Mac Mini - OpenBSD or FreeBSD

[roddierod]

Has anyone run OpenBSD and FreeBSD on a mac mini and have a opinion on which is more usable or mature? Just was give one and was going to play around with something other than OS X. Particularly of concern is the WiFi support.

Thanks.

[ocicat]

Originally Posted by roddierod

Has anyone run OpenBSD and FreeBSD on a mac mini and have a opinion...

Intel or PPC?

[roddierod]

Sorry...PPC 1.42Ghz model, 512MB RAM.

[daemonfowl]

OpenBSD is better for powerpc & legacy hardware .. personal conviction ..
it's also beneficial with ready binary packages .. I suppose it won't be practical to compile everything on modest hardware ..
you may try both to enrich your experience

[Carpetsmoker]

http://www.freebsd.org/platforms/ppc.html

The Mac Mini G4 1.4 GHz is listed (with dmesdg) as supported, with no issues.

I have no personal experience with ppc machines and OpenBSD/FreeBSD

[roddierod]

Thanks all. I think I'm going to try OpenBSD first as I've had better luck with it an wifi on laptops and as pointed out the binary packages should be a plus.

[Carpetsmoker]

There is no different between FreeBSD packages and OpenBSD packages. Both are built from ports on every release.
The main different is one of culture, on FreeBSD people *tend* to use ports instead of packages, for no particular reason it would seem (I almost always use packages in FreeBSD, unless I have a reason to use the port).

[roddierod]

On FreeBSD, I use ports mainly because I find that if I use packages there is something not compiled into a critical package I need so I just stick with that, plus I been using the ports method so long I'm probably biased.

As for OpenBSD...I hosed one nicely working system once I started try to compile my own stuff on it Probably had more to do with trying to use a package that was in current or something along those lines.

[Ninguem]

The FreeBSD Power(PC) platform is more active now. If you're wanting and willing to deal with it- the constant chaotic yet rewarding developer's attitude- then I suggest using it.
If you want the stability, go for OpenBSD.
OpenBSD has an install howto available from any of the servers. I have a howto- constantly updated when possible- on the FreeBSD forums.

[roddierod]

Well, I installed OpenBSD following the guides and everything seemed to go fairly smooth, except on rebooting I could get nothing but the nice mac folder meaning missing OS. Even went and changed the boot device in the Open Firmware...that just made the time to show the folder longer.

[daemonfowl]

Hi roddierod !!
on openfirmware .. try doing :
setenv boot-device hd:,ofwboot /bsd
reset-all
that's what I usually do ..

* I wonder if you've chosen MBR instead of HFS when installing ..

[roddierod]

No, I specifically chose HFS, just seemed the logical thing to do on a MAC...and the install notes said to anyway

I will try your suggestion. I did not place the /bsd at the end of the boot command, hopefully that was the issues.

[daemonfowl]

hopefully ..
One always needs the i partition .. I bet you are using the whole drive option for only OpenBSD ..

[roddierod]

It's an 80GB disk.

I left the 128K partition and used the rest as OpenBSD.

[daemonfowl]

the INSTALL.macppc reads :

These settings assume that the master of the first IDE bus has OpenBSD
installed on it, either in MBR format or in shared mode with ofwboot
copied into the first HFS(+) partition. It is not necessary to specify
'/bsd' on the boot line or in the boot-device variable, since it is the
default.

Lately , in fact I didn't have to tweak the openfirmware for boot-device option when I went -current on old ibook and imac .. I just put it here in case it might help, as I used to do that with the 4.* releases ..

[daemonfowl]

Hi @roddierod !
a similar problem happened to me this evening .. the imac refused to boot on 'hd:,ofwboot /bsd' .. so I tried this : boot hd:1,ofwboot /bsd .. and it succeeded .. I hope this will be your case as well .. (notice the number 1 .. if it fails use 2 or 3 depending on what you have there .. I used to use hd:3,ofwboot.xcf netbsd for NetBSD.macppc .. )

[roddierod]

Ok, Thanks. I probably won't get to this till this weekend, but I'll let you know.

[roddierod]

I just wanted to follow up on this. I tried all suggestions from daemonfowl and even a few I missed in the install text and still no boot.

I even reinstalled at which point I noticed a message after the successful install message which says that you need to copy ofwboot to the HD using Mac OS. I wondering, is this the problem? And if so, should this not be a pre-install message? Also, since I erased Mac OS how am I suppose to copy it to disk after a successful install of OpenBSD?

[daemonfowl]

Hi roddierod ! Please consider that you chose HFS and not MBR .. OpenBSD has facilitated the macppc installation as though it be on i386 .. I simply choose MBR and dedicate the whole disk for OpenBSD .. I bet that's what you want too .. Please try again and maybe you won't even need to setenv boot-device on openfirmware a was my case last time with 5.1 .. it booted by itself .

[pcronin]

Hi all, just wanted to say that I had the same experience when I tried to put 5.0 on my iBook G4 last month. I ended up just putting Tiger back on it for a few weeks, and then a couple days ago I re-read the macppc install file. I went with MBR, and made the changes in ofwboot, and was able to properly replace the old Tiger with the new (5.1) Puffy

Was easily able to get on my wifi, and download some packages. Next step for me is to make X look pretty

Unless you *need* to dual boot, I'd suggest strongly just wiping OSX off the mini and running OpenBSD alone.