FreeBSD 11.3 or 12.x on IBM 9115-505

[Phil Scarr]

Thanks for the reply.  I’ll stand up a netboot install for 11.3 and see if that works.  I’ve done this with Solaris, is the process similar?  rarpd / tftp / bootparams / nfs?

-Phil

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> On Oct 22, 2019, at 3:59 PM, Mark Linimon <linimon at lonesome.com> wrote:
>
> On Tue, Oct 22, 2019 at 04:04:53PM +0000, Phil Scarr via freebsd-ppc wrote:
>
>> Should either 11.3 or 12.1-RC2 be expected to work on an IBM POWER5+
>> system?
>
> 11.3 yes, 12.x I am skeptical.
>
> I say this as someone who has run the similar 9133s for several years.
> (OTOH now that I have a Talos Blackbird they have been powered down
> for > 6 months.)
>
> The problem with 12.x is that there are two regressions:
>
> - one having to do with emX interrupts crashing the machine
>   post-iflib-ization;
>
> - the other having to do with some kind of regression in
>   reading values out of the firmware.
>
> I spent a little time trying to fix the former but got nowhere; I
> did not try to fix the latter.  I simply stayed on 11.x.
>
> I have extensive notes around here ... somewhere ... if you are
> determined to try to get this machine to work.  IMHO the Power5
> machines are finicky beasts and it took a lot of experimenting to
> get mine to boot.  (I never did get from-disk booting correct;
> FreeBSD does not have a driver for the on-board SCSI driver, and
> attempts to use 3rd-party SCSI or SATA cards were pretty miserable.)
>
> As for the CD/DVD, I don't think I ever got them to work.  I don't
> remember exactly.  Even at the end I was running everything over
> NFS.
>
> At one time, I was building packages for 11.x with one or the other
> of these machines; but, those haven't been updated for over a year
> now (and, my webserver is down).  So, you would have to build your
> own packages (or contribute to funding my electricity bill :-) )
> But at the time I don't recall too many 11-specific problems.
>
> The developer focus has shifted to P8/P9 machines, on 12.x but
> especially on -CURRENT.
>
> mcl