Date: Tue, 23 May 2006 02:15:41 -0400 From: Craig St Jean <valiantsoul@earthlink.net> To: freebsd-ppc@freebsd.org Subject: I may be able to help with getting it on a G5 Message-ID: <6CB0FC67-E5DD-4C9C-9E00-4ACC32C30165@earthlink.net>
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> Hi Craig, > > > Not sure if anyone has tried working on getting FreeBSD on a G5 > > machine, but I have some free time and would be happy to help > test. I > > have a quad 2.5GHz G5 PowerMac with plenty of memory and hard > drive space. > > Great ! I'm still struggling to resurrect my PPC dev machines and > environment, but when I do I'd like to get G5 support going. I'll take > any and all offers of help :) I do have a G4 iBook which will help in the process until it boots on the G5. I'm not quite sure how to get everything over to the G5 though - the only OS dev I've done was when the system was already running and I just made modifications. > > > If someone gives me some direction on what may need to be > > done, I would be happy to try to help make FreeBSD run on a G5 > system - > > It's going to be tough. My plan is to get it running in 32-bit mode, > since full 64-bit support requires a massive amount of work, > essentially > a new port. > > What's there: > > - the loader > > What's not there: > > - pmap support. The G5 uses 64-bit addresses in it's PTE > format, so > it's just different enough than the G3/G4 to be annoying. The code is > already there to abstract out the differences, but a lot of > implementation work has to be done. > > - the low-level assembler trap code needs to switch back to 32- > bits. > This isn't too difficult, and the plan was to conditionally compile > the > .S files similar to how ELF 32- and 64-bit support is done. > > - no BAT registers, so the kernel needs to have virtual mappings > created for it. This complicates pmap startup, and various other parts > of the the machine-dependent code that assumes a 1:1 static mapping > for > all memory (e.g. UMA_MD_SMALL_ALLOC, the syscons frame-buffer code, > page > zeroing) > > - cachelines are 128 bytes on the G5 as opposed to 32 bits on > G3/G4. > This is almost abstracted out but some extra work is required. > > - probably a bunch of other things I've forgotten. > > > Unless everyone feels its not worth the time... > > Definitely worth the time. > > later, > > Peter. Note quite sure how to do any of that but I will try looking into it once I get FreeBSD up on my iBook (going through things to make sure I get everything backed up - should have it up tomorrow or the day after. My work takes up a lot of time but I will do my best.
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