Re: running FreeBSD on an iMac - solved - well sorta

On Thu, Dec 22, 2022 at 8:15 AM doug <doug@safeport.com> wrote:

> On Wed, 21 Dec 2022, doug@safeport.com wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > On Tue, 20 Dec 2022, Doug Denault wrote:
> >
> >> On Tue, 20 Dec 2022, Mike Clarke wrote:
> >>
> >>> On Tuesday, 20 December 2022 16:37:16 GMT Doug Denault wrote:
> >>>
> >>> > freebsd-update will not attempt 9.2 --> 12.3. Any way to get 10.x or
> >>> 11.x
> >>>
> >>> > to see if that will update? Google has not, so far, turned up any 10
> or
> >>> 11
> >>>
> >>> > CDs in the wild.
> >>>
> >>>
> http://ftp-archive.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD-Archive/old-releases/ISO-IMAGES/
> >>
> >> Thank you
> >
> > I really appreciated the feed back. It turned out what I needed was a
> 700MB
> > cd. That does not match the media that the 9.2 image was written on but
> using
> > cdrecord from cdrtools version 2022.09.18 (the current version from pkg)
> > worked fine using the bootonly image. Now onto Xorg. Should be easy
> right :)
>
> I did install 12.3, Xorg (zero issues), xfce and firefox. All that works
> perfectly except cut and paste. It turns out there is a community of
> people doing what I am trying to do. These are great systems even if Apple
> will no longer update them. There is even a FreeBSD wiki. It turns out that
> there seems to be a way to install FreeBSD as the native OS without
> completely wiping the disk as I did.
>
> I am not sure why cut and paste seems to depend on the BIOS which is really
> gone. The Apple method of booting to the BIOS does not work so I assume
> some part of it (the BIOS) are physically on the hard drive.
>
> I have tried the native xfce clipboard app and an X11 based app getting
> neither to work. Again this is me begging for ideas. My neighbor found his
> installation CD so I can put OS/X back and do this the "right" to see what
> happens. But if there is a way to cut and paste I have no need to do this.
>
>
>
Never tried this but I have run X natively within macOS and I remember
copy/paste being a little tricky due to the one button mouse/touchpad
implementation. I think there are some boot components (EFI?) on the disk
on older hardware. I'm sure some FreeBSD util can expose the partition map
to reveal that. So I think it can be made to work, since X works within
macOS. I have FreeBSD as a guest OS on an old imac (ca 2009) but have never
really used X as part of that environment. Maybe try that as a test, if you
have the time/energy to tear it down and rebuild it.


-- 
Paul Beard / www.paulbeard.org/