XFCE4 on NetBSD MacPPC

I'm running on a 300 Mhz PPC Powerbook G3 Wallstreet PDQ to be exact. After much thought I decided that I needed a desktop manager. So I setup xorg and I proceeded to install XFCE4. To install XFCE4 these are the steps I followed.

$ cd /usr/pkgsrc/meta-pkgs/xfce4/

$ make install clean clean-depends

That's it. It took a good 24 hours to compile so I left the machine on and went to bed. :)

Installing NetBSD on a Powerbook G3 Wallstreet PDQ

I've been having and old Powerbook G3 Wallstreet PDQ lying around. I had Linux running on it using BootX but I soon wanted to push it to it's limit and see if I could run NetBSD on it. With some research done I soon had NetBSD running on my old Powerbook. Here are the steps of running the installation.

Grab hold of a Mac OS X 10.2 Disk 1 and insert it into the CD-Drive. Now hold down Command-Option-O-F before the boot chime. This should get you into the open firmware. Type in the following commands:

0> setenv auto-boot? false

 once you enter the command hit return/enter key. Next type:

0> boot

Now hit the return key. Right after hitting the return key hold down C. This will boot the Mac OS X 10.2 Disk 1. Initially a Mac Icon will appear with a smiling mac. Then you will hear the boot chime again and it will stop at the Open Firmware boot.

Now remove the Mac OS X 10.2 CD from the CD drive and insert the Net BSD 5.1.2 CD into the CD Drive and close the drive. Now type in the following command at the prompt.

0>setenv real-base F00000

0> boot ide1/@0:0,\ofwboot.xcf;1 netbsd.macppc;1 

and hit the return key. If  there are any errors just reboot the computer by holding COMMAND+CTRL+ Power Button. Then retype the command. This will boot from the CD and continue onto the installation wizard.

Once installation is complete to boot from hard disk type in the following at the Open Firmware prompt

0> boot ide0/@0:0,\ofwboot.xcf netbsd-GENERIC_MD.gz netbsd.macppc

 Hit the return key and when prompted hit the return key again. Now you have NetBSD running on a Powerbook G3 PDQ :)