RE: PowerBook 540c
Erik,
Thanks for the pointers. Looks like I have some more reading to do.
Rick
-----Original Message-----
From: Erik C.J. Laan [mailto:elaan@dds.nl]
Sent: Tuesday, October 26, 2004 4:01 AM
To: Rick Genter
Cc: debian-68k@lists.debian.org; linux m68k; linux mac68k
Subject: Re: PowerBook 540c
Rick Genter wrote:
> Wow - I must be tired, sorry about the typos:
> On Oct 25, 2004, at 09:43 PM, Rick Genter wrote:
>> I have a PowerBook 540c; I've had it since I bought it back in 1994
>> when they first came out. Recently I dug it out of my old hardware
>> closet and fired it up. It still works just fine, though the battery
>> won't hold a charge.
>>
>> My observation is that Linux generally works better on slow hardware
>> than the "native" graphical OSes such as Windows or MacOS, so I
>> decided I wanted to try and put Linux on my PowerBook. After
>> investigation, though, it looks like Linux is currently not quite
>> there for my PowerBook:
>>
>> - the 68K implementations don't support the 68LC040
>> - the Macintosh 68K implementations don't boot natively; you have to
>> through a MacOS-based bootloader, requiring a MacOS partition on the
>> hard drive
>
> Obviously I meant that "you have to *go* through a MacOS-based bootloader.
That's not necessary true anymore. Try EMILE (@sourceforge.net). It's a
floppy based bootloader for Linux/m68k. Not all machine's are supported
yet, but please give it a try.
>> That being the case, and being a believe,
> And here I mean "being a believer in the open source development model"
>
>> I'd like to volunteer to help make the PowerBook 540c a first-class
>> Linux citizen. My question: where would my efforts be best applied?
>> 68LC040 support? Nativing booting? Somewhere else?
LC040 support is tricky because of a bug that prevents FPU emulation
from working correctly up to now. There's been some talk about ways to
work around this bug on the linux/m68k and linux/mac68k maillists
(CCed), but it's not been done yet. Most people nowadays by a full 68040
on eBay and replace their LC040. On the Powerbooks (540c only) this may
not be as easy, because I think I read somewheren the LC040 is soldered
onto the motherboard on PowerBooks, whereas it is in a socket on desktop
models.
Also PowerBooks used to be the least supported models because not much
kernel-developers have them. Powerbook support used to be in the 2.4.x
kernels. On desktop models there was no working 2.4.x. This also made
installing somewhat non-automagic as you had to install the modules by
hand. Nowadays kernel-development is concentrated on the 2.6.x series.
2.4.x for desktops is abandoned. There is a 2.6.8 kernel in unstable
that works on Christian Steigies Quadra840AV. It's here:
http://packages.debian.org/unstable/base/kernel-image-2.6.8-mac .
Christian also has a page with notes what could be done (m68k-generic)
at http://people.debian.org/~cts/debian-m68k/help.html.
The Linux Mac68k information is at http://linux-mac68k.sourceforge.net/.
This page also has a section on development, with areas were help is
most welcome. The Linux/mac68k mailinglist is at
linux-mac68k@mac.linux-m68k.org, and the general Linux/m68k mailinglist
has just moved to linux-m68k@vger.kernel.org but
linux-m68k@list.linux-m68k.org should also work.
One area I think Linux/mac68k is lacking is SCSI DMA support on the
NCR53c9x. This makes these machines quite slow. If you can help out with
that is would be great, although the Linux/mac68k status page tells me
your PB540c has a NCR5380. Someone did write (some parts?) of the
SCSI-DMA driver for that.
The Linux/mac68k status page used to be at
http://maclinuxstatus.sourceforge.net/status/ but since a few months to
half a year back I only get 404s. The webarchive still has it though,
at:
http://web.archive.org/web/20040211060716/maclinuxstatus.sourceforge.net/sta
tus/
HTH, Erik.
--
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Erik C.J. Laan elaan at dds.nl
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