Re: NetBSD on Nintendo Wii (PowerPC 750CL)

[Harold Gutch <logix%foobar.franken.de@localhost>]

On Fri, Jan 01, 2010 at 02:09:32AM +0100, Frank Wille wrote:
> James Longworth wrote:
> 
> > What are the chances of seeing a Nintendo Wii (IBM Broadway PowerPC
> > 750CL) port?
> 
> There must be somebody who is experienced enough, owns such a machine and is
> motivated to do the port.

jmcneill@ just finally ticked off the third checkbox in that list
(motivation).  He has a few pictures and a video on his Twitter/X
feed, for example https://twitter.com/jmcwhatever/status/1749162482180956346 .


> BTW, what kind of bootloader/firmware does the Wii use? Uboot or something
> own? And does Nintendo allow access to the complete hardware?

You boot NetBSD through the (unofficial) Wii Homebrew channel.  There
is a ready to use image on
https://nycdn.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD-daily/HEAD/202401261810Z/evbppc/binary/gzimg/wii.img.gz .
Take that, unpack it and dd it to an SD card.  Start the Homebrew
Channel, insert the SD card in the Wii's SD slot, click on "NetBSD"
and watch it boot.  For USB devices, you currently need to connect
them through a USB 2 hub (I used a keyboard with an internal hub,
i.e., one where you can plug in more devices, that works too).


If you don't have the Homebrew Channel installed, you can get it from
https://hbc.hackmii.com/ and you need to install it through an
exploit/bug in some game or so, for example
https://wiibrew.org/wiki/Indiana_Pwns .

In case you already have a version of the Homebrew Channel installed,
note that you need at least version 1.1.1 (or 1.1.2 for PAL / 576i
video, as that is broken in HBC 1.1.1), and you need to have IOS 58
installed for those versions of HBC, so you (might) need to update to
that.


cheers,
  Harold