NetBSD 10 RC1 Review

 

Upgrades from earlier 10.0 beta images went easily except for the Raspberry Pi systems with the kernel in a different place. 

 WIFI

• amd – external
• i386 - none
• pi4 – no wifi, hard-wire ok
• pi3 – no wifi; hard-wire ok
• pi02w – wifi yes; hard-wire added
• pi0w – wifi yes

 Automated Test Framework

I kicked off periodic user test suite cases, noting the minimum and maximum errors per platform. The Pi4 worked best, and the 0W the worst as I never completed a full run, trying various scratch write media to avoid stall-outs on basic shell command runs.

 When the platform would allow full tests runs more than one a day I set up cron jobs; the fastest tested had 60 or so when I stopped the cron.

    3 failed test cases.

    4 failed test cases.

    3 failed test cases.

    3 failed test cases.

    6 failed test cases.

    4 failed test cases.

    4 failed test cases.

    3 failed test cases.

• amd – (2/7)
• i386 - (0/3)
• pi4 – (1/4)
• pi3 – none yet
• pi02w – November 26 last run (16 / 20)
• pi0w – 30 (one good run)

The variation in failures from phase to phase I've called Heisenbergars, elsewhere.

X11

I had 2 minor regressive behaviors after RC1 tests compared to earlier betas, where the AMD machine had flaky screen text. I need to recheck the cables since it went onto a floor mount instead of desk level. The other slowness was on a new Pi4 install, where I struggled through getting the latest UEFI version on an SD card, and ending up with a working install, and 8GB (don't forget to set that last in the UEFI menus). Comparing the CPU temperature to other Pi 4s, it may work better with a running fan. More tests later; the last straw was launching QGIS (except with a Postgre 14 client for package sanity).

WIFI

I guess the fix for using wifi, at least on the Pi 4, is external dongles. The Pi3 worked for me at one point, but the dmesg tempts with "almost, almost":

[     3.368964] bwfm0: Found Firmware file: brcmfmac43455-sdio.bin

[     3.388965] bwfm0: NVRAM file default:    brcmfmac43455-sdio.txt

[     3.388965] bwfm0: NVRAM file model-spec: brcmfmac43455-sdio.raspberrypi,3-model-b-plus.txt

[     3.388965] bwfm0: Found NVRAM file: brcmfmac43455-sdio.raspberrypi,3-model-b-plus.txt

[     3.388965] bwfm0: CLM file default:    brcmfmac43455-sdio.clm_blob

[     3.388965] bwfm0: CLM file model-spec: brcmfmac43455-sdio.raspberrypi,3-model-b-plus.clm_blob

[     4.999119] bwfm0: CHIPACTIVE

[     5.099132] bwfm0: address ..:..:..:..:..

[     5.099132] bwfm0: wl0: Mar  1 2015 07:29:38 version 7.45.18 (r538002) FWID 01-6a2c8ad4

The ifconfig shows recognition of the wifi circuit but wpa supplicant stumbles.

bwfm0: flags=0x8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500

pi4:

Also, almost

[     2.447895] bwfm0: NVRAM file default:    brcmfmac43455-sdio.txt

[     2.447895] bwfm0: NVRAM file model-spec: brcmfmac43455-sdio.Raspberry Pi 4 Model B.txt

[     2.447895] bwfm0: autoconfiguration error: NVRAM file not available

[     2.447895] bwfm0: CLM file default:    brcmfmac43455-sdio.clm_blob

[     2.447895] bwfm0: CLM file model-spec: brcmfmac43455-sdio.Raspberry Pi 4 Model B.clm_blob