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Date:      Tue, 15 Nov 2011 10:16:01 +0100
From:      Milan Obuch <freebsd-ppc@dino.sk>
To:        freebsd-ppc@freebsd.org
Subject:   FreeBSD on Mac Mini
Message-ID:  <20111115101601.2f9fe255@atom.dino.sk>

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Hi,

one week ago I've got a G4 Mac Mini for cheap, and I decided to try
FreeBSD on it. So far I was able to use standard install CD media,
using FreeBSD-9.0-CURRENT-201102-powerpc-disc1.iso image from 
ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/snapshots/201102/ directory. It took
me a bit of trial and error to create workable disc layout, mainly
because I did not get in touch with Macs before and basically know
nothing about openfirmware :) Now it works, I completed full system
rebuild from sources twice. So far, so good.

I installed X from ports and here comes first question. I have Samsung
monitor connected to mini via DVI. In 'text' mode monitor says
1920x1080, I have 65 lines of text, each 200 characters long, it looks
like 'used' screen area has 1600x1050 dimension or something like this.
In X, however, monitor says mode is only 1280x960. As it works in
console mode in 1920x1080, it must be possible to use this in X too.
Needless to say, it uses this mode in Mac OS X, too. I use ati driver
here.

And one more question - I looked for dual boot configs, but did not
find any FreeBSD + Mac OS X combo. I will try something, again, when I
will either free another HDD for this purpose (there are files I would
like to preserve, and it takes some time to put them somewhere else) or
buy a new one (a bit bigger, but HDDs are somewhat more costly these
days), but if someone already did this and have some notes to share,
I'll be just glad. Also, I plan to test bsdinstaller found on page
http://wiki.freebsd.org/BSDInstall - just to see if it will be easier
to proceed, even if it seems to be a bit older than snapshot used.

That's for now. If anybody has some hints fro me, needs some more data
to answer my questions or would like me to test something, just let me
know. As soon as I have some more time I plan to write about my
experiences gained so other could benefit from my tests as well.

Regards,
Milan



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