does the powermac 6100/66 have open firmware? i tried to acess it using command+control+O+F but it did't work. im just wondering, i don't need to use it or anything.
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Macs didn't get OF until they also got PCI. All the NuBus PPCs are just like their 68k NuBus bretheren, closed and squishy. Er, um...
Open Firmware didn't really come around until the G3-series machines. IIRC, the iMac was the first to have it (though the beige G3s may also use it).
All PCI PowerMacs are Open Firmware based. (The difference between "Old World" and "New World" being whether or not the machine *also* has a Macintosh "Toolbox" in ROM as well.) Machines prior to the iMac, however, usually default to displaying the Open Firmware prompt on a serial port.
See the Open Firmware documentation at http://www.netbsd.org/macppc for more details. The implimentation on many of the older machines is badly broken, of course.
--Peace
http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/macppc/faq.html
. . . thx for the lead, tho, eBird.
jt
Snicker. Sorry about that. The URL was from memory, and I forgot the "Ports" bit.
Which reminds me, I should build the latest "current" Sparc64 on my Ultra 10. It'll kill a couple days, and will remind me all over again how much NetBSD sucks! ;^>
(I'm a big believer in keeping tabs on one's adversaries.)
--Peace
Are you an UltraLinux fan or an OpenBSD fan?
FWIK NetBSD runs fine on my SS5, and so does OpenBSD. Debian came installed on my Sclassic, but it got wiped 'cause I didn't want to both messing with someone elses install.
Got a preference and a reason? I'm not so sure I wanna go to Solaris...
And to bring the hijacked thread somewhat back into focus, I'm also on the look out for something more than MacOS to run on my 7100/66 now that I just got a G3 card for it... Since it is NuBus and non-OF, anyone got tips on Linux/BSD/MkLinux? The no-OF thing makes life a bit more difficult, but the MAXpowr card is supposed to work fine if the extension loads before BootX.
NetBSD and I go way, way back. I feel this need once and a while to let it torture me again, to bring back the old days. ;^>
(A few years ago, I worked at a dot-bomb company that used NetBSD internally, thanks to an "eat our own dogfood" initiative. This was right in the middle of the 1.4/1.5 a.out -> ELF binary transition, and at that time NetBSD was a *very* irritating and broken OS in a number of respects. Quite educational, though.)
That said, the 32 bit Sparc version is quite good, and it's installed on my own SS5. NetBSD was the default first choice as an alternate OS for the U10 for that reason. Unfortunately, I should of done my homework. NetBSD-Sparc64 is *heavily* slanted towards supporting the SBus Ultra 1/2 machines. Little things like X don't work on PCI machines yet. (Although the newsgroup traffic keeps talking about things changing in the upcoming 2.0. So far I've done 2 "current" buildworlds to track the changes. Ha! Particularly considering that on the U10's disk controller building world+X literally does take about two days.) :^b
I'm torn as whether to try UltraLinux or FreeBSD-Sparc64 (which *only* works on PCI machines) on the system, or stick with NetBSD. The pain is *soooo* exquisite, I'm sure I'd miss it.
Sorry for the digression, there.
No help here, unfortunately. I installed MkLinux on a friend's 6100 in 1999. And that was the last NuBus PowerMac I've used. Thank goodness. ;^>
Semi-uneducated comments: I don't think *any* BSD works on those machines, and MkLinux *really* is too old to bother with. Try those NuBus Linux kernels, I suppose.
--Peace
I think Yellow Dog with the hacked NuBUS kernel is pretty much you're only option. Or maybe Debian with the same if you're feeling adventurous. MK is extremely antiquated, and nothing else works, really.