21
Firmware / Re: Maybe bricked the firmware on my Blackbird
« Last post by atomicdog on April 01, 2025, 09:28:31 pm »The write protect needs to be enabled in firmware which defies the whole point of hardware write protection.
Recent Posts
22
Firmware / Re: Maybe bricked the firmware on my Blackbird
« Last post by Blissed on April 01, 2025, 03:43:51 pm »Thank you, flashed using ssh and blackbird is back online 
However it's still insane to me that freebsd disk partititon can brick the firmware and that was with the write protection enabled
Thank you nevertheless
However it's still insane to me that freebsd disk partititon can brick the firmware and that was with the write protection enabled
Thank you nevertheless
23
Firmware / Re: Maybe bricked the firmware on my Blackbird
« Last post by draconx on April 01, 2025, 10:18:12 am »As it sounds like the BMC is still working fine, if you think the PNOR is corrupted (this is what contains the hostboot and skiroot/petitboot code that runs when you switch on the POWER9) you can easily re-flash it from the BMC console, which you can access over the serial port or SSH.
It is also supposedly possible to do via the BMC web interface but personally I've only used the console methods.
https://wiki.raptorcs.com/wiki/Updating_Firmware
It is also supposedly possible to do via the BMC web interface but personally I've only used the console methods.
https://wiki.raptorcs.com/wiki/Updating_Firmware
24
Firmware / Maybe bricked the firmware on my Blackbird
« Last post by Blissed on April 01, 2025, 08:41:29 am »Hi,
I received my Blackbird about three month ago, and I'm very happy with it, however I wanted to install FreeBSD 14.2 from
https://download.freebsd.org/releases/powerpc/powerpc64le/ISO-IMAGES/14.2/ and while partitioning there was a 64MB block device named something like "opal" and miss clicked and confirmed to format, and than processed to install to the ssd because freebsd told me that the device is to small. And as you can guess: the firmware seems to be corrupted. I didn't expect that the eeprom of the firmware is exposed in the freebsd disk manager. I haven't seen that in any doc's (however i might just haven't seen it) nor on any another system in my life. I was in fact so confused by this that i checked the board for the presents of a sata dom like chip with 64MB - I haven't found any execpt the firmware eeprom and the impi eeprom. The remote management works so i guess it isn't that. I have dumped the firmware image, but with nothing to compare it to it's not much help, it's not wiped. To drill down to my main request: to recover I guess I need a binary image of the firmware and there doesn't seem to be one online available to flash the eeprom with an external programmer (CH631A), also I'll attach images of the current state of the system - in case I'm completely wrong and the issue is somewhere else, because the idea that i can corrupt the firmware while formating block devices is completely outlandish to me. And I wouldn't blame any of you if you think that's not possible, and in case you do - before you answer give it a try. Boot the freeBSD 14.2 livecd and take a look at the diskmanger.
Because of the file size limit of attachments I uploaded the dump here:
https://www.file-upload.net/en/download-15474661/blackbird_dump.bin.html
Images:
https://imgur.com/a/XeG4sZw
Any help would be hugely appreciate
I received my Blackbird about three month ago, and I'm very happy with it, however I wanted to install FreeBSD 14.2 from
https://download.freebsd.org/releases/powerpc/powerpc64le/ISO-IMAGES/14.2/ and while partitioning there was a 64MB block device named something like "opal" and miss clicked and confirmed to format, and than processed to install to the ssd because freebsd told me that the device is to small. And as you can guess: the firmware seems to be corrupted. I didn't expect that the eeprom of the firmware is exposed in the freebsd disk manager. I haven't seen that in any doc's (however i might just haven't seen it) nor on any another system in my life. I was in fact so confused by this that i checked the board for the presents of a sata dom like chip with 64MB - I haven't found any execpt the firmware eeprom and the impi eeprom. The remote management works so i guess it isn't that. I have dumped the firmware image, but with nothing to compare it to it's not much help, it's not wiped. To drill down to my main request: to recover I guess I need a binary image of the firmware and there doesn't seem to be one online available to flash the eeprom with an external programmer (CH631A), also I'll attach images of the current state of the system - in case I'm completely wrong and the issue is somewhere else, because the idea that i can corrupt the firmware while formating block devices is completely outlandish to me. And I wouldn't blame any of you if you think that's not possible, and in case you do - before you answer give it a try. Boot the freeBSD 14.2 livecd and take a look at the diskmanger.
Because of the file size limit of attachments I uploaded the dump here:
https://www.file-upload.net/en/download-15474661/blackbird_dump.bin.html
Images:
https://imgur.com/a/XeG4sZw
Any help would be hugely appreciate
25
GPU Compute / Accelerators / Re: The new 9070 XT seems like a really interesting card for Blackbird owners.
« Last post by lepidotos on March 30, 2025, 11:22:59 pm »Yeah, same here. I think the PowerColor is the option to go for if you're either impatient or just don't have the money for a workstation card, I think W7700 is still a few hundred more used vs. the 9070 XT Reaper at retail price and that's for a card that's not as powerful and has the same amount of memory. W7800, which would be the real equivalent, is easily $1500 minimum used. There's also the 9070 Reaper and Hellhound, both of which are also 40mm, and we'll have to see about the 9060 and 60 XT, I would hope that they wouldn't reuse 340 W coolers for 150 W cards, but honestly, I can't be sure with the hardware industry the way it is.
At least it's PowerColor, a known and generally liked brand that we're stuck with, and not Asus or the like who are definitely known and less so liked, or a brand with neither quality.
As far as I know, there's already support for RDNA4 in amdgpu so it should hopefully be generally good to go, though until someone actually buys one to test it that's gonna be an unknown. Personally, I'm not looking to move on from my RX 570 for at minimum another 6 months, possibly a year. Just whenever the full RDNA4 lineup is out on the market and available reliably at retail price, and couldn't afford to even if I wanted at the moment anyway.
At least it's PowerColor, a known and generally liked brand that we're stuck with, and not Asus or the like who are definitely known and less so liked, or a brand with neither quality.
As far as I know, there's already support for RDNA4 in amdgpu so it should hopefully be generally good to go, though until someone actually buys one to test it that's gonna be an unknown. Personally, I'm not looking to move on from my RX 570 for at minimum another 6 months, possibly a year. Just whenever the full RDNA4 lineup is out on the market and available reliably at retail price, and couldn't afford to even if I wanted at the moment anyway.
26
GPU Compute / Accelerators / Re: The new 9070 XT seems like a really interesting card for Blackbird owners.
« Last post by MauryG5 on March 29, 2025, 04:58:03 pm »The size of these cards depends on the manufacturers and what is emerging. However, it seems that the 2-slot ones are only produced by Power Color, so unfortunately there is little choice regarding the third-party manufacturer. Probably the PRO versions will all be 2-slot but we will have to wait for the release and the prices will obviously be higher than the current counterpart. I would also like to switch to this card, but I think we will have to wait a long time before having the possibility of having the adequate support software on Power. I personally need a card that is 2 slots and that is not more than 40 mm thick otherwise I will not be able to insert it into my computer...
27
Operating Systems and Porting / Re: [NEWS] Fedora 42 Beta
« Last post by DKnoto on March 27, 2025, 10:04:12 am »However it is not fair to say its UX is the most pleasant to use.
It depends on habits. For me, at one time it was very convenient. I am not a proponent of implementing by force a UI that is good for a phone on a desktop computer, which the Gnome team is persistently pushing on us.
28
Applications and Porting / Re: Medal of Honor: Allied Assault War Chest (OpenMoHAA)
« Last post by tle on March 26, 2025, 10:07:12 pm »Hi
Thank you for contributing to OpenMoHAA and testing it.
I watched your three videos with OpenMoHAA, and I'm surprised it works so well on your computer. I was expecting some weird bugs and stability issues because this project didn't have too many PPC Linux users.
I know that Cowcat had some problems porting it to MorphOS (PPC), but maybe that would helped with some issues on the Raptor computers.
The POWER9 has more than enough juice to run the game smoothly despite of the fact there is no JIT VM support for PPC64LE.
29
Operating Systems and Porting / Re: [NEWS] Fedora 42 Beta
« Last post by tle on March 26, 2025, 06:13:26 pm »A consistent UI is what had BeOS 30 years ago, now Haiku. All written in C++ and completely unrelated to X11. Strangely, no one came up with the idea of porting that ready-made UI to Linux, they just messed around with Gnome and KDE. On Wayland the most suitable for me is Hyprland, unfortunately it is still far from full functionality.
BeOS is truly a cohesive and unique ecosystem. However it is not fair to say its UX is the most pleasant to use. Big guys like MS and Apple are still trying to figure out the UX as the hardware has advanced at rapid pace introducing new ways of doing interaction. GNOME and KDE will likely play the followers role than leading the industry. It's unfortunate yet understandable...
30
Operating Systems and Porting / [NEWS] Linux 6.14
« Last post by tle on March 26, 2025, 08:12:51 am »It is out! More details could be found at https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.14
There are no mentioning of any PowerPC-related changes unfortunately.
There are no mentioning of any PowerPC-related changes unfortunately.
