New powerpc64 snapshot

[Paul Mather]

On Sep 10, 2010, at 6:35 PM, Nathan Whitehorn wrote:

> I have built a new powerpc64 snapshot that should have a more
> functional installer and not have disk-detection problems on some
> models of G5 Powermac. This snapshot can be found at
> http://people.freebsd.org/~nwhitehorn/FreeBSD-9.0-20100910-SNAP-powerpc64
> 
> Installation directions are the same as for 32-bit PowerPC:
> http://people.freebsd.org/~nwhitehorn/ppcinstall.txt
> 
> SMP is also now in the default powerpc64 kernel configuration, thanks
> to Peter Grehan.

I just tried this snapshot but did not have much luck installing.

I am trying to install on a headless Xserve G5 via a serial console.  I can boot the CD from OpenFirmware and enter the installer.  I then drop into the Fixit shell but cannot successfully complete any partitioning via gpart.  Commands like "gpart show" will display the existing partition table, but any gpart command that affects the partition table (gpart delete; gpart add; etc.) will not complete (coincidentally, the fan seems to start racing then, too).  The system isn't hung because CTRL-C will bring me back to sysinstall.

I currently have Mac OS X 10.5 on this system, and would like to replace it with FreeBSD/powerpc64.  Has anyone done this successfully, or have any hints about what I may be missing?

Oh, and is it possible to change the OpenFirmware serial console speed to something lower than 57600?  I have an IBM 3151 TTY (with VT100 personality card) I'd like to use as a permanently-attached serial console but it only goes up to 19200 in its setup options. :-(

Cheers,

Paul.