Re: [Qemu-ppc] Status of MacOS boot support

[Vincent Habchi]

Hi Folks (und Hallo also ;))

> You can always give mac-on-Linux a try if you have a real PowerPC around. It 
> also uses (a hacked up version of) OpenBIOS, but comes with its own (hacked 
> up version of) BootX.

I have at work a PowerPC G4 MacMini I revived yesterday. I’ll upgrade it to 1 
Gb of RAM (it has only 256 Mb) and install some basic tools like clang, and 
then QEMU ppc. I was planning to use it as a mail relay, but if it can be of 
any help, I can give some people access through ssh for testing. I will use its 
younger and more powerful brother (Intel Core Duo) to handle mail.

> Yes and no. At the point things are now upstream, we are very far from 
> hardware emulation problems. It's all firmware. But one thing at a time. 
> Getting the firmware working is certainly the more important bit. The next 
> step would be to fix -M mac99 to actually behave like a real Mac.

Sorry for keeping asking (surely) silly questions, but what is the culprit why 
MacOS does not boot? What is OpenBIOS lacking? I naively thought that once the 
ROM initialization phase was over, control was handed to BootX and the 
OpenFirmware was put aside. If I got what you say right, BootX and even 
mach_kernel lean at least partially on the OpenFirmware?

Cheers and have a nice evening,
Vincent