Re: NetBSD on Nubus Powermacs

[Stan Johnson <userm57%yahoo.com@localhost>]

Hi Romain,

thanks for your reply

That's kind of what I was thinking based on my searches for NetBSD and
Linux solutions for Nubus-based PowerPC Macs.

I'll try to look into whether it might be possible to adapt the NetBSD
m68k booter (and also Penguin on the Linux side) for use on Nubus Macs.

-Stan Johnson

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On 3/3/22 1:18 AM, Romain Dolbeau wrote:
> Le mer. 2 mars 2022 à 17:31, Stan Johnson <userm57%yahoo.com@localhost
> <mailto:userm57%yahoo.com@localhost>> a écrit :
>> Does anyone know whether there are any efforts to port NetBSD to
>> Nubus-based Powermacs (such as the PowerBook 1400, 5300, Powermac 61xx,
>> etc.)?
> 
> As far as I can tell (user, not dev), there's no NetBSD support for
> PowerMacs (and likely PowerPC systems in general) that don't boot via
> OpenFirmware (including all NuBus-based PowerMacs).
> 
> OpenFirmware-based PowerMacs boot the kernel directly from OF, without
> relying on MacOS.
> 
> NuBus-based *68k* Macintoshes boot NetBSD from inside MacOS, using a
> dedicated Booter application.
> 
> Porting to NuBus PowerMacs would likely require using a similar system
> to 68k Macintoshes, with a dedicated Booter and a specific kernel. It
> would likely either need significant rework of the PPC kernel to remove
> reliance on OF, or be able to 'fake' OF on the NuBus machines. There
> were discussions to that effect many years ago, but to the best of my
> knowledge no successful boot was ever reported.
> 
> MkLinux did boot NuBus PowerMacs, and there was some success for
> 'monolithic' Linux, but I don't think the support ever made it upstream
> either.
> 
> (I looked into it not too long ago, then gave up on buying myself a 7100
> when I realized NetBSD wouldn't work on it without considerable effort I
> had neither the time nor skills for).
> 
> Cordially,
> 
> -- 
> Romain Dolbeau