From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1999 15:45:51 +0100 To: LinuxPPC-Dev Liste CC: Paul Mackerras From: Benjamin Herrenschmidt Subject: Linux vs. new PowerMacs Message-Id: <19990106154551.031473@mail.mipsys.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-linuxppc-dev@lists.linuxppc.org List-Id: For those who haven't yet read the developer note of the new machines, here are some infos that may be of interest to get Linux running on those new machines: - Grackle is still here. It's externally clocked at 66MHz using an Apple custom-made arbitrer, but this should be configured once for all by OF, so I don't think we have to worry about that. It's driving the 66MHz/32bits graphic PCI slot and the bridge below. - There's a PCI-PCI bridge between the 66MHz bus and the 33MHz 32/64 bits bus. It looks like the data patch from the CPU to this PCI is 32 bits wide. The bridge is a DEC/Intel 21154 connected to Grackle. - The main IC is still Paddington (like the iMac) with a slightly improved bmac+, according to Apple it's software compatible and more efficient. The modem is on it's SCC channel A, so I guess we should be able to support it, it's ATA channels (ATA-3) drive the CDROM and the ZIP, VIA and CUDA are there too for I2C, power and ADB, the NVRAM looks similar to what it was in the iMac and the Sound is also Burgundy which is, I think, yet another AWACS derivative. - There's a new PCI-based UltraDMA/33 (ATA/ATAPI-4) controller. I've not seen any infos or spec about this, I don't know if it's a custom Apple chip or a standard one, but there are great chances that this is a standard one. We should be able to use it as-is in PIO mode like any ATA controller, DMA may be a little bit more tricky. - FireWire is a standard PCI-based chip - USB is a standard PCI-based chip, I guess it's similar to the one used in the iMac but I have not seen any more infos about it in the dev. note. - Video: The new ATI will probably not be supported "as-is" by atyfb, this will probably be the "hard part". We can still use "ofonly" video in the meantime. Looks like there are great chances that we get Linux running on the machine quite quickly, isn't it ? ;-) -- E-Mail: BenH. Web : [[ This message was sent via the linuxppc-dev mailing list. Replies are ]] [[ not forced back to the list, so be sure to Cc linuxppc-dev if your ]] [[ reply is of general interest. To unsubscribe from linuxppc-dev, send ]] [[ the message 'unsubscribe' to linuxppc-dev-request@lists.linuxppc.org ]]