New powerpc64 snapshot

Nathan Whitehorn nwhitehorn at freebsd.org
Sat Sep 25 14:43:53 UTC 2010


On 09/21/10 22:36, Paul Mather wrote:
> On Sep 10, 2010, at 6:35 PM, Nathan Whitehorn wrote:
> 
>> I have built a new powerpc64 snapshot that should have a more
>> functional installer and not have disk-detection problems on some
>> models of G5 Powermac. This snapshot can be found at
>> http://people.freebsd.org/~nwhitehorn/FreeBSD-9.0-20100910-SNAP-powerpc64
>>
>> Installation directions are the same as for 32-bit PowerPC:
>> http://people.freebsd.org/~nwhitehorn/ppcinstall.txt
>>
>> SMP is also now in the default powerpc64 kernel configuration, thanks
>> to Peter Grehan.
> 
> I just tried this snapshot but did not have much luck installing.
> 
> I am trying to install on a headless Xserve G5 via a serial console.
> I can boot the CD from OpenFirmware and enter the installer. I then drop
> into the Fixit shell but cannot successfully complete any partitioning
> via gpart. Commands like "gpart show" will display the existing
> partition table, but any gpart command that affects the partition table
> (gpart delete; gpart add; etc.) will not complete (coincidentally, the
> fan seems to start racing then, too). The system isn't hung because
> CTRL-C will bring me back to sysinstall.

There isn't any fan control at present (although this should be
committed soon), so the fan doesn't have anything to do with it. It
sounds like you found a gpart bug, so maybe Marcel has some ideas. One
thing you could try is to remove the previous partition map with gpart
destroy and than make a new one with gpart create.

> I currently have Mac OS X 10.5 on this system, and would like to
> replace it with FreeBSD/powerpc64. Has anyone done this successfully, or
> have any hints about what I may be missing?

It worked fine for me, but I was using a fresh disk. Removing the
existing partition map, or trying with a fresh SATA disk, might help.

> Oh, and is it possible to change the OpenFirmware serial console
> speed to something lower than 57600? I have an IBM 3151 TTY (with VT100
> personality card) I'd like to use as a permanently-attached serial
> console but it only goes up to 19200 in its setup options. :-(

This one I have no idea. You can change it in FreeBSD, of course, but
that doesn't affect OF.
-Nathan


More information about the freebsd-ppc mailing list