Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2010 10:19:57 -0500 From: Nathan Whitehorn <nwhitehorn@freebsd.org> To: Paul Mather <paul@gromit.dlib.vt.edu> Cc: yongari@FreeBSD.org, freebsd-ppc@freebsd.org Subject: Re: New powerpc64 snapshot Message-ID: <4CEBDB9D.2010309@freebsd.org> In-Reply-To: <C31BDA76-ECE9-4012-86C4-24B30ECC8162@gromit.dlib.vt.edu> References: <5A677521-DE86-4BA9-BA85-8003957551B5@freebsd.org> <C31BDA76-ECE9-4012-86C4-24B30ECC8162@gromit.dlib.vt.edu>
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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
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