Re: Installing NetBSD/macppc

[Австин Ким <freennix%gmail.com@localhost>]

Hi,

On Fri, 2 Aug 2019 00:58:07 -0400 Michael <[...]> wrote:

> Maybe, as a very experimental, don't try this at home unless you know
> what you're doing kinda thing. All it would need is the right kernel
> image on the CD.
[...]
> Here's what works for me at the moment:
> - my 11,2 boots with in-tree ofwboot.xcf and kernels built from the
>   POWERMAC_G5_11_2 config. The whole thing seems to be dependent on the
>   exact size of the kernel image, 4.5MB seems to work, above that we
>   crash.
> - you can netboot kernels directly - 'boot enet:,netbsd.g5' works if
>   you have a dhcp/tftp server set up to hand 'netbsd.g5' to your G5.
>   Again, there seems to be an OF-dependent size limit which seems to be
>   the same we hit with ofwboot.xcf.
> - more than 2 CPUs are completely untested
> With that, most onboard peripherals should work, except:
> - analog audio works by relying on OF to setup the codec and using
>   software volume control. I want to split codec support from the DMA
>   part before adding Yet Another Codec to snapper. Digital audio is
>   unsupported.
> - firewire is untested at best
> - NFS reads may be incomplete or garbled, using tcp mounts may help
>   there.
> - X may work if you can find a PCIe graphics card that Xorg supports
>   without needing DRM / KMS. My Radeon X1950 is not one of those. Low
>   end nvidia cards may work with the nv driver.
> The rest, as in USB, ethernet, PMU/SMU/FCU, SATA, wscons etc. works at least
> for me.
>
> My 7,3 does not boot -current at the moment, I didn't get around to
> figure out why. It worked a couple months ago but the NFS errors
> mentioned above seem to hit a LOT more often.
>
> Any other models are untested and may or may not work even with the
> restrictions mentioned above. At the very least the fan control code
> will need testing and likely adjustments in order to map sensors and
> temperature ranges to fans. Do NOT run any model not mentioned above
> for more than a few minutes. Assuming they would actually boot...
[...]
> You mentioned your machine is a 1.8GHz PCI-X variant - I assume one
> CPU? That may actually work, with a POWERMAC_G5 kernel. I'll check if I
> can get that one to boot on my 7,3 by stripping support for SMP and
> PCIe-specific hardware.
>
> have fun
> Michael

I am amazed by how much work you have put into this.  I assume it would be too
much to ask if you could possibly put together a quick, brief, crash-course
outline on how to compile a NetBSD/macppc POWERMAC_G5 kernel and build a
bootable ISO image from it?  Looked at some of the documentation in the Guide
but I feel a lot of the process is specific to NetBSD/macppc.

Ideally it would be good to have a default NetBSD/macppc ISO that could boot on
everything from a PowerPC 970-based Apple Power Mac G5 1.8-GHz PCI-X to a dual
PowerPC 970MP-based Power Mac G5 Quad 2.5-GHz PCIe; would that be possible with
a single NetBSD/macppc ISO that could still boot on G4 Macs as well?

Finally, at the risk of sounding like an easy quitter, how far away would you
estimate we are from a NetBSD/macppc bootable ISO in mainline -stable that
could “just work” on PowerPC 970- and PowerPC 970MP-based Power Mac G5s?  As
much as I would prefer using NetBSD over OpenBSD or FreeBSD, I’m wary of going
down a rabbit hole without fully understanding how much would be involved.

Thanks so much in advance!
Austin

“If you want to change the future, start living as if you’re already there.”  —Lynn Conway