AmigaNG boards (amigaone, pegasos2, sam460ex)

These PowerPC machines emulate boards that are primarily used for running Amiga like OSes (AmigaOS 4, MorphOS and AROS) but these can also run Linux which is what this section documents.

Eyetech AmigaOne/Mai Logic Teron (amigaone)

The amigaone machine emulates an AmigaOne XE mainboard by Eyetech which is a rebranded Mai Logic Teron board with modified U-Boot firmware to support AmigaOS 4.

Emulated devices

  • PowerPC 7457 CPU (can also use -cpu g3, 750cxe, 750fx or 750gx)

  • Articia S north bridge

  • VIA VT82C686B south bridge

  • PCI VGA compatible card (guests may need other card instead)

  • PS/2 keyboard and mouse

Firmware

A firmware binary is necessary for the boot process. It is a modified U-Boot under GPL but its source is lost so it cannot be included in QEMU. A binary is available at https://www.hyperion-entertainment.com/index.php/downloads?view=files&parent=28. The ROM image is in the last 512kB which can be extracted with the following command:

$ tail -c 524288 updater.image > u-boot-amigaone.bin

The BIOS emulator in the firmware is unable to run QEMU‘s standard vgabios so VGABIOS-lgpl-latest.bin is needed instead which can be downloaded from http://www.nongnu.org/vgabios.

Running Linux

There are some Linux images under the following link that work on the amigaone machine: https://sourceforge.net/projects/amigaone-linux/files/debian-installer/. To boot the system run:

$ qemu-system-ppc -machine amigaone -bios u-boot-amigaone.bin \
                  -cdrom "A1 Linux Net Installer.iso" \
                  -device ati-vga,model=rv100,romfile=VGABIOS-lgpl-latest.bin

From the firmware menu that appears select Boot sequence → Amiga Multiboot Options and set Boot device 1 to Onboard VIA IDE CDROM. Then hit escape until the main screen appears again, hit escape once more and from the exit menu that appears select either Save settings and exit or Use settings for this session only. It may take a long time loading the kernel into memory but eventually it boots and the installer becomes visible. The ati-vga RV100 emulation is not complete yet so only frame buffer works, DRM and 3D is not available.

Genesi/bPlan Pegasos II (pegasos2)

The pegasos2 machine emulates the Pegasos II sold by Genesi and designed by bPlan. Its schematics are available at https://www.powerdeveloper.org/platforms/pegasos/schematics.

Emulated devices

  • PowerPC 7457 CPU (can also use -cpu g3 or 750cxe)

  • Marvell MV64361 Discovery II north bridge

  • VIA VT8231 south bridge

  • PCI VGA compatible card (guests may need other card instead)

  • PS/2 keyboard and mouse

Firmware

The Pegasos II board has an Open Firmware compliant ROM based on SmartFirmware with some changes that are not open-sourced therefore the ROM binary cannot be included in QEMU. An updater was available from bPlan, it can be found in the Internet Archive. The ROM image can be extracted from it with the following command:

$ tail -c +85581 up050404 | head -c 524288 > pegasos2.rom

Running Linux

The PowerPC version of Debian 8.11 supported Pegasos II. The BIOS emulator in the firmware binary is unable to run QEMU‘s standard vgabios so it needs to be disabled. To boot the system run:

$ qemu-system-ppc -machine pegasos2 -bios pegasos2.rom \
                  -cdrom debian-8.11.0-powerpc-netinst.iso \
                  -device VGA,romfile="" -serial stdio

At the firmware ok prompt enter boot cd install/pegasos.

Alternatively, it is possible to boot the kernel directly without firmware ROM using the QEMU built-in minimal Virtual Open Firmware (VOF) emulation which is also supported on pegasos2. For this, extract the kernel install/powerpc/vmlinuz-chrp.initrd from the CD image, then run:

$ qemu-system-ppc -machine pegasos2 -serial stdio \
                  -kernel vmlinuz-chrp.initrd -append "---" \
                  -cdrom debian-8.11.0-powerpc-netinst.iso

aCube Sam460ex (sam460ex)

The sam460ex machine emulates the Sam460ex board by aCube which is based on the AMCC PowerPC 460EX SoC (that despite its name has a PPC440 CPU core).

Firmware

The board has a firmware based on an older U-Boot version with modifications to support booting AmigaOS 4. The firmware ROM is included with QEMU.

Emulated devices

  • PowerPC 460EX SoC

  • M41T80 serial RTC chip

  • Silicon Motion SM501 display parts (identical to SM502 on real board)

  • Silicon Image SiI3112 2 port SATA controller

  • USB keyboard and mouse

Running Linux

The only Linux distro that supported Sam460ex out of box was CruxPPC 2.x. It can be booted by running:

$ qemu-system-ppc -machine sam460ex -serial stdio \
                  -drive if=none,id=cd,format=raw,file=crux-ppc-2.7a.iso \
                  -device ide-cd,drive=cd,bus=ide.1

There are some other kernels and instructions for booting other distros on aCube’s product page at https://www.acube-systems.biz/index.php?page=hardware&pid=5 but those are untested.