Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2010 15:39:40 -0400 From: Paul Mather <paul@gromit.dlib.vt.edu> To: freebsd-ppc@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Current support for Xserve G5 Message-ID: <AF230493-CAA9-46ED-9F65-5948923DC8BC@gromit.dlib.vt.edu> In-Reply-To: <4C118649.7030007@freebsd.org> References: <C15A6C39-B7A2-4D08-A40E-E2257CF95FC4@gromit.dlib.vt.edu> <4C118649.7030007@freebsd.org>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Jun 10, 2010, at 8:41 PM, Nathan Whitehorn wrote: > On 06/10/10 13:20, Paul Mather wrote: >> In our lab we have two Xserve G5 servers. We'd like to keep using = these, but, because of EOL issues with Mac OS X, I am looking for an = Open Source replacement. My preference is for *BSD---preferably FreeBSD = or NetBSD. When I looked a while ago, it seemed that the Xserve G5 was = either not supported or not very functional under these two OSes. = (NetBSD, for example, had no support for the onboard SATA controller and = so could only run diskless via netbooting.) >>=20 >> I just looked at the FreeBSD/ppc project Web page and was happy to = see the Apple Xserve G5 as reported as running for FreeBSD 8.1. Can = anyone tell me whether this runs fully for the stock Xserve G5 hardware, = or does it have some serious limitations to deployment, as mentioned for = NetBSD above? >> =20 >=20 > It is fully supported, and we use G5 xserves for building PPC binary = packages, so they are quite stable. This is excellent news! I'll be able to use FreeBSD after all. :-) > The only caveat is that 64-bit PPC support will first be appearing in = the 9.0 release series, so you will only be able to use 2 of the 4 GB of = RAM in your machines with 8.1. Is this 2 GB per process of user addressable space or 2 GB of physical = RAM usable across all processes? I remember having to mess around with = kernel address space size to increase it on a ZFS-based FreeBSD/i386 = system. Is this something similar, or is it some hardware limitation? When you say, "64-bit PPC support will first be appearing in the 9.0 = release series," does this mean it is not currently in HEAD? I'm not = averse to running FreeBSD-CURRENT (I've done it in the past) to try it = out if support is already in HEAD. > I have put a more recent install guide at = http://people.freebsd.org/~nwhitehorn/ppcinstall.txt. Thanks for = pointing out the old link on the web site -- I'll try to get that fixed. = You should also be aware that the GENERIC kernel on PPC does not have = SMP enabled by default, so you will likely want to build a new kernel = after installation. Thanks for the info and the link to the updated install guide. Cheers, Paul.
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?AF230493-CAA9-46ED-9F65-5948923DC8BC>