From owner-freebsd-ppc@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Nov 23 15:20:00 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-ppc@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5EE03106564A for ; Tue, 23 Nov 2010 15:20:00 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from nwhitehorn@freebsd.org) Received: from mail.icecube.wisc.edu (trout.icecube.wisc.edu [128.104.255.119]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0B9CB8FC2E for ; Tue, 23 Nov 2010 15:19:59 +0000 (UTC) Received: from localhost (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by mail.icecube.wisc.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id 02B2C582D7; Tue, 23 Nov 2010 09:19:59 -0600 (CST) X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at icecube.wisc.edu Received: from mail.icecube.wisc.edu ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (trout.icecube.wisc.edu [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10030) with ESMTP id pNEsn2Pjksbg; Tue, 23 Nov 2010 09:19:58 -0600 (CST) Received: from wanderer.tachypleus.net (c-24-2-196-18.hsd1.ct.comcast.net [24.2.196.18]) by mail.icecube.wisc.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7B5C1582D4; Tue, 23 Nov 2010 09:19:58 -0600 (CST) Message-ID: <4CEBDB9D.2010309@freebsd.org> Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2010 10:19:57 -0500 From: Nathan Whitehorn User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD amd64; en-US; rv:1.9.1.12) Gecko/20100925 Thunderbird/3.0.8 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Paul Mather References: <5A677521-DE86-4BA9-BA85-8003957551B5@freebsd.org> In-Reply-To: X-Enigmail-Version: 1.0.1 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: yongari@FreeBSD.org, freebsd-ppc@freebsd.org Subject: Re: New powerpc64 snapshot X-BeenThere: freebsd-ppc@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Porting FreeBSD to the PowerPC List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2010 15:20:00 -0000 On 11/22/10 14:34, Paul Mather wrote: > On Nov 18, 2010, at 9:50 AM, Nathan Whitehorn wrote: > >> I've prepared some new powerpc64 snapshot ISOs which can be found >> at >> http://people.freebsd.org/~nwhitehorn/FreeBSD-9.0-20101118-SNAP-powerpc64/ >> >> >> > > I was able successfully to install this snapshot today on an Xserve > G5. I had several problems, though: > > 1) I could not boot from the bootloader script after the install was > complete; I had forcibly to "setenv boot-device hd:,\ppc\boot1.elf" > for the system to boot into FreeBSD from power-on. (I did remember > the "gpart bootcode ..." step, too.) I'm guessing you are booting on a serial console? I don't have the Forth skills to make the bootinfo script detect where the 'screen' device exists, so it defaults to that. > 2) Usually, the system will not boot multi-user as it is unable to > mount the root partition after booting the kernel. Dropping into the > debugger and issuing a "reboot" to do a warm boot will allow the > system then to boot multi-user successfully. Could you do a verbose boot (boot -v at the boot prompt) and send the resulting dmesg? There is some issue with the built-in serverworks SATA controller and some hard drives that no one has been able to track down yet. It doesn't affect anything once the machine has booted. > 3) The system is LOUD! It sounds like the fans are running high > pretty much all the time---running much higher than Mac OS X 10.5 > runs them. I notice a "fcu" fan-related device during boot. Is > there any way to force the fans to run at a lower speed? I'm going > to go deaf at this rate. :-) Andreas Tobler has some in-flight thermal monitoring code he posted to the list a while ago, and one thermal monitor chip is still not in the tree. Even without the patches, you can turn down the fans by hand with sysctls on dev.fcu. > 4) After a while, my system fell of the network with "bge0: watchdog > timeout -- resetting" being output on the console periodically. Odd. I've CC'ed Pyun Yong Hyeon, who maintains the bge driver. Maybe he has some ideas. > 5) A minor thing, but the "locate" command doesn't work properly. > Either it doesn't find something I know is there, or it finds > something but prints out incorrect gibberish as a result (e.g., just > printing out lines of "/" in response to a "locate etc"). I just fixed this in svn. You'll need to update your sources to get the fixed version. > > I realise the FreeBSD/powerpc64 port is experimental at this point. > Can anyone tell me if the above symptoms afflict the 32-bit > FreeBSD/powerpc 8-STABLE port? Although I like the idea of the > powerpc64 port allowing me to use all of the 3.5 GB RAM in this > machine, at this point it is more important for me to trade away the > extra RAM for stability (and *quietness*:). If FreeBSD/powerpc > 8-STABLE is more solid, I'd rather switch to that, as I'd like to get > this machine back into service. > > (I would be more prepared to soldier on with FreeBSD/powerpc64 if I > could get the fan noise problem under control. That would let me do > more testing without going crazy from the noise.:) All of the problems you mentioned above are also present with a 32-bit system. -Nathan