Tuesday, February 01, 2022

Re: Considering a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B, but a bit lost...

On Tue, Feb 01, 2022 at 09:42:30PM -0800, Steve Williams wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I currently have a PC Engines APU2 that's been my central workhorse for
> quite a few years now.
>
> I want to delve into cheaper systems for OpenBSD so I can have more of them
> around my house :D
>
> I was considering a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B and?? I have a couple of general
> questions:

I have a RPi 4b here, I'll try to answer some questions.

> 1. When I read the install notes for arm64
> (https://www.openbsd.org/arm64.html), I see that it lists the
> Raspberry Pi 4.?? Is a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B included in that category?

from sysctl hw output:

hw.vendor=Raspberry Pi Foundation
hw.product=Raspberry Pi 4 Model B
hw.version=D03114

I think it is.

> 2. One of the kits I'm considering comes with at 128 G sd card with a
> USB Card reader.?? Is that entire space on the sd card usable in
> OpenBSD????? I assume that the OS install can use the whole sd card,
> but don't want to make any assumptions at this point.

This I'm unsure of, I read reasoning that only 32 GB cards are supported because
of the max size of FAT or something. I don't know if that's true or not.
Plus, OpenBSD uses partitioning with a very small FAT partition for U-Boot
and firmware. That said I have never tried running beyond a 32 GB card.

> 3. What is a popular reasonable quality wifi usb adapter that people use?

I don't use Wifi on my rpi so can't help you there. I have left-over urtwn(4)
adapters but they are the small ones with limited range.

> 4. Did some Raspberry Pi's come with a micro sd slot or something???
> There's mention of using a small SD card as well as having a USB
> device for OpenBSD... this doesn't seem to apply to Pi 4 B as there
> are only USB ports...

The 4B afaik takes a micro SD card. Some Pi's before it (the B+ for example)
used a normal sized SD card. You can also boot OpenBSD off USB instead of the
micro SD card (on the 4B). I do that with a SSD on an adapter (but it's
slow).

Here is a gotcha that you may not know. I have an old -current version from
December running. The sound doesn't yet work with that version of OpenBSD
afaik and I've been using a soundserver on my other Pi (a B+ running raspbian)
over the network. It works out well, Youtube works with iridium browser.

One more thing I've been using OpenBSD 25 years almost and the Raspberry Pi
setup is one of the hardest setups I've dealt with. I'm not saying I'm a
seasoned admin but I have quite a bit of experience, it once took me a full
day almost to figure out how to get OpenBSD on the Pi. Patience is what
one needs to bring, a lot of it. And good eyes to read the INSTALL doc.

This is probably the last time I'm doing RPi support as I'm rearrangeing my
workspace for electricity savings and the Pi will be gone in March at the
latest (I'm reusing it with OSMC in the living room or something). I hope
I was able to answer some questions.

> Thanks,
> Steve Williams
>
>

Best Regards,
-peter

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