# Virtualization on PPC



## in3D (Jun 3, 2014)

I was helping a family from my church move, and I dug up a Power Mac G4. They told me I could have it! ((@_@)) (I'm a PPC mac geek)

I brought it home and looked at the back cover, and found that it was a 350Mhz model. T_T

But then I opened it to find that it had a slammin' 1.3Ghz dual processor upgrade card, 1.5GB of RAM, Radeon 9200, and 3 HDDs. x_x

I want to run FreeBSD on it, but I'm not sure if it will work with all the replaced parts. Also, I want to run several OSes (FreeBSD, Mac OS X Tiger, Mac OS X Leopard, Mac OS X Server 1.0, Mac OS X DP 2, and Mac OS 9.) So, I'm looking for a virtual machine program that works on PPC computers, and doesn't EMULATE. I would go with QEMU, but since it's multiplatform, I doubt it's capable of native PPC execution without any dynarec. (I'd like to be corrected)


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## tingo (Jun 6, 2014)

Just pointing out here that your goal of having several OS'es installed can be achieved without emulation. You only need emulation if you are going to run them simultaneously. 
The config of your machine (only 1.5  GB memory) won't allow you to run more than a couple of virtual machines at the same time, at least not as a pleasant experience.


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## in3D (Jun 9, 2014)

I prefer virtual machines over dual booting. How'bout 2GB? I'm planning on upgrading. Keep in mind besides the host (FreeBSD) all of the OSes on that list are more than seven years old. The newest one (Leopard) requires only 512MB. On my old 2GB PC, I've gotten away with giving 512MB to VMs.

BTW, I DO NOT want emulation, I want virtualization (much faster).


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## sossego (Jun 26, 2014)

There is Xen for PPC on FreeBSD. You will need to contact the mailing list. Qemu can be used provided that the environment is able to support the guest.


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## SirDice (Jun 28, 2014)

I'm wondering if yours or the PowerPC architecture, in general, has hardware assisted virtualization. I know the x86 architecture had something since the first Pentium processors and it progressed into Intel's VT-d and VT-x for example. But I couldn't find much about the PowerPC architecture. Some big servers based on PPC seem to have a hardware hypervisor and the G5 may have some functionality but I'm not so sure about the G4.


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## in3D (Jul 6, 2014)

I thought you don't need it to be hardware assisted. I thought it just natively executed certain instructions while dynarecing others. BTW sending this from a crazy slow ppc lubuntu live dvd with graphic problems...


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## SirDice (Jul 8, 2014)

in3D said:
			
		

> I thought you don't need it to be hardware assisted. I thought it just natively executed certain instructions while dynarecing others.


Sure, but I think that would be more like emulation instead of virtualization. Which is something you didn't want.

I was hoping somebody with more intimate knowledge about the PPC architecture would respond. I'm genuinely interested in anything and everything low-level and I have to admit I know very little about the PPC architecture.


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## in3D (Jul 8, 2014)

yeah me neither. I guess qemu will do. thanks.


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