Installing OpenBSD 7.3 on Raspberry Pi 4

OpenBSD supports the following Raspberry Pi related devices:

• • Raspberry Pi 3

• • Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+

• • Raspberry Pi 4

• • Raspberry Pi 400

• • Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4

Supported devices include Ethernet cards, WIFI, TF cards, and USB 3.0.

Installing OpenBSD 7.3 on Raspberry Pi 4B 8G V1.5

First, you will need two storage devices, which can be two USB drives or one USB drive and one storage card, because the OpenBSD image is not pre-built like FreeBSD; you need to install it yourself. One device will be used as the installation disk and the other as the system disk. Here, I am using two USB drives for the installation.

Download the image from https://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/7.3/arm64/install73.img and use Rufus to write it to the USB drive. After the writing is complete, delete all files in the FAT partition except for the efi folder.

Download the Raspberry Pi UEFI firmware from: https://github.com/pftf/RPi4/releases, in this article, we are using RPi4_UEFI_Firmware_v1.35.zip^[1].

After downloading, extract the UEFI firmware to the FAT partition mentioned above. Boot normally to install OpenBSD, and once installed, remove the system disk and perform the same operation on the FAT partition.

Removing Memory Limitations

Press ESC on boot to enter the UEFI firmware settings.

Select Device Manager > Raspberry Pi Configuration > Advanced Configuration:

Limit RAM to 3 GB        --->  "Disabled"
System Table Selection   --->  "Devicetree"

Press F10 and enter Y to save. Press ESC to return to the UEFI settings home page, select Reset to exit and reboot the system.

References

• • INSTALL.arm64^[2]

• • OpenBSD/arm64^[3]

• • OpenBSD 7.1 on Raspberry PI 4B 8GB^[4]

• • OpenBSD On A Raspberry Pi 4^[5]

Cited Links

[1] RPi4_UEFI_Firmware_v1.35.zip: https://github.com/pftf/RPi4/releases/download/v1.35/RPi4_UEFI_Firmware_v1.35.zip[2] INSTALL.arm64: https://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/7.3/arm64/INSTALL.arm64[3] OpenBSD/arm64: https://www.openbsd.org/arm64.html[4] OpenBSD 7.1 on Raspberry PI 4B 8GB: https://www.reddit.com/r/openbsd/comments/xcudgr/openbsd_71_on_raspberry_pi_4b_8gb/[5] OpenBSD On A Raspberry Pi 4: https://www.mtsapv.com/rpi4obsd/