Architectures/PowerPC

PowerPC/POWER/Cell Special Interest Group

Members

• Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams
  
• Paul Nasrat
  
• Peter Lemenkov
  
• Stefan Posdzich (using a Playstation 3 with Fedora 9)

Applications/Libraries of Interest

• Mac-on-Linux - virtualization solution for PowerPC

Documentation

Fedora on Apple PPC hardware

iBook G4 Hardware info:

iBook G4/1.33GHz 12-Inch (Mid-2005)

• 1.33 GHz PowerPC 7447a (G4) processor with 64k L1 cache
• 512k "on chip" level 2 cache.
• 512 MB of onboard RAM (PC2700 DDR SDRAM).
• 40 GB (4200 RPM) Ultra ATA/100 hard drive.
• Slot-loading DVD-ROM/CD-RW "Combo" drive.
• 4X AGP ATI Mobility Radeon 9550 graphics with 32 MB of DDR SDRAM.
• A standard AirPort Extreme (802.11g) - Broadcom BCM4318 chipset.
• Bluetooth 2.0+EDR.
• 56k v.92 standard modem
• 50 W/Hr LiIon battery (Stated 6 hour lifetime)
• 12.1" TFT XGA active matrix display (1024x768 native resolution).
• "Sudden Motion Sensor" technology that stops the hard drive heads from moving if the notebook is dropped.
• "Scrolling Trackpad" that allows one to scroll or pan by touching the trackpad with two fingers instead of one.

Dual booting with OS X

• Install OS X first:

1. Boot from your OS X install CD but before the installation starts, load the disk utility from the top menu.
2. Here you can partion your drive. Partition the drive in two, one as MAC filesystem (for OS X) and one as free space, leave the MBR as the default MAC option.
3. Once OS X is installed grab any updates and set the date/time.
4. You are now ready to go ahead with installing Fedora

Setting the date and time in OS X will mean the date is right in Fedora from the point of install.

Installing Fedora

• Turn on your Apple, insert the Fedora install media and boot from the CD/DVD by holding down the 'c' key as soon as you hear the Apple chime.

Note
There seems to be a bug in the Fedora 9 installer. Caps lock may be on when the light is not. Check at the screen where you can enter your host name.

1. If you are dual booting, when you get to the partitioning page, select the option which will set up the free space on your hard drive for Fedora, leaving your MAC partition alone.

Wireless networking

To get a list of current hardware, in which you should be able to spot your wireless card and see what chipset it uses, open up a terminal and as 'root' type:

# lspci

Broadcom BC43xx chipset

This chipset uses the 'b43' drivers contained in the kernel. For a comprehensive list of supported chipset versions and more info, check the link at the bottom of the page to linuxwireless.org. Although the 'b43' driver is open source, a proprietary piece of firmware is required in order get this wireless chipset to function.

To find out what version you have use a terminal to enter this command as 'root':

# lspci | grep Broadcom\ Corporation

The b43 driver with the proprietary firmware currently supports these versions:

• bcm4303 (802.11b-only chips)
• bcm4306
• bcm4309 (only the 2.4GHz part)
• bcm4311 rev 1 / bcm4312
• bcm4311 rev 2 / bcm4312 (needs patches for 2.6.24)
• bcm4318

Note
This guide assumes you are using kernel version 2.6.25 or newer (Fedora 9 and above).

The first thing to do is to grab the firmware and make sure you have the 'b43-fwcutter' tool installed. The firmware cutting tool is used to extract the bit of firmware needed from the proprietary driver.

• Download and install the firmware:

You can get the firmware from the openwrt.org project. Use the 'wget' command below to download it.

$ wget http://mirror2.openwrt.org/sources/broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5.tar.bz2

Now extract the archive:

$ tar xjf broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5.tar.bz2

You should end up with a 'broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5' directory and inside that a 'driver' directory containing 'wl_apsta_mimo.o'.

• Next, use the 'b43-fwcutter' tool to extract the firmware to your Fedora system:

First, as 'root' set an environment variable pointing to where the firmware should be installed on your system:

# export FIRMWARE_INSTALL_DIR="/lib/firmware"

Then, make sure you have the firmware cutting tool installed, if you have done a standard installation it should already be.

Enter the 'broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5'/driver' directory

# cd broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5'/driver

and finally run the firmware cutting tool to extract the firmware to your system:

# b43-fwcutter -w "$FIRMWARE_INSTALL_DIR" wl_apsta_mimo.o

That's it, upon reboot you should have a working wireless card! I would, however, just load the 'b43' module before the reboot to make sure there are no errors:

# modprobe b43

I expect a reboot is not actually necessary, you can probably get away with just restarting the network manager.

Useful links

http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers

Work needed

Bugzilla

• #219540 Game Glest not playable at PPC-arch
• #239713 bootstrap ghc on ppc64
• #453311 pulseaudio does not start

Someone who interested should also watch #179260

Documentation

• We need step-by-step tutorials describing HOWTO setup Wi-Fi, Apple Bluetooth Mouse and Keyboard, where to find JRE and so on. See the next links (from Ubuntu, Debian and YellowDog):
  • HOWTO: Apple Wireless Keyboard (Bluetooth)
  • PowerPC FAQ
  • Notes abount snd-aoa kernel module

Links

• Power homepage
  
• fedora-ppc mailing list
  
• Power.org
  
• PPCZone
  
• YellowDogLinux support pages
  
• powerdeveloper.org

See also

• PlayStation