Re: Nintendo Wii U support added to -current

Jared McNeill <[email protected]> Sat, 10 Jan 2026 11:36:14 -0400 (AST)
Newsgroups gmane.os.netbsd.ports.powerpc
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Yes SMP works.

On Sat, 10 Jan 2026, Brad wrote:

> Great work! Does SMP work on it? I've heard that the implementation is a bit 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.
>>
>> The Wii U is a very nice upgrade from the Wii:
>>
>>   * CPU is a 1.24GHz tri-core PowerPC (IBM 750 derivative)
>>   * 2GB RAM
>>   * GPU is AMD Radeon (probably R7xx)
>>   * HDMI / composite / component video out
>>   * 4x USB 2.0 ports
>>   * SD card slot
>>   * SATA Blu-ray drive
>>   * Touch screen, buttons, camera integrated into the controller
>>
>> 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 required. Follow the instructions for installing Aroma on https://wiiu.hacks.guide to prepare the system for installation. This only needs to be done once.
>>
>> Once the system is homebrew-enabled, prepare an SD card with the NetBSD install. I _strongly_ recommend using an A2-class microSD card for this.
>>
>> Files required:
>>
>>   * https://nycdn.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD-daily/HEAD/latest/evbppc/binary/gzimg/nintendo.img.gz
>>   * https://github.com/wiiu-env/fw_img_payload/releases/download/v0.2/fw_img_payload_v0_2.zip
>>   * https://gitlab.com/linux-wiiu/linux-loader/-/jobs/artifacts/master/raw/fw.img?job=loader-build
>>
>> To setup the SD card:
>>
>>   1) Uncompress nintendo.img.gz and image the SD card using your
>>      favourite image writing software (dd, balenaEtcher, etc).
>>   2) Mount the new FAT file-system that was written to the SD card. You
>>      should see a directory named "linux" and a file named "netbsd" in the
>>      root directory. Make a new directory named "wiiu".
>>   3) Uncompress fw_img_payload_v0_2.zip and copy "payload.elf" to the
>>      "wiiu" directory.
>>   4) Copy linux-loader to the root directory as "fw.img".
>>
>> The final layout of the FAT file-system should look something like this:
>>
>>     fw.img
>>     linux/boot.cfg
>>     netbsd
>>     wiiu/payload.elf
>>
>> (There will be other files present, those are to support the original Wii).
>>
>> 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 boots a second time, you can login as "root" and use the system as any other NetBSD install.
>>
>> Take care,
>> Jared
>
>
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