NetBSD 10 Beta, RC1-6 and Pi Wifi and A/V

 Complex title, just to say how stable and feature-rich is NetBSD 10 on a Raspberry Pi (4)?

Pretty good, not bad, can't complain.

Wireless

At one time during RC (release candidate) testing I had wi-fi engaged on a Pi 3A, a 3B, and a 4. Beyond those, the Pi0W and Pi02W wireless has been unflappable on start-up, if a bit squeezed on speed, and an occasional miss of the beat. Since I took this screenshot, the 4 has lost the ifconfig (again), and the 2 3's are humming along. All of those are on the same GENERIC64 kernel.

Reply from 192.168.1.39: bytes=32 time=4ms TTL=255

Scanning color slides at 1600 dpi off a Pi:

I know there is a "symlink" fix supposed to repair the lost wireless interface; see below.

GOOD?:

Mar 11 15:06:54 arm64 /netbsd: [   1.4005357] bwfm0 at sdmmc0 function 1

Mar 11 15:06:54 arm64 /netbsd: [   2.8833895] bwfm0: Firmware file default:    brcmfmac43455-sdio.bin

Mar 11 15:06:54 arm64 /netbsd: [   2.8833895] bwfm0: Firmware file model-spec: brcmfmac43455-sdio.Raspberry Pi 4 Model B.bin

Mar 11 15:06:54 arm64 /netbsd: [   2.8833895] bwfm0: Found Firmware file: brcmfmac43455-sdio.bin

Mar 11 15:06:54 arm64 /netbsd: [   2.8905571] bwfm0: NVRAM file default:    brcmfmac43455-sdio.txt

Mar 11 15:06:54 arm64 /netbsd: [   2.8905571] bwfm0: NVRAM file model-spec: brcmfmac43455-sdio.Raspberry Pi 4 Model B.txt

Mar 11 15:06:54 arm64 /netbsd: [   2.8905571] bwfm0: autoconfiguration error: NVRAM file not available

Mar 11 15:06:54 arm64 /netbsd: [   2.8905571] bwfm0: CLM file default:    brcmfmac43455-sdio.clm_blob

Mar 11 15:06:54 arm64 /netbsd: [   2.8905571] bwfm0: CLM file model-spec: brcmfmac43455-sdio.Raspberry Pi 4 Model B.clm_blob

BAD:

Mar 21 22:05:32 nb4 /netbsd: [   1.3996878] bwfm0 at sdmmc0 function 1

Mar 21 22:05:32 nb4 /netbsd: [   3.6135988] bwfm0: Firmware file default:    brcmfmac43455-sdio.bin

Mar 21 22:05:32 nb4 /netbsd: [   3.6135988] bwfm0: Firmware file model-spec: brcmfmac43455-sdio.Raspberry Pi 4 Model B.bin

Mar 21 22:05:32 nb4 /netbsd: [   3.6197181] bwfm0: Found Firmware file: brcmfmac43455-sdio.bin

Mar 21 22:05:32 nb4 /netbsd: [   3.6197181] bwfm0: NVRAM file default:    brcmfmac43455-sdio.txt

Mar 21 22:05:32 nb4 /netbsd: [   3.6197181] bwfm0: NVRAM file model-spec: brcmfmac43455-sdio.Raspberry Pi 4 Model B.txt

Mar 21 22:05:32 nb4 /netbsd: [   3.6197181] bwfm0: autoconfiguration error: NVRAM file not available

Mar 21 22:05:32 nb4 /netbsd: [   3.6197181] bwfm0: CLM file default:    brcmfmac43455-sdio.clm_blob

Mar 21 22:05:32 nb4 /netbsd: [   3.6197181] bwfm0: CLM file model-spec: brcmfmac43455-sdio.Raspberry Pi 4 Model B.clm_blob

When it works:

genet0: flags=0x8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500

        ec_capabilities=0x1<VLAN_MTU>

        ec_enabled=0

        address: []

        media: Ethernet autoselect (1000baseT full-duplex)

        status: active

        inet6 [] flags 0 scopeid 0x1

        inet 192.168.1.2/24 broadcast 192.168.1.255 flags 0

lo0: flags=0x8049<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST> mtu 33624

        status: active

        inet6 ::1/128 flags 0x20<NODAD>

        inet6 fe80::1%lo0/64 flags 0 scopeid 0x2

        inet 127.0.0.1/8 flags 0

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

        ssid [] nwkey *****

        powersave off

        bssid [] chan 11

        address: []

        media: IEEE802.11 autoselect (HT mode 11ng)

        status: active

        inet6 []%bwfm0/64 flags 0 scopeid 0x3

        inet 192.168.1.1/24 broadcast 192.168.1.255 flags 0

Firmware/devices seems fresh:

$ ls -l /boot/dtb/broadcom/

-r-xr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  37735 Mar 12 10:19 bcm2711-rpi-4-b.dtb

-r-xr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  37679 Mar 12 10:19 bcm2711-rpi-400.dtb

-r-xr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  20741 Mar 12 10:19 bcm2837-rpi-3-a-plus.dtb

-r-xr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  21610 Mar 12 10:19 bcm2837-rpi-3-b-plus.dtb

-r-xr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  21142 Mar 12 10:19 bcm2837-rpi-3-b.dtb

-r-xr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  20465 Mar 12 10:19 bcm2837-rpi-cm3-io3.dtb

A recent mail message contains the sym-fix:

http://mail-index.netbsd.org/port-arm/2023/12/05/msg008448.html

"

In this image, a symbolic link added

/libdata/firmware/if_bwfm:

ln -s brcmfmac43455-sdio.raspberrypi,4-model-b.txt "brcmfmac43455-sdio.Raspberry Pi 4 Model B.txt"

to avoid

bwfm0: autoconfiguration error: NVRAM file not available

"

But I get a wrong address range assigned, so not yet solved.

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

        ssid [] nwkey *****

        powersave off

        bssid [] chan 11

        address: []

        media: IEEE802.11 autoselect (HT mode 11ng)

        status: active

        inet6 []%bwfm0/64 flags 0 scopeid 0x3

        inet 169.254.x.y/16 broadcast 169.254.255.255 flags 0

Any tips welcome...

Audio/Video

Besides the ubiquitous VLC app (GUI and CLI), I've used mpg123 and mp3blaster on NetBSD systems as command line audio/video players. With a miniDLNA UPnP set-up and steaming internet radio stations I have good tunes at will. In the good old days. a SoundBlaster interface card was the way to go. Theses days, audio circuity is either built-in the system, or ready as easily as popping in a USB dongle. 

Prior versions of NetBSD on Raspberry Pi systems had challenges with the wired headphone circuit and with audio through HDMI (in some cases not the system fault but a lack of speakers in a monitor. The audio streams would play okay for a while but within a day or so various buffer/cache issues came up, causing no sound, or worse, choppy static.

Mar 21 21:59:01 nb4 /netbsd: [ 547447.7922531] audio0(vcaudio0): device timeout

Mar 21 22:07:30 nb4 /netbsd: [ 162.7814073] audio0(vcaudio0): setting play.port=0 failed: errno=22

Controls:

$ /usr/bin/mixerctl -w outputs.select=headphones

outputs.select: headphones -> headphones

$ /usr/bin/mixerctl -v -a

outputs.master=255,255 volume

inputs.dac=255,255 volume

outputs.auto=255,255 volume delta=13

outputs.headphones=255,255 volume delta=13

outputs.hdmi=255,255 volume delta=13

outputs.select=headphones  [ auto headphones hdmi ]

I'm getting about a week of playing, at intervals, before contention creeps in.