Linux/BSD on a NuBus Mac

[quinterro]

I have three NuBus PowerMacs:

- A 6100/66 with 72MB RAM, G3/240 NuPowr PDS card, 2GB hard disk

- A 7100/66 with 88 MB RAM, 1.2GB hard disk, PDS video card

- A 8100/110 with 80 MB RAM, G3/400 Sonnet Crescendo PDS card, 8GB hard disk, SuperMac Thunder/24 with DSP card.

I can add more RAM to the 7100 and 8100 and possibly add a larger SCSI drive to any of them.

Seeing as how OS X is out of the question on these, I was looking on info on installing Linux or BSD. The last time I looked, Linux is still stuck on the 2.4 kernel for NuBus PowerMacs. I haven't really used BSD, but I'm willing to try.

Any suggestions on how to do this?

 

[Quadraman]

I think you can forget BSD on a Nubus Powermac

Are NuBus-based Power Macs supported (7100, 8100, etc)? (top)
No. NetBSD/macppc doesn't support NuBus. In addition,the NuBus-based Power Macs don't have Open Firmware, which NetBSD/macppc depends on heavily for bootstrapping and console operations.

There are four groups of NuBus based Power Macintosh machines:

• Apple PDM: Any x1xx machine, e.g. 6100, 6150, 7100, 8100.
  
• Apple PERFORMA class: 52xx, 53xx, 62xx, 63xx (except 6360).
  
• Apple POWERBOOK (or 'M2') class: 1400, 2300, 5300.
  
• Power Computing "Power" series: Such as the "Power 100" and "Power 120".

These systems won't work even if you upgrade the processor to a G3, because the remaining hardware is still unsupported. (But if you get a complete logic board upgrade, they will work, because they then essentially become a new machine.)

At the current time, we don't know of anyone working on supporting these systems. If you are interested in trying to get one of them working, let us know!

 

[ChristTrekker]

I have three NuBus PowerMacs:
- A 6100/66 with 72MB RAM, G3/240 NuPowr PDS card, 2GB hard disk

- A 7100/66 with 88 MB RAM, 1.2GB hard disk, PDS video card

- A 8100/110 with 80 MB RAM, G3/400 Sonnet Crescendo PDS card, 8GB hard disk, SuperMac Thunder/24 with DSP card.

I can add more RAM to the 7100 and 8100 and possibly add a larger SCSI drive to any of them.

Seeing as how OS X is out of the question on these, I was looking on info on installing Linux or BSD. The last time I looked, Linux is still stuck on the 2.4 kernel for NuBus PowerMacs. I haven't really used BSD, but I'm willing to try.

There is the Linux/PPC port. I know Yellow Dog also supports them, because there's this nifty story about a guy building a Beowulf with machines like yours. Note that newer versions (like v4.0) of YDL generally can be installed on Old World Macs, if you follow the older directions (like v2.1) where applicable. (IIRC, my first Linux box was a 7100, using YDL 2.1.) There's also MkLinux, which Apple had a part in once upon a time, but AFAIK has been stalled since the late '90s. Evidently, Debian will work too. Actually, if your kernel supports the hardware, probably just about any distro would work.

As much as I like NetBSD, support for Nubus PMacs is just not very good. It sounds like many of the bits and pieces are around, but getting them all to play nice with what is already working for other PMac models is the hard part. The Nubus PMacs were a transitional stage (in many ways a 68k box with a PPC chip strapped on the mobo) so difficulties like this are somewhat expected.

 

[paws]

Damn shame, too... lots of lovely pizza boxes with 6100 LBs in them that, well, just aren't too useful anymore.

 

[QuadSix50]

The only other option would be MkLinux, but it's still at a developer release state.

http://www.mklinux.org

 

[TylerEss]

Linux on the NuBus PowerPC macs isn't as bad as it could be, but it's not for the faint of heart. Talk to the listserv and read as much as you can, then have fun. Any PowerPC linux distro will work on the NuBus Macs, but none of them will support it out-of-the-box.

The basic procedure goes like this: get someone to compile a kernel for you with a net-install RAMDISK for your distro of choice. Use BootX to boot your shiny new kernel and hope it works. If not, try to fix it or select a different install kernel that already works. Repeat until you get Linux installed.

I ran a website for a few years on a Radius 81/110 with a NewerTech 300MHz G3 card in it. Despite the fact that it was badly outdated at that time, I ran LinuxPPC 2000Q4 which was a repack of RedHat.

I also was running YDL Champion Server 2.1 on a 5300 with greyscale monitor; a german math professor provided a kernel patch to let X11 work without getting scrambled on that greyscale monitor.

It's a fun community and the few people left in it are very friendly and helpful. Enjoy it!

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Apple dropped MkLinux sponsorship after the early Rhapsody developer releases came out (ironically, or perhaps not presciently, MkLinux uses the same Mach microkernel that NeXT and later OS X use,) but MkLinux has continued development; albeit significantly more slowly than Yellow Dog.

I still have an Apple-sponsored, Prime Time Freeware-produced MkLinux book and Developer Release disc that I ran on my 6100 once upon a time.

 

[Quadraman]

Apple dropped MkLinux sponsorship after the early Rhapsody developer releases came out (ironically, or perhaps not presciently, MkLinux uses the same Mach microkernel that NeXT and later OS X use,) but MkLinux has continued development; albeit significantly more slowly than Yellow Dog.
I still have an Apple-sponsored, Prime Time Freeware-produced MkLinux book and Developer Release disc that I ran on my 6100 once upon a time.

That opens the possibility of compiling OS X to run on Nubus systems if you install the correct drivers.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Apple dropped MkLinux sponsorship after the early Rhapsody developer releases came out (ironically, or perhaps not presciently, MkLinux uses the same Mach microkernel that NeXT and later OS X use,) but MkLinux has continued development; albeit significantly more slowly than Yellow Dog.
I still have an Apple-sponsored, Prime Time Freeware-produced MkLinux book and Developer Release disc that I ran on my 6100 once upon a time.

That opens the possibility of compiling OS X to run on Nubus systems if you install the correct drivers.

Not at all. MkLinux uses the Mach microkernel significantly more than Rhapsody/OS X does. It would take a *LOT* more work than just "install[ing] the correct drivers"

However, command-line and X (the windowing system X aka XFree86 or X.org, not "OS X"/Aqua) binaries can be compiled so that they run unmodified on both MkLinux and Darwin, or even OS X with X installed.