docs/system/ppc/amigang.rst
amigaone, pegasos1, pegasos2, sam460ex)These PowerPC machines emulate boards that are primarily used for running Amiga like OSes (AmigaOS 4, MorphOS and AROS) but these can also run Linux which is what this section documents.
amigaone)The amigaone machine emulates an AmigaOne XE mainboard by Eyetech
which is a rebranded Mai Logic Teron board with modified U-Boot
firmware to support AmigaOS 4.
-cpu g3, 750cxe, 750fx or 750gx)-drive if=mtd,format=raw,file=nvram.bin to keep contents persistent)A firmware binary is necessary for the boot process. It is a modified U-Boot under GPL but its source is lost so it cannot be included in QEMU. A binary is available at https://www.hyperion-entertainment.com/index.php/downloads?view=files&parent=28. The ROM image is in the last 512kB which can be extracted with the following command:
.. code-block:: bash
$ tail -c 524288 updater.image > u-boot-amigaone.bin
The BIOS emulator in the firmware is unable to run QEMU‘s standard
vgabios so VGABIOS-lgpl-latest.bin is needed instead which can be
downloaded from http://www.nongnu.org/vgabios.
There are some Linux images under the following link that work on the
amigaone machine:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/amigaone-linux/files/debian-installer/.
To boot the system run:
.. code-block:: bash
$ qemu-system-ppc -machine amigaone -bios u-boot-amigaone.bin
-cdrom "A1 Linux Net Installer.iso"
-device ati-vga,model=rv100,romfile=VGABIOS-lgpl-latest.bin
If a firmware menu appears, select Boot sequence → Amiga Multiboot Options
and set Boot device 1 to Onboard VIA IDE CDROM. Then hit escape until
the main screen appears again, hit escape once more and from the exit menu that
appears select either Save settings and exit or Use settings for this session only. It may take a long time loading the kernel into memory but
eventually it boots and the installer becomes visible. The ati-vga RV100
emulation is not complete yet so only frame buffer works, DRM and 3D is not
available.
pegasos1, pegasos2)The pegasos1 machine emulates the original Pegasos (later marked I) sold by
Genesi and designed by bPlan. It uses the same Articia S north bridge as the
amigaone machine, otherwise it is mostly the same as the later Pegasos II.
The pegasos2 machine emulates the Pegasos II which is a redesigned version
of Pegasos I to fix problems with its north bridge. Its schematics are available
at https://www.powerdeveloper.org/platforms/pegasos/schematics.
-cpu g3 or 750cxe)pegasos1)pegasos2)The Pegasos boards have an Open Firmware compliant ROM based on
SmartFirmware with some changes that are not open-sourced therefore
the ROM binary cannot be included in QEMU. A Pegasos II updater was available
from bPlan, it can be found in the Internet Archive <http://web.archive.org/web/20071021223056/http://www.bplan-gmbh.de/up050404/up050404>_.
The ROM image can be extracted from it with the following command:
.. code-block:: bash
$ tail -c +85581 up050404 | head -c 524288 > pegasos2.rom
The PowerPC version of Debian 8.11 supported Pegasos II. The BIOS emulator in the firmware binary is unable to run QEMU‘s standard vgabios so it needs to be disabled. To boot the system run:
.. code-block:: bash
$ qemu-system-ppc -machine pegasos2 -bios pegasos2.rom
-cdrom debian-8.11.0-powerpc-netinst.iso
-device VGA,romfile="" -serial stdio
At the firmware ok prompt enter boot cd install/pegasos.
Alternatively, it is possible to boot the kernel directly without
firmware ROM using the QEMU built-in minimal Virtual Open Firmware
(VOF) emulation which is also supported on pegasos1 and pegasos2. For this,
extract the kernel install/powerpc/vmlinuz-chrp.initrd from the CD
image, then run:
.. code-block:: bash
$ qemu-system-ppc -machine pegasos2 -serial stdio
-kernel vmlinuz-chrp.initrd -append "---"
-cdrom debian-8.11.0-powerpc-netinst.iso
sam460ex)The sam460ex machine emulates the Sam460ex board by aCube which is
based on the AMCC PowerPC 460EX SoC (that despite its name has a
PPC440 CPU core).
The board has a firmware based on an older U-Boot version with modifications to support booting AmigaOS 4. The firmware ROM is included with QEMU.
The only Linux distro that supported Sam460ex out of box was CruxPPC 2.x. It can be booted by running:
.. code-block:: bash
$ qemu-system-ppc -machine sam460ex -serial stdio
-drive if=none,id=cd,format=raw,file=crux-ppc-2.7a.iso
-device ide-cd,drive=cd,bus=ide.1
There are some other kernels and instructions for booting other distros on aCube's product page at https://www.acube-systems.biz/index.php?page=hardware&pid=5 but those are untested.