Links:
Repository on Codeberg URL: https://codeberg.org/Honeyguide/freebsd-pinephonepro

Contact: Toby Kurien <toby@tobykurien.com>

The project to port FreeBSD over to the Pinephone Pro is progressing. The aim of this project is to step by step support components of the Pinephone Pro in FreeBSD so that the device one day might be usable as a highly mobile FreeBSD device.   In this quarter, console output to the screen was enabled, using EFI framebuffer support. This requires using a specific version of U-boot that sets up the EFI framebuffer, which FreeBSD’s kernel is then able to use for output while booting up. While this comes with limitations (like no hardware acceleration), it is a big step forward in making FreeBSD usable on the PinePhone Pro. To make it easier to try the current code changes out, a script was added to the repository to create a flashable image for booting from an SD card. This script downloads and patches a FreeBSD CURRENT mini-memstick image with the custom device tree and kernel. The resulting image can then be copied to an SD card using dd and booted up on the phone. See the repo for details.

Work on enabling the USB port was started but has stalled and help is needed, particularly from someone who understands the USB subsystem and can help move this forward. Currently, some USB controllers are detected by FreeBSD but no USB devices are visible, e.g. the internally connected modem. Help is also needed to port the WiFi driver from Linux, which would be the same driver needed for Raspberry Pi 3b+/4/5 (Broadcom 43455 wifi module connected via SDIO). Anyone wanting to assist can contact me by e-mail.

See the post on the FreeBSD Forum for more: https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/porting-freebsd-to-pinephone-pro-help-needed.95948/

Sponsor: Honeyguide Group