• powerpc

PowerPC

See also the official project page at http://www.freebsd.org/platforms/ppc.html.

Note: If you're adding relevant information here, please poke someone to update ppc.sgml.

Developer notes

• powerpc/BookE

• powerpc/Bugs

• powerpc/ToDo

Getting started

• Instructions: http://people.freebsd.org/~grehan/iso_install.txt

Limitations

• No graphical mouse cursor on console.
• fdisk does not work. However, gpart has support for MBRs. Use gpart instead.
• Only USB Keyboards are supported.

Caveats

Keyboard problems on Macs with Bluetooth modules

• If you have Bluetooth, there is a 'fake' OHCI port and devices created that can be used to access a wireless kbd/mouse. Problem is, it gets probed before the fixed kbd/mouse and is first in line to syscons. To get around this, the PCI slot associated with the problematic ohci2 can be disabled at the loader prompt

OK set hint.pcib.1.skipslot=26

Keyboard support

• As mentioned above only USB keyboards are supported. Keyboards connected through Apple Desktop Bus (ADB) are not supported at this time. ADB keyboards are used on some notebooks, and in those cases you will need an external USB keyboard.

  Of the most recent devices, 15" and 17" PowerBooks have internal USB peripherals. iBooks and 12" PowerBooks have USB trackpads and ADB keyboards. Older machines most likely have ADB keyboards and trackpads. In any case you can check whether your machine has USB or ADB connections by looking it up at

  http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Hardware/hardware2.html

Xorg

Peter Grehan tested it on:

• rev B iMac (Rage 3D Pro 215GP, accel disabled).

• 700Mhz eMac (Nvidia GeForce2 MX)

• 12" 1.33G G4 powerbook (Nvidia GeForce G5200)

• and Martin Minkus has run it on a 350MHz iMac, Rage 128VR.

On ATI Radeon-based machines there are still some problems:

• A ofw syscons range check needs to be relaxed using the sysctl hw.ofwfb.relax_mmap.

• A special radeon driver http://people.freebsd.org/~grehan/radeon_driver.c is needed and

• Add the following to your xorg.conf into the Section "Device"

Option "iBookHacks" "on"

• The Xserver sometimes seems to have problems querying the Monitor Modes

Sound

uaudio(4) works.

Links

• Open Firmware Quick Reference: http://www.firmworks.com/QuickRef.html

• Garance A. Drosehn's description about FreeBSD on the Minimac: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-ppc/2005-January/000814.html