powerpc64 status and request for testers

[Andreas Tobler]

On 15.02.10 17:05, Nathan Whitehorn wrote:

> svn co svn://svn.freebsd.org/base/projects/ppc64
> cd ppc64
> make buildworld TARGET_ARCH=powerpc      # Get boot loader from this
> world for TFTP
> cp /usr/obj/powerpc/.../sys/boot/loader/powerpc/ofw/loader
> /tftpboot/loader.ppc64
> make buildworld buildkernel TARGET_ARCH=powerpc64 WITHOUT_BOOT=1
> make installworld installkernel TARGET_ARCH=powerpc64
> DESTDIR=/some/nfs/export WITHOUT_BOOT=1

I'd like to add some notes here, just for reference.

After having installed the stuff do the following: (from diskless(7))

Still sitting in the source tree.
% cd etc
% setenv DESTDIR /some/nfs/export
% make distribution

This will populate some important files in the etc directory. W/o this 
step I ended with some magic lockups since my nfs directory could not be 
mounted (rw).

Then you'd need to modify your etc/fstab and your etc/rc.conf
Here are my samples:

[andreast at tc] /export/netboot/ppc64/etc/> cat fstab
# Device   	Mountpoint  FStype  Options    Dump    Pass#
server:/nfs-mount	/	nfs	rw	0	0

[andreast at tc] /export/netboot/ppc64/etc/> cat rc.conf
hostname="bohrium.andreas.nets"
ifconfig_gem0="DHCP"
nfs_client_enable="YES"
sshd_enable="YES"
ntpd_enable="YES"
keymap=swissgerman.macbook.acc
ntpdate_flags="europe.pool.ntp.org"
ntpdate_enable="YES"
rpcbind_enable="YES"
rpc_statd_enable="YES"

> Then set up a DHCP server for netbooting, turn on tftpd, and issue a
> command like boot enet:0,loader.ppc64 from open firmware on the target
> machine. If you give this code a try, please let me know the results.

During a private mail exchange we found out that the current loader does 
not really work with netbooting. A patch is needed, I guess it will be 
applied soon on this branch. For the record, this is the ci on trunk:
http://svn.freebsd.org/viewvc/base?view=revision&revision=204129

And now some notes to my machine, it is a Dual G5, 1.8GHz.

SMP does not work yet.

Also, the network interface is not supported yet, the chip behind is a 
Broadcom 5421 or also known as 54K2. I need to find the right way to 
integrate the driver into the network framework.

I'd like to thank Nathan for this impressive work, it rocks!

Andreas