Re: Nintendo Wii U support added to -current

Great work! Does SMP work on it? I've heard that the implementation is a bi=
t broken on wiiu's cpu

Jan 10, 2026 9:54:50 AM Jared McNeill <[email protected]>:

> Yesterday I committed support for the Nintendo Wii U to NetBSD -current.
>=20
> The Wii U is a very nice upgrade from the Wii:
>=20
> =C2=A0 * CPU is a 1.24GHz tri-core PowerPC (IBM 750 derivative)
> =C2=A0 * 2GB RAM
> =C2=A0 * GPU is AMD Radeon (probably R7xx)
> =C2=A0 * HDMI / composite / component video out
> =C2=A0 * 4x USB 2.0 ports
> =C2=A0 * SD card slot
> =C2=A0 * SATA Blu-ray drive
> =C2=A0 * Touch screen, buttons, camera integrated into the controller
>=20
> To get NetBSD up and running, you need a homebrew-enabled system. You can=
 do this with an SD card and internet connection, no additional hardware re=
quired. Follow the instructions for installing Aroma on https://wiiu.hacks.=
guide to prepare the system for installation. This only needs to be done on=
ce.
>=20
> Once the system is homebrew-enabled, prepare an SD card with the NetBSD i=
nstall. I _strongly_ recommend using an A2-class microSD card for this.
>=20
> Files required:
>=20
> =C2=A0 * https://nycdn.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD-daily/HEAD/latest/evbppc/bin=
ary/gzimg/nintendo.img.gz
> =C2=A0 * https://github.com/wiiu-env/fw_img_payload/releases/download/v0.=
2/fw_img_payload_v0_2.zip
> =C2=A0 * https://gitlab.com/linux-wiiu/linux-loader/-/jobs/artifacts/mast=
er/raw/fw.img?job=3Dloader-build
>=20
> To setup the SD card:
>=20
> =C2=A0 1) Uncompress nintendo.img.gz and image the SD card using your
> =C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0 favourite image writing software (dd, balenaEtch=
er, etc).
> =C2=A0 2) Mount the new FAT file-system that was written to the SD card. =
You
> =C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0 should see a directory named "linux" and a file =
named "netbsd" in the
> =C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0 root directory. Make a new directory named "wiiu=
".
> =C2=A0 3) Uncompress fw_img_payload_v0_2.zip and copy "payload.elf" to th=
e
> =C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0 "wiiu" directory.
> =C2=A0 4) Copy linux-loader to the root directory as "fw.img".
>=20
> The final layout of the FAT file-system should look something like this:
>=20
> =C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0 fw.img
> =C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0 linux/boot.cfg
> =C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0 netbsd
> =C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0 wiiu/payload.elf
>=20
> (There will be other files present, those are to support the original Wii=
).
>=20
> Power on the Wii U with this SD card installed and the system should boot=
 automatically into NetBSD. On first boot, it will grow the FFS file-system=
 to fill the entire SD card and reboot once, this is expected. Once it boot=
s a second time, you can login as "root" and use the system as any other Ne=
tBSD install.
>=20
> Take care,
> Jared