Now that NetBSD 10 is released (for a few weeks) I have been reviewing tests I ran, benchmarking and other studies, trying to fix the dangling problem reports I opened, and mainly using the OS for as many daily tasks as feasible. In that context are wireless network connections to the somewhat closed but open Raspberry Pi network drivers, as replicated in the BSD space instead factory-floor Linux.
When I checked the FreeBSD page, wifi shows as "unsupported", listing some chip or board IDs that must mean something ('brcmfmac43455-sdio").
Based on : https://wiki.freebsd.org/arm/Raspberry%20Pi we see:WiFi/Unsupported on the Pi series, including the 4, which would be the best available, until the 5 has been encompassed. Understood that wiki page documentation may lag development, and I haven't dug to far to see what is newer than the doc. To research one of the above bugs (overflow arithmetic) I installed a recent FreeBSD image on a Pi0W, only to find it crash hard with "unresolved symbols" or other architecture clashes as soon as I tried any command. So my hands-on with Pi and FreeBSD is limited to Pi3 and Pi4 models at hand. None of them show "bw" interfaces.
NetBSD can see the "bw" interface on the Pi4, and I definitely had that working during the long beta campaign. Except now I can't get it to work on the 10.0 release for reasons yet to be found. It would show up in ifconfig output:
bwfm0: flags=0x8c43<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,OACTIVE,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
ssid "" nwkey *****
powersave off
address: __:...
media: IEEE802.11 autoselect (DS1 mode 11g)
status: no network
inet6 ...%bwfm0/64 flags 0x8<DETACHED> scopeid 0x3
On the Pi3, NetBSD works great:
bwfm0: flags=0x8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
ssid wIfI nwkey *****
powersave off
bssid ... chan 11
address: __:...
media: IEEE802.11 autoselect (HT mode 11ng)
status: active
inet6 ...%bwfm0/64 flags 0 scopeid 0x2
inet .../24 broadcast ... flags 0
I can stream audio, at least locally. Video on the lower end systems is problematic.
On the Pi0 (W and 2W) I have mixed results with NetBSD. The Pi0W is working on wireless, but I've lost whatever mojo I had for the 2W before the beta ended.
bwfm0: flags=0x8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
ssid wIfI nwkey *****
powersave off
bssid __:... chan 4
address: __:...
media: IEEE802.11 autoselect (HT mode 11ng)
status: active
inet6 ...%bwfm0/64 flags 0 scopeid 0x3
inet .../24 broadcast ... flags 0
A recent list thread shared poor performance on the NetBSD wireless drivers, as presented on the Pi platform. I have not run stress or volume tests beyond listening to KALX Berkeley streaming radio.
Earlier beta images (or 9x) would block on audio processing at times, which I have not experienced on the 10 release. Some audio or video formats don't work with VLC as built, which is another kettle of babel fish.
Beta test view (3A/3B/4, no 0):
Post-Beta (and a little pre):
Seeing any color indicates *some* traffic on the wireless interface. The scale shows some large and some small throughputs, as if a trickle by mistake.
Chart, like the FreeBSD feature supported on Pi linked above:
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| Chart of Pi bake-off |
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