# Macintosh PowerMac G4 ATi Graphics, problems with booting RELEASE install



## rusma (Jan 16, 2011)

Hello. 

I recently got a PowerMac G4 from 1999 (the one with ATi PCI graphics), and it is lightning-fast! 

Installed new harddrive, and I'm curious to know if a FreeBSD/PowerPC installation would be possible. I've already tried booting from a cd the FreeBSD-8.1-RELEASE-PowerPC-disc1.iso from the mirrors. It did not work -- there were some complaints about bm0 ... Where can I find a .iso that is possible to boot? First I was thinking some snapshot would work, but there is no snapshots for the PowerPC architecture (at least not in the Stockholm Central mirror). 

I've tried some other Operating Systems on it yesterday ... ArchLinux/PPC got a panic, but Debian/PowerPC netinst did work. So now it runs Debian/PowerPC, but I think FreeBSD/PowerPC seems more like me ... Have not tried OpenBSD/macppc, though, but, nah ... I'm already running OpenBSD on the soekris ...

When everything is set up I am thinking of doing some tests and maybe do some mail, temperature or samba stuff ...


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## tingo (Jan 16, 2011)

It is possible to install FreeBSD on a PowerMac G4, I have done it[1]. There is a snapshot for FreeBSD 8.2-RC1, but you might need to get it from another mirror, or from ftp.freebsd.org. Hope this helps.

References:
1) http://sites.google.com/site/tingox/powermac_g4_freebsd


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## sossego (Jan 16, 2011)

If it's PCI graphics, then you can go with the normal install. If it's agp, 
you'll need to run snapshot 9 and build then install the agp module.


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## rusma (Jan 17, 2011)

Hello. 

@tingo: cool worklog. It looks like you have accomplished many things. I am hoping to do something similar. 

@sossego: I think I do have the one with PCI graphics. It has three PCI-X (64bit?) sockets, one of which is housing a Adaptec SCSI card. The ATi graphics card is in a regular PCI 32bit socket at the top. I've just briefly looked inside. The case has gathered some wool-like dust, and unpleasant, ash-like particles. 

@everyone: So, where can I find a snapshot of CURRENT, if this has better support than the 8.1-RELEASE? e.g. in ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/snapshots/201101/, there are only sparc64, i386 and amd64. Maybe there is some way I can compile it myself?


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## sossego (Jan 17, 2011)

Clean it out first.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Mac_G4

See which version it is from the above link.

ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/powerpc/ISO-IMAGES/8.2/

or 7.3 or 8.1 or 7.4.

If the graphics card is in a dark brown slot, then it has an agp graphics card.

You will need to get the snapshot from http://people.freebsd.org/~nwhitehorn/FreeBSD-9.0-20100418-SNAP-powerpc/ .

Be sure to have a backup battery for your motherboard.


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## rusma (Jan 22, 2011)

Hello.

No brown AGP slot here. 

I've tried to boot both the 8.2R and that SNAPSHOT (disc1), both turns out to a system-freeze during the bootup. I've typed down the output on the 80*24 (or something) screen which is connected. Here is it: 
	
	



```
cpu0: <Open Firmware CPU> on cpulist0
pcib0: <MPC106 (Grackle) Host-PCI bridge> on nexus0
pci0: <OFW PCI bus> on pcib0
pcib1: <OFW PCI-PCI bridge> at device 13.0 on pci0
pci1: <OFW PCI bus> on pcib1
macio0: <Paddington I/O Controller> mem 0x80800000-0x8087ffff at device 5.0 on pci1
hrowpic0: <Heathrow MacIO interrupt controller> mem 0x10-0x2f on macio0
scc0: <Zilog Z8530 dual channel SCC> mem 0x13000-0x13fff,0x8400-0x84ff,0x8500-0x85ff,0x9600-0x86ff irq 15,4,5,16,6,7 on macio0
scc0: [FILTER]
scc0: [FILTER]
uart0: <z8530, channel A> on scc0
uart0: [FILTER]
uart1: <z8530, channel B> on scc0
uart1: [FILTER]
cuda0: <Apple CUDA I/O Controller> mem 0x16000-0x17fff irq 16 on macio0
cuda0: [ITHREAD]
adb0: <Apple Desktop Bus> on cuda0
ata0: <Apple MacIO ATA Controller> mem 0x20000-0x20fff,0,8b00-0x8bff irq 12,2 on macio0
ata0: [ITHREAD]
bm0: <Apple BMAC+ Ethernet Adaptor> mem 0x11000-0x11fff,0x8200-0x92ff,0x8300-0x83ff irq 42,32,33 on macio0
bm0: [ITHREAD]
bm0: [ITHREAD]
bm0: Enabling BMAC cell failed! Hoping it's already active.
```
Hopes this is useful information. 

OT: Sorry for the delay -- I've had some busy week.


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## sossego (Jan 22, 2011)

OK.
Use 8.1 since you have pci graphics.
At the initial boot screen which will have the white background of open firmware,
hit the spacebar to stop the booting process.


```
boot -v
```
 for verbose

```
boot -s
```
 for single

Look at the output


Do you have an early model of PowerMac G4 that is similar to the B&W G3?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Macintosh_G3_(Blue_&_White)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Mac_G4


If so, I have the same trouble with the board on the G3.


I've had to reboot numerous times to get any system installed. 
Currently, I'm setting up OpenBSD on the G3 for a temporary project.
Dmesg shows 
	
	



```
bm0: device timeout
```
 a dozen times. 
OS does not matter when it comes to hardware errors.

Do you have any spare network cards?
That is one solution.


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## agranner (Apr 6, 2011)

I'm trying to install the 9.0-CURRENT snapshot 201102 on a PowerMac G4 Quicksilver with:

733 MHz G4 (7450 I think)
AGP -> Ati Radeon 9000 Pro (from a mirror door G4)
Apple Studio Display with ADC 
upgraded DVD-RW

Previous install of 8.2-RELEASE was successful but I was having difficulty with X.org. Since I have AGP graphics, I decided to try the snapshot.

OF boots the cd but the process freezes at


```
acd0: DVDR <PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-116D/1.03> at ata1-master WDMA2
```

I assume something in /boot/defaults/loader.conf is not agreeing with my system so I'll have to pass some argument to the boot loader prompt to correct it. Not sure what that might be though.

Thanks


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## tingo (Apr 9, 2011)

Try to disable DMA for the CD-ROM drive.


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