ROCK64 anyone?

[fatty.merc...@aceecat.org]

Hello,

I have the ROCK64 SBC by Pine64, and it is one of the handful of
non-x86 systems with an image intended for it on the FreeBSD download
page. Yesterday I powered it up for the first time with an SD card
flashed with FreeBSD 14.3. Perhaps naively, I connected a USB keyboard
and a HDMI display. I saw nothing (except the power LED on the board
itself). Is this supposed to work as the BSD console, or do I have to
mess with a serial connection?

In the latter case, I'd prefer to get started over ssh, so is sshd
enabled to start with and what is the initial login and password?

Aside: there is also a Raspberry Pi image, but only for RPi 3 and
4. What is the status of RPi 5? Known to not work, known to work,
supposed to work, unknown?

Thanks,

--
Ian

[Frank Leonhardt]

On 16/10/2025 19:26, fatty.merc...@aceecat.org wrote:

Hello,

I have the ROCK64 SBC by Pine64, and it is one of the handful of
non-x86 systems with an image intended for it on the FreeBSD download
page. Yesterday I powered it up for the first time with an SD card
flashed with FreeBSD 14.3. Perhaps naively, I connected a USB keyboard
and a HDMI display. I saw nothing (except the power LED on the board
itself). Is this supposed to work as the BSD console, or do I have to
mess with a serial connection?

In the latter case, I'd prefer to get started over ssh, so is sshd
enabled to start with and what is the initial login and password?

I don't have any experience of that particular board, but if the HDMI isn't working (which I think it should be) you will have to connect using a serial console. There are problems with the resolution not being detected on some monitors - force the thing by adding something like hw.fb.default_mode="1280x720"in /boot/loader.conf

The default root password is blank, but in case you didn't know, the default sshd configuration doesn't allow root logins so although sshd is normally enabled out of the box it's not going to be much use to you for initial configuration.

The serial console settings are either 1.5M or 115,200. Do you have a serial connection already, or are you using it stand-alone? It looks to me like the serial console will be on UART2 (pins 8 and 10).

If it is a monitor resolution detection issue, you could also try it with another monitor.

Good luck! And if you have any more questions, remember I don't actually have this board so I'm the wrong person to ask :-O

Regards, Frank.

[fatty.merc...@aceecat.org]

I see there is an ARM specific mailing list, so I'll ask there.

--
Ian