FreeBSD 7 Install on an older Mac Mini

[Horst Günther Burkhardt III]

On Mon, 2009-01-05 at 08:37 -0800, Colin Dick wrote:
> Hi all,
>   I have been lurking in this list for a few months now and it seems that the posts cover pretty advanced topics.  Or at
> least they seem to be advanced topics to me.  I am wanting to load FreeBSD onto one of these:
> 
> http://support.apple.com/kb/SP65 (the 1.25GHz model upgraded to 1G of RAM)
> 
>   My intention is to replace a larger PC running Linux that is on its last legs with this small machine running FreeBSD
> 7.  I run a number of FreeBSD servers but all on the i386 platform.  I thought if I could get it to load, the rest would
> be the same?
>   It seems like I can boot the initial FreeBSD 7 disk and walk through the initial configuration (except for the section
> for slicing the drive).  I can pick my partitions etc... however, when install goes to start, the partitions are not
> found?  I have read that it has something to do with the location of the boot manager or where the loader is or something?
> 
>   I think I am learning now that this concept is not for the faint of heart and that I might be better to just give up
> and find a new i386 machine to port my web/mysql/email/dns servers to.  Just looking for some feedback from this forum
> what my best options might be.  Does anyone know of another forum, maillist, resource for people who are running
> PPCFreeBSD as hosting servers?  Thanks in advance.
> 
> --
> Colin Dick

Hey Colin,

Welcome to the list :)

You are correct in that when you can get FreeBSD to load, it will be
pretty much the same as FreeBSD/i386 - the only difference is you'll
need to compile things because basically the packages aren't compiled as
much for ppc (due to lack of hardware and cpu time as i understand
it)... this shouldn't be an issue for you.

No, the install isn't for the faint of heart, but thankfully the people
on the -ppc list have been (in my experience) welcoming and exceedingly
helpful. You should have an ok time getting FreeBSD running if you just
have a little patience.

FreeBSD-PPC as a hosting platform is no different to FreeBSD-i386 as a
hosting platform, all the software is the same. If you want help,
##FreeBSD on the freenode IRC network will help you with general
questions, and you may find some use hanging around bsdforums. 



Some notes: 

When compiling things, if you optimise for the 7455 chip in your
computer, you will need to include 

 /---------------------------------------------------------------------
|     -march=7450 -mtune=7455 -mno-altivec
 \---------------------------------------------------------------------

in your CFLAGS and CXXFLAGS - as the kernel does not yet understand
Altivec instructions the ommission of -mno-altivec will cause Bad Shit™
to happen. 


In order to partition your disk, you'll want to use the debian 4.0
netinst disc for mac, and set up as mac format partition tables. 
Another option is to use Parted on a livecd like Finnix.


The bootloader installation will require you to compile hfstools, unless
you have a -CURRENT tree which has a small hfs filesystem image in it
(as I understand it from stuff Nathan Whitehorn posted)


This is just stuff from the lists that I ran across, it may hopefully
spare you _some_ trouble. 

If you have any questions, just ask on the list and someone more skilled
(infinitely more skilled) than I can answer and help you :) 

Once again, welcome, and I hope you enjoy the ride! :D

-- Horst.
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