FreeBSD on the PowerMac G-series

For those running [cmd=]make index[/cmd] in /usr/ports:

Code: 
cd /usr/ports/audio/beast
vi Makefile
Use the hash/pound sign to edit out the reference to SSE checking.
After this, it should work properly.
 
If you are using ports and would like to use packages instead:

Code: 
pkg_delete -a

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/shells.html

Code: 
echo $SHELL
If your shell is csh or tcsh then
Code: 
setenv PACKAGESITE ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/powerpc/packages-9-stable/All
For sh you can edit .shrc and use PACKAGESITE=ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/powerpc/packages-9-stable/All

Please prepare your powerpc by pkg_adding perl and python prior to the reinstallment of previous packages.
 
If you are having trouble building world then please follow the mailing lists. There is an active effort in using clang. Justin Hibbits is working on the clang errors, Brooks Davis is in charge of clang/llvm; if you have the time and are willing to help with clang/llvm on powerpc(64), then please contact both.
jhibbits@freebsd.org Justin Hibbits
brooks@freebsd.org Brooks Davis

A partial solution is to build each part in src- as applicable to your system- until you get to the error. This will present you with a 9.0/10.0 system to build the kernel.

If you wish to help the FreeBSD powerpc(64) port, then the following are the ones to contact:
Grehan@freebsd.org Peter Grehan, port/project maintainer
nwhitehorn@freebsd.org Nathan Whitehorn
and Justin Hibbits. Both Justin Hibbits and Nathan Whitehorn are source commiters.

danfe@freebsd.org Alexey Dokuchaev has a lot of experience. I suggest that you ask advanced questions with him on the cc list.
 
Alright, peoples, here are the current updates.

There is progress with buildworld on Tinderbox.
If you are careful, then you may set /boot/loader.conf with the following variable:
Code: 
kern.hz="1500"
or
Code: 
kern.hz="2000"
or
Code: 
kern.hz="2500"
Do so at your own discretion.

Okay, now back to the tutorial.
Anyone that has anything to add to this tutorial, you are welcome to do so. Please let everyone know the environment, methods, and reasons why.

I am also willing to create a single document tutorial to submit to the FreeBSD POWER(PC) maintainers. It will be upgradeable. For such a tutorial, xorg.conf, loader.conf, and rc.conf variable for different systems will need to be submitted in order that all are able to have a stable system. This will bring more clarity.
 
I'm posting this because of the response on an i386. Believe me it is relevant.

Okay, whenever the
Code: 
kern.hz≥2500
the tick rate will increase by one and more as the value of the hertz rate increases.

Implementing a real-time kernel is something that I know very little about.

Setting the value at 2000 to 2250 will not hurt.

This has been discussed on the mailing lists- concerning kernel hertz and frequency-and there is a patch available. Increasing the kernel hertz rate decreases latency to a certain degree.

A tip on distributing the work load:
If you have two or more machines which we assume are all PowerPC/POWER(32/64) you can use NFS and export a portion of /usr/local from one machine to another.
One machine can run the windowing and desktop while another has the applications.

Combine this with a higher but safe kernel hertz rate and you should have a nice set up.

Be sure to read on how to properly set up NFS sharing between machines.
 
In /etc/X11/xorg.conf change

Code: 
Option "AllowEmptyInput" "Off"

to

Code: 
Option  "AutoAddDevices" "Off"
 
Last time I played with the macppc port of FreeBSD was around the 9.xR series and I did that on my G4 iMac. Now I would like to install 14.1R to my G4 Mac Mini, sharing the SSD between MacOS X Tiger and FreeBSD. Unfortunately, I forgot many details on why and how I did things back then. And even more unfortunate is that there seems to be no proper documentation for PPC related details.
No manual for boot1.hfs, no mention of it in the architecture specific texts either. No PPC details in man boot. And man gpart is nowhere near as descriptive regarding APM and how booting is done there than it is about GPT or MBR.
My iMac has a 800k apple-boot partition, but no FreeBSD documentation mentions why it is there or what it is for. My guess is that this is where boot1.hfs is written using dd. But I may be wrong. I do not remember these details well.

In post#30 Tingo provides a useful description of the installation process, but some steps do not make sense. He partitions the disk like so ...
Code: 
gpart add -s 800K -t '!Apple_Bootstrap' ad<disk number>
gpart add -s <size> -t freebsd-ufs ad<disk number>
gpart add -s <size> -t freebsd-swap ad<disk number>
gpart add -s <size> -t freebsd-ufs ad<disk number>
... and then writes out boot1.hfs like this ...
Code: 
dd if=/boot/boot1.hfs of=/dev/ad<disk number>s2
In that example, slice2 is the first UFS volume, makes no sense to write boot1.hfs into the beginning of that, overwriting the beginning of that filesystem. It would make sense to write boot1.hfs into slice1. Assuming boot1.hfs contains a small HFS or HFS+ filesystem with a FreeBSD boot code at its beginning. The fact that the '!Apple_Bootstrap' partition is sized for 800k and /boot/boot1.hfs on the 14.1R installation CD is exactly 819'200 bytes suggests that my logic is not far off.

I also remember doing something in OpenFirmware that made FreeBSD to autoboot, and I had to hold down Option/Alt on the keyboard at power-on time if I wanted to boot MacOS X instead, and pick that volume from the built-in GUI OS selector. I found the corresponding instructions for OpenBSD, ...
Code: 
setenv auto-boot? true
setenv boot-device hd:,ofwboot
reset-all
... but I have nothing for FreeBSD. The OpenBSD installation workflow instructs to place the ofwboot file onto the first HFS/HFS+ partition (which is otherwise used by MacOS). So the setenv boot-device line sets up that ofwboot file on the first HFS partition to boot from. I do not know how to define the FreeBSD specific 800k !Apple-Bootstrap partition instead, and how to refer to any file on it (if I must refer to a file at all). Particularly as I want to keep my MacOS X volume at the beginning of the SSD.

Any pointers or clarifications on those are more than welcome.
 
PowerPC Macs needs their disk drives partitioned as APM, not GPT. Check the gpart(8) man page. Here is an old example:
Code: 
root@kg-ibook# gpart show -p ada0
=>       18  117210222    ada0  APM  (55G)
         18     262190          - free -  (128M)
     262208   52626616  ada0s3  apple-hfs  (25G)
   52888824       1600  ada0s2  apple-boot  (800k)
   52890424   29358528  ada0s4  freebsd-ufs  (14G)
   82248952    4194304  ada0s5  freebsd-swap  (2.0G)
   86443256   30766984          - free -  (14G)
 
tingo said:
PowerPC Macs needs their disk drives partitioned as APM, not GPT. Check the gpart(8) man page.
Click to expand...
What gave you the impression that I considered GPT instead of APM? I did not.
I specifically mentioned the gpart manual page, as not providing details on how booting occurs on an APM-scheme disk.

Here is what I am interested in:
Is there any FreeBSD documentation about boot1.hfs? About what it is, what its purpose is, or how to use it?
Is there any FreeBSd documetation about how boot order works on the PowerPC platform, how one controls which partition or OS boots automatically?

Asking these questions do not mean that I have no answer to them. See above! But if we have no documentation on these details, then this is something to be improved upon, something to file as a bug report or write up a short text about. I did learn these details around the time of 9.xR from somewhere. Where did those sources go and why?
 

Look at the link in the "pre 9.0" section in getting started.

The file says "If you are using FreeBSD 9 or newer, ignore this section -- the installer works out of the box." but I guess if you're noodling around with it, that tells you what to do with the file.

Controlling the boot order is OpenFirmware. That's out of scope for FreeBSD 🤷‍♀️

Hah, good luck with this now that APFS is here

Estoteric: https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-ppc/2010-October/004525.html
 
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