I can't boot 15 or 16 on a G5 apple, but I can boot 12, 13 and 14. (Well, "boot", but it makes it to the loader and kernel.) It's easily reproducible with qemu, so you don't need hardware to reproduce/fix this! my config: ``` #!/bin/sh # PPC970 (G5) mac emulation testing # TODO: this thread has some info about their ppc64 SMP tinkering # https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/smp-for-qemu-syetem-ppc64-wip.2450008/ # It would be nice to see SMP support for 970mp on mac99 and then # use it for regression testing on FreeBSD! # Booting cdrom: # # boot cd:,\\:tbxi # -hda drive-1.raw \ # # -drive id=drive1,file=drive-1.raw,if=none -device virtio-blk-pci,drive=drive1 \ # -cdrom ../iso/FreeBSD-16.0-CURRENT-powerpc-powerpc64-20251222-nullhash-nullcount-disc1.iso \ # -netdev tap,ifname=tap0,script=no,id=net0 -device virtio-net-pci,netdev=net0,mac=00:08:01:12:00:01 # -drive file=../iso/FreeBSD-16.0-CURRENT-powerpc-powerpc64-20251222-nullhash-nullcount-disc1.iso,format=raw,media=cdrom,read only=on,index=2 # -drive file=../iso/FreeBSD-14.3-RELEASE-powerpc-powerpc64-bootonly.iso,format=raw,media=cdrom,readonly=on,index=2 qemu-system-ppc64 \ -machine mac99,via=pmu \ -cpu 970fx \ -smp 1 \ -drive file=wd0.img,format=raw,media=disk,snapshot=on \ -drive file=../iso/FreeBSD-15.0-STABLE-powerpc-powerpc64-20260101-785d429c2b93-281645-bootonly.iso,format=raw,media=cdrom,r eadonly=on,index=2 ``` to reproduce: * fetch the above iso images so you can test 14, 15, 16 * truncate -s 1G wd0.img * ./run.sh * at the openfirmware prompt, do "boot cd:,\\:tbxi" It works for 14 (and 13, and 12) but not 15 or 16 - it spits out this "No valid state has been set by load or init-program"
Note: qemu version qemu-devel-10.1.20251031 QEMU CPU Emulator - development version
I'm bisecting it, hopefully to get something out of it soon. Also do you have a G5? and what model it is? Because in my own 14.3 fork have a fully working SMP (tested on G5 Dual core 970MP). But I need another tester to confirm. https://github.com/aomsin2526/freebsd-src/commits/releng/14.3-ps3/ Thanks.
(In reply to Chattrapat Sangmanee from comment #2) It's the dual ppc970 g5. i got it specifically to fix smp in -head :-)
Sigh, it's because the awk call in releases/powerpc/mkisoimages.sh is now returning 0. [adrian@ref14-amd64 ~]$ echo 0x3a00 | awk '{printf("%x\n",$1/512);}' 1d but [adrian@ref15-amd64 ~]$ echo 0x3a00 | awk '{printf("%x\n",$1/512);}' 0 awk is no longer taking a hex number as a valid input.
Great to know, That's why I'm wondering why even 14 branch I just built doesn't work as well. So it is the host machine then since I just upgraded my machine to 15.
https://reviews.freebsd.org/D54639 should fix it. It at least fixes things on qemu; I'll try booting this image tonight on the G5 to see if I enter the loader and it loads the kernel. (I haven't built a full release image in a long long time, I'll have to go figure that out again.)
(In reply to Chattrapat Sangmanee from comment #5) Yeah! I only noticed it when I started trying to build using older build script, older loader, older kernel and it was still failing. So I started looking at the output of each step and .. voila! Please let me know if that can spit out a working 15 and HEAD release iso that boots. Thanks!
(In reply to Adrian Chadd from comment #4) Looks like this bug was brought in via f32a6403 ("Merge one true awk from 2024-01-22 for the Awk Second Edition support"). That removes the `#if 0`-outing of the checking for hex floats. stable/14 somehow preserves the `#if 0`.
After patch applied my G5 is booting 15.0-RELEASE fine again. to live cd at least. Also just in case, You may want to try revert commit 3f24b505677a92cbcfa6ad3222df411917ef3e4e. for me revert this one alone fixed all problem I had with my g5 and ps3. So if you get random panics and don't know why maybe you can try revert it.
Update of above comment: Revert that one alone isn't enough for it to build, so a6ca7519f89c52e9fab205cded0f2bf32d914cd6 must be reverted first as well. I also tested on ps3, can also confirm that it boots 15.0 fine as well (good news). Sorry for all this useless stuff, I just don't know where else to report.
(In reply to Chattrapat Sangmanee from comment #10) oh this is great feedback, thanks! I'll poke you about that specific reversion diff once this is fixed. If that's the MVP required to fix the dual CPU G5 issue then awesome!
A commit in branch main references this bug: URL: https://cgit.FreeBSD.org/src/commit/?id=7afa03963c448a14b1735a10eaf84941b0b74862 commit 7afa03963c448a14b1735a10eaf84941b0b74862 Author: Adrian Chadd <adrian@FreeBSD.org> AuthorDate: 2026-01-11 03:59:41 +0000 Commit: Adrian Chadd <adrian@FreeBSD.org> CommitDate: 2026-01-11 07:04:57 +0000 powerpc: fix release image building for Apple partitions awk changed somewhere between 14 and 15 and it stopped accepting a hexadecimal number as its input - it will always return 0. This results in a very badly written apple boot block. So just remove it; do the math in shell. PR: kern/292341 Differential Revision: https://reviews.freebsd.org/D54639 Reviewed by: imp MFC after: 1 week release/powerpc/mkisoimages.sh | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
A commit in branch main references this bug: URL: https://cgit.FreeBSD.org/doc/commit/?id=5c9832dab53e25f11cbe55161302c4dc5cbee430 commit 5c9832dab53e25f11cbe55161302c4dc5cbee430 Author: Alexander Ziaee <ziaee@FreeBSD.org> AuthorDate: 2026-01-12 18:47:45 +0000 Commit: Alexander Ziaee <ziaee@FreeBSD.org> CommitDate: 2026-01-12 21:34:56 +0000 15.0/eratta: 15.0 doesn't boot on apple G5 PR: 292341 Reported by: adrian website/content/en/releases/15.0R/errata.adoc | 4 ++++ 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+)
A commit in branch stable/15 references this bug: URL: https://cgit.FreeBSD.org/src/commit/?id=4b5b8d69b23a73e932a8d46829b1ec65ba50be36 commit 4b5b8d69b23a73e932a8d46829b1ec65ba50be36 Author: Adrian Chadd <adrian@FreeBSD.org> AuthorDate: 2026-01-11 03:59:41 +0000 Commit: Adrian Chadd <adrian@FreeBSD.org> CommitDate: 2026-01-16 06:26:30 +0000 powerpc: fix release image building for Apple partitions awk changed somewhere between 14 and 15 and it stopped accepting a hexadecimal number as its input - it will always return 0. This results in a very badly written apple boot block. So just remove it; do the math in shell. PR: kern/292341 Differential Revision: https://reviews.freebsd.org/D54639 Reviewed by: imp MFC after: 1 week (cherry picked from commit 7afa03963c448a14b1735a10eaf84941b0b74862) release/powerpc/mkisoimages.sh | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
A commit in branch stable/14 references this bug: URL: https://cgit.FreeBSD.org/src/commit/?id=8baa4e9647192e476a0a14a796e36aef6ea4607e commit 8baa4e9647192e476a0a14a796e36aef6ea4607e Author: Adrian Chadd <adrian@FreeBSD.org> AuthorDate: 2026-01-11 03:59:41 +0000 Commit: Adrian Chadd <adrian@FreeBSD.org> CommitDate: 2026-01-30 05:06:09 +0000 powerpc: fix release image building for Apple partitions awk changed somewhere between 14 and 15 and it stopped accepting a hexadecimal number as its input - it will always return 0. This results in a very badly written apple boot block. So just remove it; do the math in shell. PR: kern/292341 Differential Revision: https://reviews.freebsd.org/D54639 Reviewed by: imp MFC after: 1 week (cherry picked from commit 7afa03963c448a14b1735a10eaf84941b0b74862) release/powerpc/mkisoimages.sh | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)