From owner-freebsd-ppc@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Oct 26 17:03:12 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 96BFE16A4B3 for ; Sun, 26 Oct 2003 17:03:12 -0800 (PST) Received: from dommail.onthenet.com.au (dommail.OntheNet.com.au [203.13.70.57]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 043474400B for ; Sun, 26 Oct 2003 17:03:10 -0800 (PST) (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 ABW19495; Mon, 27 Oct 2003 11:03:05 +1000 (EST) From: Message-Id: <200310270103.ABW19495@dommail.onthenet.com.au> Received: from 203.144.29.242 by dommail.onthenet.com.au (Mirapoint Messaging Server MOS 3.2.4-GA) with HTTP/1.1; Mon, 27 Oct 2003 11:03:05 +1000 Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 11:03:05 +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: New tarball available 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: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 01:03:12 -0000 Hi Alex, >I believe... but am not 100% sure that the older OF versions >(at least what I'm using, 2.01f) can handle a pure ISO FS >just fine. It just doesn't recognize the ISO versioning >stuff by default. I think that's right: problem is, the older OFW versions don't understand the hybrid format, so at least the loader should be able to read both (instead of just the hybrid like my patched one does). >Does syscons have the ability to use off the shelf VGA >cards? An accelerated console would be very keen indeed >(something else NetBSD lacks). Syscons/VGA requires that the VGA card be set up in VGA mode. OFW doesn't do this: it puts the card into linear framebuffer 8-bit mode. I'm a bit out of my depth here, but I think that the onboard ROMs on VGA cards set up the legacy VGA mode - I don't think they power-up that way. So, I don't believe you can just stick an off-the-shelf VGA card into a Mac and expect it to work. Now, regarding accelerated rendering: this is the domain of the KGI-for-BSD project. Last time I looked they had support for a number of cards that are in Macs, but I don't think they have the syscons-style VTY switching yet. later, Peter.