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Date:      Mon, 28 Jan 2019 13:42:36 -0800
From:      Mark Millard <marklmi@yahoo.com>
To:        Curtis Hamilton <clhamilto@gmail.com>
Cc:        freebsd-ppc@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Booting and Installing Release 12 on PowerMac G5 "Quad Core"
Message-ID:  <30652AD4-E660-4888-BAA9-22082A059DB1@yahoo.com>
In-Reply-To: <A64FD607-1688-4672-985F-CC41861D5B14@yahoo.com>
References:  <283c5d11-7363-f9e3-48cc-42bd6d036236@gmail.com> <A64FD607-1688-4672-985F-CC41861D5B14@yahoo.com>

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[ For head usefdt=3D1 does work by itself without reverting =
VM_MAX_KERNEL_ADDRESS .]

On 2019-Jan-27, at 21:57, Mark Millard <marklmi@yahoo.com> wrote:



> On 2019-Jan-27, at 16:05, Curtis Hamilton <clhamilto at gmail.com> =
wrote:
>=20
>> Is there a recommended solution to booting/installing Release 12 on =
the PowerMac G5 "Quad Core"?
>>=20
>> I've read through all the threads in this mailing list, but have yet =
to find a solution that works on my Mac.  Many of the referenced =
snapshot kernels could not be located.  Building from source yielded the =
same results as down loaded pre-built images.
>>=20
>> Any tips or hits would be appreciated.
>=20
> A specific change was made for powerpc64 that lead to this G5 boot =
problem.
> However, it appears to just have exposed some previously unknown =
problem rather
> than the change itself being wrong. I'm not aware of anyone having =
figured
> out the underlying problem --or even of having figured out a way to =
figure
> it out. I know I've not come up with any ideas so far. So far as I =
know, only
> old PowerMacs show such odd behavior with the change.
>=20
> So for now I base my builds on reverting the change in question. (I =
normally
> use head, including 12 back when it was head.)
>=20
> . . ./sys/powerpc/include/vmparam.h has a definition of =
VM_MAX_KERNEL_ADDRESS .
> I reverted the:
>=20
> #define VM_MAX_KERNEL_ADDRESS           0xe0000007ffffffffUL
>=20
> to be:
>=20
> #define VM_MAX_KERNEL_ADDRESS           0xe0000001c7ffffffUL
>=20
> instead. But, again, I expect that this is a way of sidestepping =
another
> problem that has not been found: a hack/workaround instead of a valid,
> general fix.
>=20
> Disabling smp via the following at the loader prompt seems to avoid
> the problem without such a change to to VM_MAX_KERNEL_ADDRESS :
>=20
> set kern.smp.disabled=3D1
>=20
> Nothing else has to be set to my knowledge. But using a single =
CPU/core
> has other consequences that may be of note depending on what one wants
> to do with the G5.
>=20
>=20
>=20
> [For the following: I believe it only applies to head , not even
> stable/12: The fix so that usefdt would work at all ( -r341614 )
> is for . . ./sys/powerpc/powermac/macgpio.c and has not been
> merged to stable/12 ( and, so, not to release/12.0.0 ).]
>=20
> As far as I know the following by itself at the loader prompt does not
> side step the VM_MAX_KERNEL_ADDRESS related problem:
>=20
> set usefdt=3D1

I realized that I'd not tried usefdt=3D1 by itself after it was fixed.
So I built and installed a kernel without reverting =
VM_MAX_KERNEL_ADDRESS
and tried it using "set usefdt=3D1" and it worked just fine. (It did =
swap
the 0 vs. 1 of the ethernet ports.)

So I'll probably modify my loader to be a variant that does not
require the explicit set usefdt=3D1 for powermacs and see how that goes.

>=20
> However, usefdt should avoid other issues with mixing use of Apple's
> OpenFirmware with FreeBSD execution. (It does swap which Ethernet
> port is 0 vs. 1 as seen in FreeBSD.)
>=20
> So once stable/12 has the update to sys/powerpc/powermac/macgpio.c
> then usefdt=3D1 would likely be recommended for stable/12 as well.
> (It will be a while before it shows up in a release/12.?.? .)





=3D=3D=3D
Mark Millard
marklmi at yahoo.com
( dsl-only.net went
away in early 2018-Mar)




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