# Switch Endian on PowerPC



## tuaris (Mar 14, 2014)

From what I understand the PowerPC chips support the ability to switch from Big Endian to Little Endian.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerPC#Endian_modes

I was wondering if that is something that can be done with FreeBSD on a G5 so I can run net-p2p/bitcoin (which supports only little endian at the moment).


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## ralphbsz (Mar 15, 2014)

While the Power CPU and instruction set is in theory bi-endian (they can switch from big- to little-endian), that requires support on the motherboard.  I remember that some really old PowerPC based Macs had this built in, to make it easier to emulate x86 machines (before VMWare and BootCamp there was some early Windows emulation software on Macs).  Rumor has it that recent OpenPower hardware has it again, to better compete in an x86-dominated market place.  But if I remember right, for a long time both PowerPC based Macs and maybe even IBM RS6K machines did not have that ability, since few people were using it.

You might want to check in detail whether your G5 motherboard is even capable of running little-endian, before you embark on trying to switch the OS.


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