The powerpc port was first imported into OpenBSD at the end of 1996. Portions of the kernel port came from the NetBSD/macppc port, and the userland and build ports came from Dale Rahn.
Dale added ELF binary support, and then work with Per Fogelstrom continued on general driver support for the next few releases. Support was added for OpenFirmware, VI Power4e boards, MCG Powerstack machines, Dec 21040, VGA terminal support, and so on.
In 1998, the focus shifted towards the Apple machines, and Dale Rahn started work to make the range of iMacs and PowerMacs work with this port. Due to this, official powerpc releases were not made for the 2.6 and 2.7 releases as work continued. A number of compiler loader issues were resolved, a lot of iMac driver support was added, and compatibility with older systems was withdrawn to fully concentrate on the Apple machines.
And now, the 2.8 release at the end of 2000 will be including an official powerpc port.
Currently only New World machines are supported. Tested working machines are the iMac machines Rev A - Rev C, and the PowerMac G4 systems including the Cube. To improve the list below, please mail your dmesg after installation to dmesg@openbsd.org, as detailed in the FAQ.
Machines
Onboard I/O modules (obio)
PCI-Bridges
Video Cards
Ethernet
SCSI Host Adapters
Drives
USB Controllers/Hubs
USB Devices
With multiple drives installed in the system, only certain drives can
be configured as an OpenBSD root drive. Any other configurations than
those below will not be able to properly detect which drive is the root
drive, and so any attempt with either prompt for a root drive, or fail.
The current X server has no mechanism to change the resolution
of the display. To change the resolution, it is necessary to boot MacOS
and change to the desired resolution under MacOS. It will save that
resolution and OpenFirmware will boot in that resolution until connected
to a different monitor. The X server will run in whatever resolution
OpenFirmware boots in.
If you are looking for to test new pre-release features, you can
try one of the snapshots.
For the powerpc architecture, snapshots are made available from time to time.
Contact
Theo de Raadt or
Dale Rahn
if you are interested in working with other people on this, or need more
information.
Unsupported Hardware:
Root Drive:
X Resolution:
www@openbsd.org
$OpenBSD: powerpc.html,v 1.27 2000/11/21 07:29:40 deraadt Exp $