PPC thread

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z180
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PPC thread

Post by z180 »

Hello,

What GCC target do I need to download for compiling FREELDR.SYS for PPC?
Do I need to apply special patches to gcc source?
GCC seems to have dropped support for Windows NT on PowerPC long ago.
Do I get ELF or PE files?

I have to PPC systems,both are compatible to Linux and have ADB ports.
"Yosemite" and "Piltdown Man",if someone is interested what hardware I use.
arty
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Re: PPC thread

Post by arty »

I've mainly stopped working on it for the moment, and powerpc has deviated significantly from the current sources, but the basic part of getting started is using powerpc reactos build environment from the tree (svn://svn.reactos.org/reactos/trunk/tools/RosBE/RosBE-PPC).

Get binutils-2.16.1 and gcc-4.1.0 and expand them under gnu, then patch them with the diffs in that directory.
Run install.sh to completion (I usually give $HOME/rosbe as the install directory). After that, run $HOME/rosbe/rosbe, and you'll be in a shell where 'make' will add options for building ReactOS as powerpc.

As to your question about elf vs pe, a wrapper will be installed as $HOME/rosbe/ovr/powerpc-unknown-elf-gcc that runs gcc, and converts post-linking elf executables to coff executables. ReactOS PPC builds big endian PE COFF executables, so it's a little different from real NT for PPC.
z180
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Re: PPC thread

Post by z180 »

Thanks for the infos.
I started looking into the existing code and saw that drivers for Firewire and ADB are missing.
I could port code from the NUBus Linux project or from NetBSD.
arty
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Re: PPC thread

Post by arty »

It doesn't have much driver support yet, and doesn't get far enough to need it. Please feel free to poke around and work on whatever interests you.
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Jaix
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Re: PPC thread

Post by Jaix »

z180 wrote:Thanks for the infos.
I started looking into the existing code and saw that drivers for Firewire and ADB are missing.
I could port code from the NUBus Linux project or from NetBSD.
Hi z180, it was a while since you posted anything in this thread now, have you made any progress in coding PPC?

Please keep working and repport your progress here.
z180
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Re: PPC thread

Post by z180 »

Hi jaix and the others,

ReactOS on PPC Macs is a great task because on this arch there are not much free operating systems available.
(Linux,NetBSD,FreeBSD,OpenBSD...can't recall more)

The input presents a problem because of non-working USB in ReactOS, but luckily I have got a G3 with ADB,USB and FW.
These computers have even a usable NVRAM, much more than the 256 bytes of a PC.

I am working on the PPC code, but progress is slow,my code is still based on the 0.3.6 Release,
the NetBSD macppc ADB code is much 68k like,I think that my gcc is not the right,I don't understand much of PPC asm,
I don't know where to emulate the right mouse key.


The PPC 601 machine is much more difficult to work on,because ReactOS depends on a PCI bus,the special CPU registers are different,
no OpenFirmware,no L2 cache installed and the onboard video chip shows either 640x480 16-bit or 832x624 8-bit.

I don't believe that I can contribute patches to ReactOS 0.3.7,yet.
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Jaix
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Re: PPC thread

Post by Jaix »

z180 wrote:Hi jaix and the others...
...I don't believe that I can contribute patches to ReactOS 0.3.7,yet.
Hi again, If you start to get the dev environment to work for you, Arty can help you with what you need to know there you should be able to start testing on your machines. Not wery much is working yet on the PPC, so any help in the development is welcome. To be able to get swift help from Arty, join the irc channel.
Good Luck!
Haos
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Re: PPC thread

Post by Haos »

Also i think Fireball would agree on arranging you your own branch.
FlyingIsFun1217
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Re: PPC thread

Post by FlyingIsFun1217 »

I thought that z180 wasn't allowed to do anything with ROS code, since he said that he had seen in one form or another Windows source.

FlyingIsFun1217
z180
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Re: PPC thread

Post by z180 »

I never had seen Windows sourcecode(I don't work at Microsoft!) or said that.
Also Windows does not run on PPC since NT 4.0 and that didn't work on Power Macintosh but on IBM RS6000.
I looked into Linux,FreeBSD,NetBSD,MINIX3 sources and the ReactOS PPC code.
I have hardware to test,but did not get ReactOS working yet.

Bye
Haos
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Re: PPC thread

Post by Haos »

Its ok, please be sure to ask if you need any assistance.
FlyingIsFun1217
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Re: PPC thread

Post by FlyingIsFun1217 »

Wasn't trying to accuse anyone; just thought I remembered that being discussed before. Obviously, my memory has shown it's wonderful capabilities again.

FlyingIsFun1217
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