FreeBSD/PPC 6.0-RELEASE install.iso ------------------------------------ Please note! This is a very preliminary so all caveats apply. Adventurous users only! 1. Supported h/w G5 - nope. G4 powermacs - should work well with graphical console. serial console may be broken - I can't test it. G4 ibooks/powerbooks - internal keyboard/mouse not supported, external USB kbd works on non-USB2 systems. UPDATE: on some newer ibooks/powerbooks there is a non-existent USB keyboard/mouse. To avoid this being probed (and taking over the syscons kbd/mse role), disable this slot at the loader prompt: OK set hint.pcib.1.skipslot=26 G3 ibooks - my 366Mhz toilet-seat hangs at probing non-existent USB port. Others should far better. External USB keyboard required. UPDATE: to avoid the hang, the problematic (and non-existent) USB slot can be disabled at the loader prompt: OK set hint.pcib.1.skipslot=25 B&W G3 - works, but seems a tad flaky. The CMD646 PCI ATA controller seems to be the culprit. Built-in eth not yet supported, but a PCI fxp should work. UPDATE: if ata dma is disabled the CMD646 seems to work a lot better. At the loader prompt: OK set hw.ata.ata_dma=0 revA-D iMac - works well, but built-in eth not yet supported. older than NewWorld (e.g. beige G3) - nope. 2. Prerequisites for install There should be a spare partition available to drop FreeBSD onto. Two if swap is needed. You should know how to do this: if not, the install isn't for you :( 3. Booting the CD Holding down 'C' at boot time should work. However, it is known *not* to work on my G4 eMac. In that case, drop into OpenFirmware and run 0 > boot cd:,\boot\loader cd:0 (note that this works on all platforms). This should come up in the familiar sysinstall menu. UPDATE: a number of early G4 powermacs also have this problem. However, the manual boot won't work. The bug will be fixed in 6.1. 4. Installation. Same as for other platforms, except that only existing disk partitions can be used. Unfortunately, you have to remember the partition number (or at least the size) of the partitions that were set up for FreeBSD. 5. First boot Here's the rub: OpenFirmware doesn't understand UFS2. It does understand iso9660 and HFS+, so the loader must live on a disk/partition of that type. So, you can either: a) leave the CD in the drive, break into OpenFirmware at boot, and 0 > boot cd:,\boot\loader hd:11 (or hd:X, where X is the partition number that FreeBSD was installed on) or b) Boot into OSX and copy /boot/loader from the miniinst CD into / on OSX. Reboot, break into OpenFirmware, and 0 > boot hd:loader hd:11 (or as above, hd:X)