Date: Sun, 9 Sep 2018 14:42:39 -0500 From: Justin Hibbits <jrh29@alumni.cwru.edu> To: matthew@freebsd.org Cc: "freebsd-arch@freebsd.org" <freebsd-arch@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: Which platform should I download for FreeBSD? Message-ID: <CAHSQbTCz7G6XaHJo8Bic6D2iA1wtL6yueybP21mk5FbpLcVRFQ@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <35d1fdd4-3aac-7b2b-a778-36c517da7ade@FreeBSD.org> References: <639A96B3-0661-47B9-81A7-1284A6AE9733@icloud.com> <daeb616d-cd22-1172-ad5e-cb6527619194@quip.cz> <35d1fdd4-3aac-7b2b-a778-36c517da7ade@FreeBSD.org>
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On Sun, Sep 9, 2018 at 11:14 AM Matthew Seaman <matthew@freebsd.org> wrote: > > On 09/09/2018 14:20, Miroslav Lachman wrote: > > Jason Lindsey via freebsd-arch wrote on 2018/09/09 01:53: > >> I hope you help me, > >> > >> I own a iMac 64, and do not know if I should download amd64 or arm64 > >> platforms to support FreeBSD. I would appreciate an answer to my > >> question ASAP, in that I currently learning Solaris 10 and other > >> versions of BSD software. I would like to include FreeBSD in my studies. > > Solaris 10 is SysV, not BSD. You have to go all the way back to SunOS > 4.x for the last BSD variant from Sun. A pedantic distinction I know, > but it's what some of us live for. > > > I don't own any Apple products but AFAIK all modern Apple computers are > > using Intel x86 CPUs. If this is true for your model then you need to > > download amd64 version of FreeBSD system. > > According to Wikipedia (the source of all knowledge....) the iMac G3, G4 > or G5 systems were based on PowerPC processors -- > > - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMac_G3 > - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMac_G4 > - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMac_G5 > > However those were discontinued in 2006 in favour of the Intel based iMac > > - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMac_(Intel-based) > > So, unless the OP has a rather elderly machine, amd64 is the > architecture you need. There did use to be some PPC support in FreeBSD, > but it never was a Tier-1 architecture, and I think it's basically > unsupported if not gone entirely on up-to-date versions of the OS. PowerPC is well supported, and even has two new quite active developers. It runs on older Apple hardware, IBM POWER* server hardware, and embedded Freescale Book-E hardware. I myself have all three variants: multiple PowerMacs and PowerBooks, 3 Book-E systems (including two desktop systems), and a Talos POWER9 system, all running FreeBSD. There is a strong effort underway to have official PowerPC packages built as well. So it's far from being unsupported. - Justin
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