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Date:      Thu, 07 Feb 2019 18:05:56 +0000
From:      bugzilla-noreply@freebsd.org
To:        ppc@FreeBSD.org
Subject:   [Bug 235060] [boot] FreeBSD 12.0 Release DVD and CD will not boot on PowerMac G5 Quad
Message-ID:  <bug-235060-21-tSoIcjDOaL@https.bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/>
In-Reply-To: <bug-235060-21@https.bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/>
References:  <bug-235060-21@https.bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/>

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https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=3D235060

Dennis Clarke <dclarke@blastwave.org> changed:

           What    |Removed                     |Added
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                 CC|                            |dclarke@blastwave.org

--- Comment #1 from Dennis Clarke <dclarke@blastwave.org> ---

While I do understand the frustration of downloading a "release" DVD
or CD install image and then receiving a less than perfect result
it should be said that the Apple PowerMac G5 Quad ( and similar ) is
an artifact of historical computing machinery interest and not a
current system architecture.  Whereas one may also claim that the IBM
Power architecture is very current and of very significant interest.
This does mean to say that the now ancient IBM RS/6000 Model 7317 is
not to be considered a production class machine. It was based on the
now twenty year old IBM PPC 604e and it is a fascinating system to=20
perform experiments with but merely as an artifact. A reasonable and
even modern software system with very modern ZFS implementation would
be nearly impossible to run effectively on such hardware. The more
fascinating IBM PPC 970MP based Apple PowerMac G5 11,2 models are now
well over a decade old and face a similar problem. They are simply not
at all to be considered "production" class or "tier 1" type systems.

A lot of work has happened to keep such machines runnable in various
software projects and they even provide interesting data regarding low
level compiler functions but extensive testing simply is not possible
for any variation of "production" or "tier 1" level functions. Myself
and Justin Hibbits and others have done fairly extensive testing of
the FreeBSD release candidate DVD images and found that some minor
adjustments to the boot loader stage are required in order to get a
reasonable installation to work. For an example please see :=20

https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=3D233579#c7

At this time there should be a warning on the FreeBSD PPC project page
which illustrates that systems such as the Apple PowerMac G5 and even
older IBM RS/6000 units may not work as expected. A more modern class
of system such as the IBM POWER9 based Talos would be expected to work
as a very reasonable day to day unit and yet it is still "tier 2".=20

--=20
Dennis Clarke
RISC-V/SPARC/PPC/ARM/CISC
UNIX and Linux spoken
GreyBeard and suspenders optional

--=20
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