Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 17:54:55 -0500 From: Rory Arms <rory@urpower.com> To: FreeBSD-PPC@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: the abi & hardware support Message-ID: <20010108175455.C30514@urpower.com> In-Reply-To: <20010108172507.A874@matter.net>; from durkin%2Bfbsd@matter.net on Mon, Jan 08, 2001 at 05:25:08PM -0500 References: <20010103112508.D27798@rafe.jeamland.net>; <20010102012039.A31690@dragon.nuxi.com> <Pine.WNT.4.31.0101021044590.796-100000@GATECH> <20010102121741.A33602@electricjellyfish.net> <20010103112508.D27798@rafe.jeamland.net> <20010107231752.A442@matter.net> <l03130300b67f65c535d2@[24.95.8.9]> <20010108172507.A874@matter.net>
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On Mon, Jan 08, 2001 at 05:25:08PM -0500, Craig Durkin wrote: > On Mon, Jan 08, 2001 at 07:43:39AM -0500, Matt Johnson wrote: > > All of the Powermacs with a 601 chip have no Open Firmware and no PCI bus. > > MkLinux (which was Apple's internal Linux distro for Macs) did support > > these machines, but as far as I know any remnants of MkLinux have long > > since vanished. 3rd party Linuxes for the PPC and NetBSD support as far as > > I can tell all PowerPCs with Open Firmware and a normal PCI implementation. > > I think other than the peripheral hardware (USB, etc.) in the NewWorld > > machines, the pre-G3 Macs are structurally very similar to the Newworld > > Macs. Actually that is not entirely true. Take the PowerMac 7200 for instance, is a PPC-601 with PCI slots. I think the 7300 may have been as well. It also has an early version of OF that is only accessible via a serial console. LinuxPPC, which requires OF+PCI boots fine using a COFF image. The NewWorld PowerMacs have a nicer way of loading the first stage loader than OldWorld macs do. It makes it much easier to write a boot loader for it. All you have to do is write a "CHRP file" that in turn loads the OS. I believe it is basically file with FORTH commands. The biggest difference between the 2 is that in NewWorld the low level "MacOS ROM" (which had been in hardware since the original Macintosh) has been moved to a file in the System Folder of MacOS <10. I'm sure the reason this was done was to comply with MacOS X, which would make no use of it. Hence OSX/Darwin's requirements of a "G3" or better. > > I for one would very much like to see FreeBSD for both my Powermac G4 and > > my 604e/200 UMAX machine. I would too. I think a NewWorld machine would be an ideal system for FreeBSD. Even though hardware specs are tough to get, it sounds like a lot of other projects have been able save a lot of time by looking at Apple's Open Source projects, ie. MkLinux, and Darwin. -rory To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-ppc" in the body of the message
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