SPARC64 compatability? -Solved- The answer: no
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I have a Sun Blade 150 that I recently got, and it is practically fanless: great for a pfSense box!
But when I try to boot from the CD-rom, it wont load the OS.Does the OpenBoot Prom not support the cd booting method used by pfSense? Or do I need to install to a hardrive elsewhere, and move the drive into the Sun Blade?
Or does pfSense not work on non-i386/x86-64 platforms?
(I checked the FreeBSD compatibility list, it specifically supports this machine)Thank you for your time.
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PFsense foes not support other than X86 hardware….
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PFsense foes not support other than X86 hardware….
Well, shucks! so much for my plan.
Thanks for the info.
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Other platforms will most probably be supported in future versions:
http://blog.pfsense.org/?p=472
Multiple hardware architecture support – with some additional changes that are currently in the works, this will allow us to support non-x86 architectures in the future, where FreeBSD supports those architectures and specific platforms. Expect to see MIPS and ARM first, with others possible. Historically, these platforms had such limited CPU, RAM and flash that we would have been forced to spend an inordinate amount of time trimming things down, removing numerous features only to end up with a much less attractive offering. That development time is better spent elsewhere. With new MIPS and ARM platforms offering considerably more flash and RAM, this is no longer the case. Though these hardware limits are still applicable to your typical consumer grade Linksys and similar routers, they will never be supported. Specific information on supported hardware will come in the future.
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Other platforms will most probably be supported in future versions:
Ah, so there's some hope in the indefinite future.
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There are no plans to ever support SPARC. Only definite at this point is one MIPS platform.
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I'm curious to know the thought behind why no support for SPARC. FreeBSD supports SPARC installations. Is it just making all of the apps work the issue? I have a Sunfire sitting in my rack collecting dust. Would be interesting in running pfsense on it.
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Effort required vs. demand. The time that would be required to make SPARC work in our build system isn't worth it, the time would be better spent elsewhere (unless someone is willing to fund the development, and there's so much work in it that it's likely anyone who has a pile of SPARC boxes laying around would trash them before spending the kind of cash it would take to spend a considerable amount of time adding support).
The only reason MIPS was added is Ubiquiti funded that development.
Patches welcome of course (i.e. if you want to do the work, have at).
