CRUX PPC

Release Notes for CRUX PPC 2.5

Introduction

This page discusses the relevant changes introduced in CRUX PPC 2.5.
Everybody upgrading from the previous release is advised to carefully read the following notes.

About Power Architecture^® hardware

supported machines:
Apple 32bit "NewWorld" G3, G4
Apple 64bit G5
Genesi PegasosII, Efika
Acube Sam440ep
IBM pSeries POWER3/POWER4
IBM Intellistation POWER 265/275

untested machines:
IBM RS/6000 CHRP (604e)
Acube Sam440ep Flex
IBM iSeries POWERn
IBM System p POWER5/POWER6
IBM Intellistation POWER 185, YDL Powerstation
IBM Intellistation POWER 285
IBM RS/6000 RS64
IBM BladeCenter JS

---- --- --- --- --- --- --- ----

skipped machines:
Freescale 51xx, 83xx, 85xx, 86xx
Eyetech AmigaOne/Micro-A1
Apple "OldWorld" G3
YDL Mai Logic Teron, Genesi PegasosI (April Fix I/II)

not supported machines:
IBM "Legacy" iSeries POWER3/POWER4
PCI Express (PCIe) card (IBM PowerXCell 8i Cell processor based) - CAB (Cell Accelerator Board)
Sony ZEGO BCU-100
P.A. Semiconductor PA6T-1682M "Electra"
LimePC (all MPC5121e SoC based products)
AMCC 4x0 SoC
Walnut 405GP
Cherrypal C100/C114
Realm Systems BlackDog, Inaura K9/iD3
LinkStation/Kuro Box HG (PPC)
Plat'Home OpenBlockS 266
RouterBOARD RB 333/600A/1000/1000U
IBM BladeCenter QS
PowerPC game consoles (Sony PS3, Nintendo Wii, Nintendo GameCube)
PowerPC SoC Set Top Boxes

Toolchain updates

CRUX PPC 2.5 includes glibc 2.8, gcc 4.3.3 and binutils 2.19.1 .

Kernel

Linux-2.6.29.4

Important changes

CRUX PPC 2.5 is released as two different installation ISO: 32bit and 64bit. The 32bit version is based on a single lib toolchain instead the 64bit one comes with a multilib toolchain. These two versions share the same ports tree.

core and opt ports

glibc does not contain all possible locales anymore, see handbook.
the runtime linker configuration has been greatly simplified by adding a configuration-directory /etc/ld.so.conf.d .
gcc depends on libgmp and libmpfr.
gmp and mpfr renamed to libgmp and libmpfr in core collection.
libpcre has been added to core collection.
mkimage has been moved to opt collection.
slocate has been replaced by mlocate in core collection.
inetutils replaces inetd, netkit-ftp and netkit-telnet core collection.
cdrtools has been replaced by cdrkit in opt collection.
cdrkit depends on cmake, libcap and libattr.
cmake, libcap and libattr were added to opt collection.

xorg ports

CRUX PPC 2.5 ships with X.org 7.4.
xorg-xcompmgr and xorg-dri2proto were added to xorg collection.
xorg-xf86-input-synaptics was added to xorg collection.
xorg-xf86-video-ati has been replaced by xorg-xf86-video-mach64, xorg-xf86-video-r128 and xorg-xf86-video-ati.
xorg-xf86-video-mach64, xorg-xf86-video-r128 and xorg-xf86-video-fbdev were added to xorg collection.

Miscellaneous notes

Please be sure you are using the latest version of firmware for your own machine.

When upgrading from CRUX PPC 2.4 to CRUX PPC 2.5, the setup program will take a while completing the Please wait [2.4 -> 2.5 check] phase.
CRUX introduced a new boot file: /etc/rc.fix for generic operations to be excuted at boot time. At the moment the script takes care of font cache generation for xorg, so your very first boot under CRUX PPC 2.5 will take a few additional seconds.

Genesi PegasosII users: please, consider to use with Device Tree Supplement.

Genesi Efika users: bootkernel shipped with CRUX PPC 2.5 has "Root file system on NFS" enabled to install via NFS. Bootkernel doesn't use Device Tree Supplement (efika-dts-20071114.zip) because unmaintained and there are some important issues with recent kernels.

Known issues

Apple iMac G5: if you are experiencing difficulties booting try with "install64 root=/dev/hda video=ofonly".

Genesi PegasosII: Marvell DiscoveryII sram gigabit ethernet [mv643xx_eth] support in kernel < 2.6.30 is broken.

Genesi Efika: audio support in kernel < 2.6.31 is broken.

Errata

IBM System p (POWER5/POWER6): serial setup works with ttyS0 at 9600 baud.