Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2026 17:33:46 -0800 From: Adrian Chadd <adrian@freebsd.org> To: Javi Hotmail <volkovdablo@hotmail.com> Cc: ppc@freebsd.org, freebsd-ppc <freebsd-ppc@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: 2026 TODO list! Message-ID: <CAJ-Vmo=MOHyJ5hQD2zPbK-S_N5D6Q6BDuYsDL5pVK2QStkJsvA@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <PA4P191MB1663103CA24D73BBED475BC6AC8EA@PA4P191MB1663.EURP191.PROD.OUTLOOK.COM> References: <CAJ-VmonYHdVhdPiaLHUqzPv33_iAGiTY=_hGrhg4rXF5%2BYZPQQ@mail.gmail.com> <aWYThFQ8ODI9P0ml@amaryllis.le-fay.org> <347736550.201698.1768339625331.JavaMail.zimbra@raptorengineeringinc.com> <PA4P191MB1663103CA24D73BBED475BC6AC8EA@PA4P191MB1663.EURP191.PROD.OUTLOOK.COM>
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hi! On Tue, 13 Jan 2026 at 14:33, Javi Hotmail <volkovdablo@hotmail.com> wrote: > > Nice to meet you all!, > I would like to join the team to maintain PPC/PPC64 for development and testing. > > The good: > I have a G5 Quad, an XServe G5, and a Dual G4 @ 500, so I think I have a "decent" coverage surface. Nice! > The bad: > Aside from the G4, both G5s need maintenance before I can keep them running for hours, I'm on top of that, but it's gonna take a while. Yeah, old stuff needs updating and cleaning. I'm still cleaning up this g5 I bought, but at least it powers on and boots something! > The ugly: > I have development (kernel / userspace) experience on Linux, but on FBSD I'm mostly relegated to userspace at the moment. > > I want to change that; I'd like to have robust knowledge for kernel and driver development on FBSD for PPC/x86. That's why I am here. > > Questions: > - What is the best technique for kernel debugging on FBSD? (please don't say printf :D). Does remote GDB over serial work? I've read about KDBG but I'm not sure which approach is better. I haven't done kgdb over UART in a long while. However! > - Has anybody tested on QEmu some sort of paravirtualization running on G4/G5, so we don't need to go baremetal all the time when doing kernel development? Yes, I've been sorting out kinks in our pseries VM support so we can boot power8, power9, power10 VM guests under QEMU. I have working VMs for -16 for pseries BE and LE guests; what I need to do now is write some documentation in the wiki for it. You can setup qemu with a gdb network endpoint and use kgdb to it. I've been doing that recently to debug bootloader and kernel issues! I haven't yet figured out the rest of the missing pieces to get a working freebsd system on a qemu ppc970/macppc VM. It boots, hands off to the kernel and then nothing. I'll talk with Justin about it next week; my next goal is to get freebsd-16 installed on this g5 so we can finally fix the SMP behavioural issue that's been around for a couple releases.home | help
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