OpenBSD on PPC
OpenBSD 4.2 (macppc) on a Powermac G4 AGPOpenBSD on PPC, specifically
Well, at least it’s now booting…
It might be nice to shove a bunch of four-port NICs in here and use it as a firewall / hub / bridge / switch thing. Then I could do what is essentially per-port / per-device monitoring and firewalling. I think it would work well to have the Airport Extreme on one port, my Mac Pro on another, the workbench on one, the Xbox 360 on yet another.
I wonder if this thing can run without a video card…
This would be good for ACK prioritization which would really help me out when loads of photos are uploading. Hmm…
Oh, also, the nifty real framebuffer, high-res, serif font is kinda neat.
I think next I’ll try and clean it out (it’s full of cat dander), get it booting from flash, and get the noisy fans sorted out. Right now it’s only pulling 54 watts, but I’d love to get that even lower if it’s going to be a firewall.
Hmm, if I got an Airport card for it (anyone have one of these — the old, original one?) I could also have an open AP, with monitoring, which only has access to the public internet. That’d be handy.
Sorry about the cat fur. It happens when you’ve got three of the critters around the house though.
DIdn’t take you long to start playing with it though.
Incidentally, I had about 40 pix open in Photoshop at once yesterday (I’m back to ebaying), and had no problems with the mini at all. Trying to do that on the dying G4 would have reduced me to tears.
It actually didn’t bother me that much. As soon as the case was closed back up and I washed my hands it was fine. :) I’m hoping to, possibly tomorrow, strip the whole thing down, clean it up, then put it back together. That’ll get it just as I want it.
I also hope to finish picking up the parts I want for it from eBay, so I can actually put it to proper use. Hopefully that won’t take too long.
Thanks again. :)
By the way, that sounds great about the new machine… It really is pretty nice. It should last for a while. Oh, did you order that disk enclosure yet?
yeah, disc enclosure should be here by Monday.
I’m actually pissed right now, because I shot 9 rolls of film tonight. Used to be you could go to Meijer’s and have them done in an hour 24 hours a day. Not anymore, I’ve got to wait til 9am for a photo lab to open.
So long as the mini can handle my photoshopping, I’ll probably keep it til it dies on me. Or until I hit the lotto and get that 17″ powerbook.
I’ve got a G4 AGP here as a RAID server running Panther. I’ve been wanting to upgrade to Gigabit ethernet, but still haven’t decided if I want to upgrade the motherboard or just get a PCI-X card.
Also, how are you measuring power consumption? Just a Kill-a-Watt, or something else?
Yep, it’s just a Kill-a-Watt… you can see it in the picture there. It’s pretty useful. :)
There’s some Compaq NICs I have which have two 10/100 ports on board, but can have a module fitted so that there are a total of three pots on the board, one gigabit, two 10/100. There’s actually one up on eBay right now, 140201688249, but I think I’m going to be bidding on it. I’d also like to get a couple of these. Half of those (just the base board) is what I have two of right now.
I hadn’t realized just how easy putting together a bridge is, and that it works just like a switch by default. This should be fun. :) I’d love a nice little embedded box for it, bit this is loads cheaper…
Do you happen to know if those Compaq cards are compatible with 10.3.9? I can upgrade to 10.4 if needed, but right now that’s more work than what I’d prefer to put into the project.
Also, I’m finding that with the Gigabit motherboard, I also get dual CPU’s. Hmmm…
I’m not sure, to be honest. But I can tell you that they are basically EEPRO chips and a PCI bridge, on one card.
Last night I was trying to decide if it’d be worth getting a serial port for the G4, pulling the video card, and using just a terminal if things go wrong. Instead I think I’ll just have enough NICs that the three remaining slots are enough. I’ve got a Broadcom crypto accelerator in there now, but the CPU is probably fast enough to make it not worthwhile.