# Dual PowerPC G4 SMP



## Tyler615 (Dec 3, 2015)

Hello,

I recently acquired an old Apple XServe G4 with a dual 1.0Ghz G4 processor. I was able to install FreeBSD 10.2 on the machine with zero issues. My only gripe is that though 2 logical processors are present, SMP fails to launch and only one CPU is recognized.

Supporting evidence:

`dmesg | grep cpu`

```
cpu0: Motorola PowerPC 7455 revision 2.1, 1000.35 MHz
cpu0: Features 9c000000<PPC32,ALTIVEC,FPU,MMU>
cpu0: HID0 8450c0bc<EMCP,TBEN,NAP,DPM,ICE,DCE,SGE,BTIC,LRSTK,FOLD,BHT>
cpulist0: <Open Firmware CPU Group> on ofwbus0
cpu0: <Open Firmware CPU> on cpulist0
```
`sysctl kern.sched.topology_spec`

```
kern.sched.topology_spec: <groups>
<group level="1" cache-level="0">
  <cpu count="1" mask="1">0</cpu>
</group>
</groups>
```

I have been using FreeBSD for years and am no stranger to kernel configuration. I know SMP is enabled by default and am unsure where else to turn to at least try and get the other CPU recognized. This isn't a mission critical machine, it's mainly a tinker toy which may become my local software repository if it ends up being stable enough.

Any help appreciated!


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## tingo (Dec 5, 2015)

Try posting on the freebsd-ppc mailing list; more developers and people familiar with the PowerPC architecture and its quirks hang out there.


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## Bertrand Dekoninck (May 17, 2016)

Same problem here with 10.2 and a Powermac G5 (2 x 2.0 ghz ppc970 cpus).


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## sossego (May 20, 2016)

There are only a few people who have access to multi-core PPC/POWER systems. It's not if, but when the laptop is produced is probably when the FreeBSD core team will deem SMP on PowerPC/POWER systems as a challenge to be solved - in sorts.
A question has been sent to the mailing list and Adrian Chadd on this subject and post.


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## sossego (May 20, 2016)

*Joe Nosay <superbisquit@gmail.com> *
7:08 PM (20 hours ago)







to FreeBSD, Adrian




https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/54267/#post-320110

And, considering that the laptop will be a reality soon enough, what is the current state for SMP on the POWER architecture for FreeBSD?

*Luciano Mannucci via freebsd.org *
6:26 AM (9 hours ago)






to freebsd-ppc




On Thu, 19 May 2016 19:08:28 -0400
Joe Nosay <superbisquit@gmail.com> wrote:

> And, considering that the laptop will be a reality soon enough, what is the
> current state for SMP on the POWER architecture for FreeBSD?
Working? 

Well, there are servers at reasonable prices and a lot of cores &/|
sockets with POWER 8 cpus. Mine has a lot of problems, though none
seem to be related to SMP . I'm running 11-CURRENT and I get:

root@:/ # dmesg | grep CPU
FreeBSD/SMP: Multiprocessor System Detected: 2 CPUs
cpulist0: <Open Firmware CPU Group> on ofwbus0
cpu0: <Open Firmware CPU> on cpulist0
cpu1: <Open Firmware CPU> on cpulist0
SMP: AP CPU #8 launched

root@:/ # sysctl kern.sched.topology_spec
kern.sched.topology_spec: <groups>
 <group level="1" cache-level="0">
  <cpu count="2" mask="101,0,0,0">0, 8</cpu>
 </group>
</groups>

Cheers,

Luciano.


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