Re: NetBSD for BeBox?

["Markus Illenseer" <markus%tiger.teuto.de@localhost>]

Jake Hamby wrote:
> However, it has a Flash ROM and I've forwarded your message to Be
> developer support as a plea for OpenFirmware support in future ROM
> upgrades.  

 This would require more than just "support".  It took Motorola about half
a year to develop the OFW for the Atlas/Ultra boards, and another half a
year for the easy-to-use GUI just to be able to boot NT and Solaris.

> I have a feeling they will support this eventually for ease
> of hardware support alone, especially for video (currently the BeBox
> uses standard PC video cards which is a big problem for initialization,
> because the PowerPC can't run the x86 boot BIOS). 

 This is the main purpose of OFW...

> This brings me to another question:  Doesn't the PowerMac claim to
> support OpenFirmware?  I would guess that this support is very limited,
> though, and probably useless for a NetBSD port, which is unfortunate.

 Future PowerMac will most probably have a small fragment of OFW, which
will start the MacOS from the ROM sitting in a socket on the PPCP.

> However, with MkLinux source available, I would hope that, even though
> they can't use the same source tree, NetBSD/be and NetBSD/powermac are
> now in sight!

 Fee. I want them all under the same tree, just change the bootloader.

--
Markus Illenseer