FreeBSD/ppc Project
Introduction
The FreeBSD/ppc project pages contain information about the FreeBSD port to the PowerPC® architecture. As with the port itself, these pages are still a work in progress.
Table Of Contents
Status
The FreeBSD/ppc port is still a Tier 2 platform. That means it is not being fully supported by our security officer, release engineers and toolchain maintainers. However, it is supported by portmgr (package building).
The most up-to-date information about supported hardware is currently being maintained on the wiki.
Latest News
-
13 Apr, 2021: FreeBSD 13.0 was released introducing new target powerpc64le and LLVM as main compiler. Supports disk, network and video controller drivers for modern POWER machines from Raptor Computing (Blackbird and Talos II) and IBM (LC922 and IC922). Release Notes
-
22 Sep, 2020: new target powerpc64le (64-bit little endian) was introduced targetting POWER8 and newer processors.
-
29 Dec, 2019: Release 13.0 for powerpc, powerpcspe and powerpc64 targets will replace GCC4 by LLVM compiler and powerpc64 will use the modern OpenPower 64-Bit ELF V2 ABI Specification.
-
05 May, 2019: FreeBSD has been tested and seems to work on the Raptor Blackbird.
Frequently Asked Questions
How can I install FreeBSD/ppc?
ISO images of FreeBSD 13.0 are available for download, for details on how to obtain these see the release announcement. FreeBSD 12.x is not supported any more and its use is strongly discouraged. ABI changes makes 12.x binary-incompatible with 13.x and later.
How to use ports on FreeBSD/ppc?
Refer to the Handbook: use the Ports Collection.
Should I install powerpc, powerpcspe, powerpc64 or powerpc64le?
-
64-bit
-
Users of 64-bit bi-endian CPUs POWER8 and POWER9: can choose between FreeBSD/powerpc64 and FreeBSD/powerpc64le (big endian and little endian, respectively). The FreeBSD/powerpc64 (big endian) also supports running 32-bit binaries nativelly like other 64-bit platforms.
-
Users of 64-bit big endian CPUs Apple G5 and POWER7: FreeBSD/powerpc64 should be installed. Apple G5 users also have a choice of using the 32-bit FreeBSD/powerpc but FreeBSD/powerpc64 provides ZFS support and the ability of use more than 2 GB of RAM.
-
-
32-bit
-
Users of 32-bit CPUs Apple G3/G4: should use FreeBSD/powerpc
-
Users of 32-bit CPUs Freescale MPC85XX (Routerboard RB800) and NXP QorIQ P1022 (AmigaOne A1222): should use FreeBSD/powerpcspe
-
Supported Hardware
The most up-to-date information about supported hardware is currently being maintained on the wiki.
The FreeBSD/ppc port should run on any New-World Apple machine (any Apple machine with a built-in USB port), as well as the Sony Playstation 3. FreeBSD/ppc port should also run on QEMU. Details can be found on powerpc/QEMU wiki.
People have previously reported that FreeBSD runs on the following machines:
| Manufacturer | Model | Submitter (optional links) | Release | Arch | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
A-EON |
AmigaONE A1222 |
FreeBSD 13.0 |
powerpcspe |
||
A-EON |
AmigaONE X5000 |
FreeBSD 13.0 |
powerpc64 |
||
Apple |
iMac G3 350 MHz |
Rage 128VR |
|||
Apple |
iMac G3 DV Special Edition |
None |
|||
Apple |
iMac G3 Revision B |
Rage 3D Pro 215GP, accel disabled |
|||
Apple |
eMac 700 MHz |
NVIDIA® GeForce2 MX |
|||
Apple |
Mac Mini G4 1.4 GHz |
None |
|||
Apple |
Powerbook G4 1.33 GHz |
NVIDIA® GeForce G5200 |
|||
Apple |
Aluminium Powerbook G4 1.5 GHz |
None |
|||
Apple |
PowerMac G5 |
FreeBSD 8.0 |
|||
Apple |
iMac G5 |
FreeBSD 8.0 |
|||
Apple |
Xserve G5 |
FreeBSD 8.1 |
|||
Apple |
PowerMac G5 (late 2005) |
FreeBSD 8.1 |
|||
IBM |
Power System S812L / 8247-21L (POWER8) |
FreeBSD 13.0 |
powerpc64, powerpc64le |
||
IBM |
Power System LC922 (POWER9) |
FreeBSD 13.0 |
powerpc64, powerpc64le |
||
IBM |
Power System IC922 (POWER9) |
FreeBSD 13.0 |
powerpc64, powerpc64le |
verified with 1.5 TB of RAM |
|
MikroTik |
Routerboard RB800 |
FreeBSD 13.0 |
powerpcspe |
||
Raptor CS |
Blackbird Secure Desktop (POWER9) |
FreeBSD 13.0 |
powerpc64, powerpc64le |
Firmware v2.00, onboard HDMI |
|
Raptor CS |
Talos II Desktop Development System (POWER9) |
FreeBSD 13.0 |
powerpc64, powerpc64le |
Firmware v2.00, onboard VGA |
|
Raptor CS |
Talos II 2U Rack Mount Server (POWER9) |
FreeBSD 13.0 |
powerpc64, powerpc64le |
Firmware v2.00 |
FreeBSD/ppc mailing list
To subscribe to this list, send an email to <freebsd-ppc+subscribe@FreeBSD.org> or visit the mlmmj interface.
Known Issues
-
Raptor CS Blackbird and Talos II: recent firmware versions don’t report the onboard video framebuffer memory address on the device tree anymore. The workaround is append the content below to the kernel arguments during boot or set it permanently in /boot/etc/kboot.conf: :
hw.ofwfb.physaddr=0x000600c280000000
Note: FreeBSD 13.1, yet to be released, detects the memory address automatically using an alternative method
-
IBM POWER8 and POWER9: As of 2021-11-30 the firmware of IBM POWER9 and some IBM POWER8 machines contain a version of kexec-lite with a regression that computes FreeBSD kernel entry point erroneously. Workaround: on petitboot console download http://drop.rtk0.net/kexec and use it manually to load the kernel instead. Thanks Brandon Bergren for making the fixed binary available.
-
On New-World Apples, there is a known bug in the boot-loader, that prevents you from loading an alternate kernel, so testing your kernel is a bit risky. When booting the loader from the Open Firmware prompt, give it a partition which is either non-existent, doesn’t have a kernel to load, or isn’t a UFS partition:
0 > boot hd:loader hd:0
At this point, you can set currdev and manually load a kernel:
OK set currdev="hd":14 OK load /boot/kernel/kernel.save
Documentation, White Papers, Utilities
Other Links of Interest
Last modified on: August 5, 2024 by Mathieu Arnold