Raspberry Pi 5 16 GB ESXi installer error

[Dominic Johnson]

Hello, 

I recently got a Raspberry Pi 5 16 GB and wanted to try ESXi Fling on it. I got the latest v0.3 firmware on it and it does boot the installer USB however right after it loads the crypto modules I get the error shown in the attached screenshot. 

I am trying to use the latest "VMware-VMvisor-Installer-8.0U3c-24449057.aarch64"
I have already updated the Pi to the latest firmware and tried a few different UEFI settings but nothing fixes this issue. 

Any ideas on how to fix this?

Thanks! 

[Walter Plassche]

I’m pretty sure this is because you don’t have a USB to ethernet adapter and because the ethernet port on the pi isn’t compatible with ESXi

[Cyprien Laplace]

That's a very early issue when VMKernel starts. and I don't have a Pi5 16GB yet to debug the issue.

Have you tried booting a debian ISO with UEFI?

[Dave Ainslie]

Did you find a solution?

[Dominic Johnson]

It seems like this is a UEFI firmware issue with the new d0 chips on the Pi 16 GB as shown in this conversation where Windows also no longer boots: 
https://github.com/worproject/rpi5-uefi/issues/43

I also found someone with a boot issue with the Pi 16 GB with FreeBSD as well:
https://wiki.freebsd.org/RonaldKlop/Raspberry%20Pi%205%2016GB

Sadly this UEFI repo for the Pi 5 has been archived so not sure if this will ever get fixed. 

[Walter Plassche]

It seems as though there are multiple threads with the same subject line (I replied to another one a week ago).  It would be easier for us all to reply to just one of these threads (I chose a different duplicate thread to reply to).   I edited the pinctrl files in the rpi5-uefi repository to match the d0 Raspberry Pi 5.  I am using a CM5, not a Pi5 so the edits I made may actually make your d0 Pi 5 mostly functional.   The framebuffer still needs to be set to 16 or 24.  One issue that I had was that when trying to write to NVME from a USB installer, I set my root password on initial install but it did not remain persistent on reboot.   I’m curious whether booting from SD card may work better as my model of CM5 has eMMC instead of SD card and that introduces more for me to work on in edk2 to get UEFI to work with my device that may already be resolved with the edits I’ve made when used on your device.   I can perform the install on my C1 Pi 5 and then move that NVME over to the CM5 and log in normally, but I can’t install on the CM5 alone.  You may or may not experience similar issues installing on a d0 Pi 5.   I’m glad to share the files for RPI5-UEFI for you to try out.  If you have a Pi debug probe or other type of UART for analysis to help out with debugging/logging, that would be helpful

[Dave Ainslie]

Could you share the files?

[Philip Anderegg]

Hi, 

I have the exact same issue. I have a Raspberry Pi 5, 8 GB of RAM. I have a TP-link USB to ethernet adapter, an Ultragear monitor (HDMI cable to microHDMI adapter for Pi connection). I put the firmware files onto the SD card, deleted the kernel files and put in the RPI5 UEFI files from the github repo. I also set the framebuffer to 24 (at 32 I get a blank screen). I've used RuFUS to put the vmware ISO onto a SanDisk 32 GB USB3.2 USB stick and if I boot into it, I get the exact same screen as OP. Does anyone know how to fix this issue? I didn't have any problems installing ESXi vmware onto my Raspberry Pi 4, 4 GB of RAM