From owner-freebsd-ppc@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Sep 11 11:11:43 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-ppc@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 90E6F16A4BF for ; Thu, 11 Sep 2003 11:11:43 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dommail.onthenet.com.au (dommail.OntheNet.com.au [203.13.70.57]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1743843FDD for ; Thu, 11 Sep 2003 11:11:42 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from peterg@ptree32.com.au) Received: from dommail.onthenet.com.au (localhost.onthenet.com.au [127.0.0.1]) by dommail.onthenet.com.au (Mirapoint Messaging Server MOS 3.2.4-GA) with ESMTP id ABL85921; Fri, 12 Sep 2003 04:11:36 +1000 (EST) From: Message-Id: <200309111811.ABL85921@dommail.onthenet.com.au> Received: from 199.107.154.19 by dommail.onthenet.com.au (Mirapoint Messaging Server MOS 3.2.4-GA) with HTTP/1.1; Fri, 12 Sep 2003 04:11:36 +1000 Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2003 04:11:36 +1000 To: Alex Zepeda X-Mailer: Webmail Mirapoint Direct 3.2.4-GA MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit cc: freebsd-ppc@freebsd.org Subject: Re: How are things looking? X-BeenThere: freebsd-ppc@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Porting FreeBSD to the PowerPC List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2003 18:11:43 -0000 Hi Alex, >I've got a Beige G3 running NetBSD that's pulling >web/mail server duty at blarf.homeip.net. Unfortunately >I'm really missing a lot of the little things from FreeBSD >(my other box is a P2-450 running FreeBSD-current). > >So now I've got a few questions: > >Is FreeBSD even bootable on any old world machines? >If not, what's standing in the way? The boot loader? >Is there an XCOFF version of the boot loader? Lack of >driver support? Yes to both. Converting FreeBSD's loader to XCOFF (or the minor variant understood by OpenFirmware) shouldn't be too hard. Device support is a bit of an issue. I do own a beige G3, and will attempt to support it at some point. It shares much of the hardware of the B&W G3, which I am working on currently, so all is not lost. As for any earlier non-G3 boxes, I'd say there's not much chance of running FreeBSD on them. >Cross building from ia32 seems to be broken As David mentioned this has been working. I'll make sure things are back to normal when I return from BSDCon. later, Peter.