Date: Wed, 15 May 1996 16:57:11 -0700 (MST) From: Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org> To: mlm@jyc.com (Mike McCulloch) Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD compatibility with the PowerPC chip Message-ID: <199605152357.QAA15683@phaeton.artisoft.com> In-Reply-To: <319A22A7.3B39@jyc.com> from "Mike McCulloch" at May 15, 96 02:29:59 pm
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> I am just getting introduced to FreeBSD. Therefore I know very little > about the operating system. > > Question: Is FreeBSD capable of running on a PowerPC machine? If not, is > there any work currently that has the objective of adding PowerPC chips > to the list of compatible CPUs? I have a partially completed port to the PPC. It's a bugger tracking -current, but that has settled down lately. Now the problem is the GCC code for the cross environment (I was using the AIX compiler). The PPC hardware I'm using is the PPC Ultra 603 motherboard; this is the board sold by Arrow electronics and used in the Motorolla "PowerStac" systems. This is *NOT* the Apple board. Apple will not document their hardware sufficiently to write drivers for the native hardware without disassembling or otherwise using their ROMs. If you are asking because you own Apple hardware, forget it for at least 6 months. There is a lot of code coming together at once, specifically, the DEVFS code, and the logical-to-physical devices and DEVFS hierarchical device discovery code I've been talking about on -current on and off. This particular code is needed for device layout an recognition. I also still have a minor boot problem because the PPCBug documentation I ordered from Arrow Electronics for ~$250 was shipped UPS even though I paid extra for FedEx, and they never sent the fax they were supposed to following shipment. The upshot is that it will cost me another $250 dollars to have them ship it to our shipping department (where UPS delivers) instead of our front office (where FedEx delivers) without a signature (which FedEx will require instead of losing the damn thing) and I don't know if I'm willing to flush another $250 down the toilet right now. I'll decide when the boot code is the only thing left to bang on. Expect something ~ halfway through July, if we can work out the tree integration issues instantaneously 8-), or a little later otherwise. Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers.
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