Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
PowerMac G5 running Linux with a PowerPC virtual machine
- Thread starter LightBulbFun
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Anyway, the issue with --enable kvm -cpu host in the 7447b with qemu turns out to be bootx trying to read the L3CahceCR.
Of course the 7447's don't have one, so something gets screwy with Qemu/KVM/BootX combo.
I never did figure exactly why, but I did set the L3CCR to something other than 0x00000000, and BootX did a read, then tried to make a write there, to write it back to 0x00000000.
Of course the 7447's don't have one, so something gets screwy with Qemu/KVM/BootX combo.
I never did figure exactly why, but I did set the L3CCR to something other than 0x00000000, and BootX did a read, then tried to make a write there, to write it back to 0x00000000.
What would be awesome is to find a way to virtualize macOS PPC on macOS PPC, without anything Linux involved.
That would definitely be amazing to play around with if possible.
I am actually interested in running the exact opposite of what is being discussed in this thread.
Can we virtualize modern PPC Linux distros under OS X Leopard or Snow Leopard PPC? I have all of the applications I currently need on Leopard to do 98% of everyday tasks using a G5 Quad. However web browsing on PPC OS X has recently become more difficult/inconsistent, usually requiring a combination of LWK and TFF-based browsers to be able to load and actually use particular web sites. Some no longer work at all.
If we could virtualize a modern PPC Linux build under native PPC OS X in order to run a modern browser, then theoretically the web browsing problem would be solved and would futureproof the native PPC OS X experience for years into the future. I would imagine that this is far easier than re-writing a new PPC browser from scratch.
Curious if anyone is currently doing this and how.
There was a project called Mac-on-Mac, a macOS port of Mac-on-Linux. I haven't tried it in years, but you could have a look.
https://web.archive.org/web/20060428070159/http://maconmac.bastix.net/
EDIT The files are available there : https://www.macintoshrepository.org/43582-mac-on-mac-mac-on-linux-
Thanks, this seems like it could be a very good solution. It may require further development though.
Unfortunately I tried it on Leopard and while the application does launch X11, I can't seem to get it to open a display and boot an OS.
@ftalbot Do you recall which host OS you tried this on? It might only work on a pre-Tiger host OS (at least that is what the web site implies).
I was running 10.2 on a G3 iBook. 10.3 was the brand new OS… It was a long time ago!
EDIT
I’m wrong. Circa 2005-2006, Tiger was my daily driver. Anyway, still a long time ago and, honestly, I don’t remember spending much time playing with MOM.
Last edited:
Interesting, so I run into this "MacOSX Tiger do not like qemu's version of 970FX at all" and wonder if situation changed for better or worse in last 10 years? Another result from searching this forum is "10.0 on Linux/ps3" 
but using 5.x Linux kernel from t2/sde meta distro.
I noticed few unimplemented SPRs (hypervisor related!) that qemu logged if I tell it to, see
But my naive hack does not make it boot. Note that I initially compiled qemu without capstone support so disassebler in logs was unavailable.
but using 5.x Linux kernel from t2/sde meta distro.I noticed few unimplemented SPRs (hypervisor related!) that qemu logged if I tell it to, see
But my naive hack does not make it boot. Note that I initially compiled qemu without capstone support so disassebler in logs was unavailable.
If you use my custom versions of BootX that logs to the screen you can see about where it hangs( Call Kernel! ) So somewhere in the jump form OF to the Kernel the G5 hangs, but I never did figure out where or why.Interesting, so I run into this "MacOSX Tiger do not like qemu's version of 970FX at all" and wonder if situation changed for better or worse in last 10 years? Another result from searching this forum is "10.0 on Linux/ps3"
I noticed few unimplemented SPRs (hypervisor related!) that qemu logged if I tell it to, see
But my naive hack does not make it boot. Note that I initially compiled qemu without capstone support so disassebler in logs was unavailable.
Ah, I looked at BootX source (I confused Apple's bootX for OSX with BootX for Linux from macOS 9.x)
BootX/bootx.tproj/sl.subproj/main.c at 814114e6a6cf10dfa512c520f5a1c1fb9c58a432 · apple-oss-distributions/BootX
Contribute to apple-oss-distributions/BootX development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com
It doesn't seem to do anything special at this moment ...
So I still hope qemu's logs will provide some better insight into why it fails (because qemu can log every cpu command - just use log param,nochain,param2, .. as i learned from documentation/help in qemu monitor. Also, on my keyboard scrolling up in SDL2 qemu monitor is ctrl-PgUP/DOWN... also only learned yesterday)
Hopefully I will not brick "my" Leo install (but it come as zip from internet Archive, so if I broke it by doing experiments I can always start anew ...just let it index everything again and turn off energy saver -> sleep
)