Re: What's the plan for powerpc64 in FreeBSD 16

On Mon, 24 Nov 2025 at 09:11, Timothy Pearson <
[email protected]> wrote:

>
> While I agree, I do want to ensure everyone understands that powerpc64be
> != powerpc64le; it's very easy to inadvertently lump them together for this
> sort of discussion.  I expect over time we will end up in a state where
> powerpc64be is broken and powerpc64le is functioning normally; the latter
> should block, the former should not in my opinion.
>

Our code ends up in all kinds of places that aren't 100% little endian,
including our network stack being in MBED stuff, and our wifi stack
powering all those little ESP32 devices (apparently!)
So having a working big-endian platform will help us keep our code honest
and clean.

I've got some ppc big endian stuff coming soon, and I'll go step up efforts
to make emulator environments "just work" again if they don't.


>
> > A group at the University of Oregon has some POWER systems available to
> us.  If
> > you are interested, please contact Lance Albertson, who is copied here,
> as soon
> > as possible.  He's been asking whether anyone is using the hardware and
> says we
> > risk losing access if no one shows interest.
>
>


> For all those folks that would like to help and don't have hardware
> access, this is a great alternative to the Raptor bare metal boxes.
> Especially for items like application development (e.g. furthering the Go
> port Raptor put together) these machines are a great resource -- I know
> Lance as well, so if there's any issues getting access set up just let me
> know.
>
>
I've reached out to lance separately to ask what the current/future state
of it all is. Thanks!




-adrian


> Thanks!
>
>