Re: Installing FreeBSD onto XServe G5 cluster node

For my iMac G5 (which I no longer have) I settled on using a USB DVD 
drive.  The firmware was fussy about which USB sticks it would boot 
from.  Never tried net booting it, though I use PXE on amd64 for HPC 
clusters:

https://github.com/outpaddling/SPCM/blob/master/FreeBSD/Sys-scripts/spcm-setup

https://github.com/outpaddling/auto-admin/blob/master/Sys-scripts/auto-pxe-installer-setup

Good luck...

On 12/19/25 01:29, Philip Plane wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> I have a XServe G5 cluster node that I'm trying to get FreeBSD installed 
> on.
> 
> The cluster node has no CD/DVD, so I'm trying to install over ethernet.
> 
> I followed the instructions at https://people.freebsd.org/~grehan/ 
> install.html, but had no joy. The loader started OK but it never found a 
> kernel to load.
> 
> I downloaded FreeBSD-15.0-RELEASE-powerpc-powerpc64-disc1.iso and 
> unpacked that onto my NFS partition, copied the loader to tftpboot and 
> got as far as getting a kernel loaded, but it stops at "Root mount 
> waiting for: CAM". I'm guessing that means it doesn't like the random 
> sata disk that's probably got NTFS partitions or suchlike.
> 
> I tried 'boot -s' as per grehan, but never get the 'mountroot' prompt.
> I tried 'boot -a' to select a different boot device but no joy.
> 
> Does the supplied kernel support root on NFS?
> 
> -- 
> Phil Plane
> 


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