters, etc).

In config:

```
[all]
arm_64bit=1
dtparam=audio=on,i2c_arm=on,spi=on
dtoverlay=mmc
dtoverlay=disable-bt
device_tree_address=0x4000
kernel=u-boot.bin

[pi4]
#hdmi_safe=1
armstub=armstub8-gic.bin
```

I'm not trying to use this as a desktop, so it's not critical. I am just thinking of using the system as a fossil server and so far as I can tell it works fine. If I can't figure out how to get the usual beastie menu, I'll prolly just leave it, but these kinds of things nag me .

Oh, I'm sure the issue is related to my complete lack of knowledge around EFI/UEFI, overlays, stubs and whatnot, hence the leading question about where to find more information on what's going on there in freebsd.

Help!


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