Xserve G5 (RackMac3,1) Installation Issues on powerpc64

[Evan Sabin]

I have run the Apple Hardware Test on an Xserve G5 (dual 2GHz 970FX) and confirmed that I am unable to install FreeBSD due to issues with the installer itself on powerpc64, specific to the Xserve G5 apparently, judging by numerous successful installations on PowerMacs of the same era.

Last night, I downloaded and burned 11.1 release to a DVD and successfully booted from OF (accomplished through removing the hard disk at boot time) to the FreeBSD kernel, where I immediately encountered a kernel panic due to a floating-point unavailable trap; exception 0x800.

This morning I downloaded and burned 10.4 release onto another DVD and attempted to install — not a whole lot of success. I am able to boot into the live CD, but cannot proceed with the installation, as I receive a generic partitioner error upon attempting to use the auto or manual, forcing me to continuously restart the installation process. The shell works, though I’m not perfectly sure if that can be used to partition the system. Might this be related to my “lazy” workaround of booting from DVD by removing the hard drive and re-inserting it once OF has recognized the DVD?

Is there any patch/workaround I might be able to use just to complete installation? I am no programmer, but am competent enough to patch and compile code to fix things in a pinch. Ideally I’d like to use the latest version of FreeBSD but will do what it takes to get some relatively modern software working on this machine.