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.
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.
ISO images of FreeBSD &rel.current; are available for download, for details on how to obtain these see the release announcement.
The easiest way to use ports on FreeBSD is to use portsnap. Refer to the Handbook if you need assistance to use the Ports Collection.
The powerpc64 port provides a 64-bit kernel and userland, and is supported on all 64-bit CPUs. Users of 32-bit CPUs (Apple G3/G4) must use the 32-bit powerpc platform, users of 64-bit CPUs that support 32-bit operating systems (Apple G5) have a choice, and users of 64-bit CPUs that do not must use powerpc64. For those users with a choice, powerpc64 provides some additional features (the ability to use more than 2 GB of RAM and ZFS support). Like other 64-bit platforms, FreeBSD/powerpc64 supports running 32-bit binaries as well as 64-bit ones.
The FreeBSD/ppc mailing list is the main resource.
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.
People have previously reported that FreeBSD runs on the following machines:
| Manufacturer | Model | Submitter (optional links) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apple | iMac G3 350 MHz | Martin Minkus | Rage 128VR |
| Apple | iMac G3 DV Special Edition | David S. Besade (dmesg) | None |
| Apple | iMac G3 Revision B | Peter Grehan | Rage 3D Pro 215GP, accel disabled |
| Apple | eMac 700 MHz | Peter Grehan | Nvidia GeForce2 MX |
| Apple | Mac Mini G4 1.4 GHz | Tilman Linneweh (dmesg) | None |
| Apple | Powerbook G4 1.33 GHz | Peter Grehan | Nvidia GeForce G5200 |
| Apple | Aluminium Powerbook G4 1.5 GHz | Andreas Tobler | 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 |
To subscribe to this list, send an email to <freebsd-ppc-subscribe@FreeBSD.org> or visit the mailman interface.
0 > boot hd:loader hd:0At this point, you can set currdev and manually load a kernel:
OK set currdev="hd":14 OK load /boot/kernel/kernel.save