Annotation of www/powerpc.html, Revision 1.22
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1.1 deraadt 3: <head>
1.22 ! rahnds 4: <title>OpenBSD/powerpc</title>
1.3 fn 5: <link rev=made href=mailto:www@openbsd.org>
6: <meta name="resource-type" content="document">
1.22 ! rahnds 7: <meta name="description" content="the OpenBSD/powerpc page">
1.8 rahnds 8: <meta name="keywords" content="openbsd,ppc,powerpc">
1.3 fn 9: <meta name="distribution" content="global">
1.22 ! rahnds 10: <meta name="copyright" content="This document copyright 1996-1999 by OpenBSD.">
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12:
1.16 johns 13: <BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#000000" LINK="#23238E">
1.3 fn 14:
1.8 rahnds 15: <h2>OpenBSD/powerpc</h2>
1.1 deraadt 16:
1.3 fn 17: <hr>
1.8 rahnds 18: <h3><strong>Status:</strong></h3>
1.1 deraadt 19:
1.3 fn 20: <p>
1.11 deraadt 21: This is a rather new port. It supports some types of machines with
22: PowerPC processors in them -- <strong>but not all</strong>. Even though
1.17 todd 23: there are standards committees trying to resolve the problem, there are
1.11 deraadt 24: significant differences between various PowerPC computers, even when made
25: by the same vendor! This port will run on some machines, but not on others.
26: Check the list below.
1.12 deraadt 27:
28: <p>
29: To work, a machine MUST have some variety of OpenBoot firmware!
1.22 ! rahnds 30:
1.11 deraadt 31: <p>
1.22 ! rahnds 32: The processor support is quite stable at this point.
! 33: Driver support is currently somewhat limited, due to most PCI devices
! 34: only having been tested on little-endian machines. Additional device
! 35: support for Macintosh hardware systems is under development any
! 36: programming information for any recent Mac hardware would improve
! 37: this situation.
1.11 deraadt 38:
39: <p>
1.22 ! rahnds 40: The following processors are supported: 603, 603e, 604, 604ev, 750.
1.1 deraadt 41:
42: <p>
1.11 deraadt 43: The port does not yet use real device drivers. It uses OpenFirmware
44: for all device driver needs: console, disk, ethernet. It can be
1.20 rahnds 45: installed from netboot, floppy and network or cdrom. Netroot
1.11 deraadt 46: support exists, but is untested.
1.20 rahnds 47:
48: The port has two versions of the kernel, one which only uses openfirmware
49: for all devices, and a version that has been coded to support some MCG
50: PowerStack and VI series machines.
1.8 rahnds 51: </p>
52:
53: <p>
1.11 deraadt 54: <strong>Known working hardware:</strong>
55: <ul>
56: <li> Motorola machines
57: with OpenFirmware (PPC1bug firmware is known not to work):
1.20 rahnds 58: (Machines with 603* processors and some version of Motorola openfirmware are known to not work)
1.8 rahnds 59: <ul>
60: <li>Series E
61: <li>RiscPC
62: <li>Pro2000
63: <li>Pro3000
1.22 ! rahnds 64: <li>Pro4000
1.20 rahnds 65: </ul>
66: <li> V-I
67: <ul>
68: <li>Power4e boards.
1.8 rahnds 69: </ul>
1.11 deraadt 70: </ul>
71:
72: <p>
1.22 ! rahnds 73: <strong>Hardware support under development:</strong>
1.8 rahnds 74: <ul>
1.22 ! rahnds 75: <li>Apple PowerMac systems with at least a 603 processor and OpenFirmware.
1.11 deraadt 76: <ul>
1.22 ! rahnds 77: <li>Only the Apple imac (333Mhz) currenly has driver support.
! 78: <li>Other systems supported with hardware availability and driver information.
! 79: more recent systems will be given priority over older/slower systems.
1.8 rahnds 80: </ul>
1.11 deraadt 81: </ul>
82:
83: <p>
84: <strong>Machines that DO NOT WORK</strong>.
1.8 rahnds 85: <ul>
1.14 deraadt 86: <li>IBM machines.
1.11 deraadt 87: <li>PPCP class machines.
1.13 deraadt 88: <li>Apple PowerMac systems with a 601 processor or lack OpenFirmware
89: will never work.
1.22 ! rahnds 90: <li>The Apple implementation of OpenFirmware does not support loading of ELF
1.11 deraadt 91: executables (like the boot-blocks for this port). This needs a workaround.
1.8 rahnds 92: </ul>
93: </p>
94:
95: <h3><strong>History:</strong></h3>
96:
97: <p>
98: The powerpc specific portions of the kernel came from the NetBSD port
99: by Wolfgang Solfrank. The userland and build tools came from an
1.17 todd 100: independent and incomplete port by Dale Rahn. Hopefully pieces
1.8 rahnds 101: from that other port will be merged, device driver support for
102: interrupts and some real driver support.
103: The conversion to the Wolfgang port was done because it was running
104: multiuser and the other port was still single user out of memory ramdisk
105: (no fully working device drivers).
1.20 rahnds 106: <p>
107: After that work was done Per Fogelstrom added support for the VI Power4e
108: vme board, removing openfirmware device support in the processes. (2.3 release)
109: <p>
110: For the 2.4 release, support for the openfirmware devices were added back
111: in a compatible fashion such that mixed ofw drivers and hardware drivers
112: could be supported. After that was finished, the power4e support was adapted
113: to work on the MCG PowerStack machines. Dec 21040, and some vga support was
114: added, vga cannot be used as console yet, but can be used as a terminal.
115: No X servers are supported, but the mechanism to access vga via mmap exists.
1.8 rahnds 116: <p>
1.22 ! rahnds 117: For 2.5 support continued at the previous level as 2.4.
! 118: <p>
! 119: For 2.6 support an offical release was not made for the powerpc port.
! 120: Work on the iMac had started and compiler loader issues had not been
! 121: resolved which prevented the system from building out of the tree.
! 122: <p>
! 123: Post 2.6, iMac support has been added, further development is underway
! 124: to support the imac devices better and add support for other systems.
! 125: Initally with the imac driver support, compatibility with older
! 126: systems was lost. This is primarily due to a lack of testing, these
! 127: systems will be supported once the system changes are backported.
! 128: <p>
! 129:
1.8 rahnds 130: Contact
131: <a href=mailto:deraadt@theos.com>Theo de Raadt</a> or
1.21 rahnds 132: <a href=mailto:rahnds@openbsd.org>Dale Rahn</a>
1.8 rahnds 133: if you are interested in working with other people on this, or need more
1.1 deraadt 134: information.
1.3 fn 135: </p>
1.1 deraadt 136:
1.3 fn 137: <hr>
1.19 pauls 138: <a href=plat.html><img height=24 width=24 src=back.gif border=0 alt=OpenBSD></a>
1.1 deraadt 139: <a href=mailto:www@openbsd.org>www@openbsd.org</a>
1.3 fn 140: <br>
1.22 ! rahnds 141: <small>$OpenBSD: powerpc.html,v 1.21 1998/12/02 05:55:23 rahnds Exp $</small>
1.3 fn 142:
143: </body>
144: </html>
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