Here’s what I changed from the GENERIC kernel:

# diff -u GENERIC MACMINI
— GENERIC Wed Feb 28 14:54:43 2007
+++ MACMINI Wed May 23 16:08:45 2007
@@ -57,20 +57,20 @@
eisa0 at mainbus0
pci* at mainbus0

-#option ACPIVERBOSE
-#option ACPI_ENABLE
+option ACPIVERBOSE
+option ACPI_ENABLE

-acpi0 at mainbus? disable
-#acpitimer* at acpi?
-#acpihpet* at acpi?
-#acpiac* at acpi?
-#acpibat* at acpi?
-#acpibtn* at acpi?
-#acpicpu* at acpi?
-#acpidock* at acpi?
+acpi0 at mainbus?
+acpitimer* at acpi?
+acpihpet* at acpi?
+acpiac* at acpi?
+acpibat* at acpi?
+acpibtn* at acpi?
+acpicpu* at acpi?
+acpidock* at acpi?
acpiec* at acpi? disable
acpiprt* at acpi?
-#acpitz* at acpi?
+acpitz* at acpi?

option PCIVERBOSE
option EISAVERBOSE
@@ -716,3 +716,11 @@
# mouse & keyboard multiplexor pseudo-devices
pseudo-device wsmux 2
pseudo-device crypto 1
+
+# Turn on SMP support
+option MULTIPROCESSOR # Multiple processor support
+
+cpu* at mainbus?
+ioapic* at mainbus?
+acpimadt0 at acpi?

Does anyone have an update on this? I’ve checked out -current from CVS (30/01/2007) however Marks DIFF no longer applies. Patch infers that the changes have already been committed? Is this correct?

I’ve tried building a standard GENERIC.MP kernel from -current with ACPI enabled but this doesn’t work on the Mini, i.e. single cpu only and no networking.

Thanks in advance for any replies.

Simon

Obviously there isn’t a software fix: http://www.mythic-beasts.com/support/macminicolo_howto.html

I’ve another tip for you (all? :p ) to make the mini boot after (remote) power cycling using OpenBSD’s pcitweak (setpci as described in the link above doesn’t work on OpenBSD): http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=openbsd-misc&m=116443142317676&w=2

Tas.

My Mac mini doesn’t feel like booting without a monitor plugged in (headless server) with just OpenBSD on the harddisk. Works fine with OS X though. Boot Camp (this little 200MB EFI partition) doesn’t help.

The monitor doesn’t have to be switched on to make the mini boot, it just needs to be plugged in. That fact leaded me to a hardware fix:

A 75 ohm resistor (100 ohm works also) as load between pin 2 and pin 7 of a 15 pin highdensity D-SUB male connector (with DVI to VGA adapter) or between pin C2 and C5 of a 29 pin DVI male connector as a dongle for the DVI/VGA port (that’s between analog green and analog ground, 75 ohm is the standard load for that output pin). Just plug in the dongle and the mini will boot happily also without a monitor. :-)

A question : Does anybody know a software fix for that? Obviously the video card doesn’t get initialized properly (or not at all) without OS X on the harddisk.

Tas.

Um, not two but three files. Sorry! ;-)

And maybe I should also link directly to Mark’s patch here, I hope that’s ok (probably there won’t be that many downloads ;-) ): http://www.xs4all.nl/~sibelius/acpi-apic.diff

Tas.

Basically -current. The patch should be in /usr/src/sys and needs a /cvs/src/ path:

# mkdir /cvs && ln -s /usr/src /cvs/src

It needs a version of the file /cvs/src/sys/dev/acpi/acpi.c from Nov. 2, 2006 05:58:49 GMT, so at least that file has to be -current (and maybe also some other updated files for ACPI, don’t know). In addition the patch creates two new files and upgrades the quite old file /cvs/src/sys/dev/acpi/files.acpi from May 29, 2006 00:54:23 GMT.

I said “basically -current” because I *think* that you could use just the new kernel, but leave the other files on -release. Yes, I know, don’t mix -release and -current, though if it doesn’t work then it’s easy to fix by upgrading to the snapshot from the day you compiled the kernel.

A few tips:

There’s a new Boot ROM Version MM11.0055.B08 from Nov.13, 2006 avaiable from Apple. http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macminiefifirmwareupdate11.html

I installed that already with a minimal OS X installation on the internal harddisk (should also work with booting OS X from an external firewire harddisk), *but* I didn’t install OpenBSD yet after the Boot ROM upgrade. I’ll post it here if there are any problems with that, I’ll test it soon.

Make sure your connect your wireless keyboard to the mini *while* OS X is installed. Otherwise it won’t work later without OS X (no USB keyboard support while installing OpenBSD without an ACPI enabled kernel on the boot CD). ;-)

I didn’t need Boot Camp or something like that, even not with the Boot ROM version MM11.0055.B05. The mini boots fine with a usual PC partition table and just OpenBSD on the harddisk. I tried it also with a Boot Camp partition, works also, but I don’t want any start options on my mini, and Boot Camp is a beta with limited lifetime etc. and I don’t feel like risking something as I won’t have local access to my mini when it’s in the colo datacenter.

You can compile the kernel either on another i386 machine and transfer it to the mini (on a CD), or you can just upgrade the source tree to -current on another machine, transfer the tree to the mini (as archive on a CD) and compile the kernel on the mini.

As said above, I’ll try to use -release (with patches) with the new kernel, so I’ll leave just /usr/src/sys on -current (from Nov. 12, 2006), but use -release for the rest of the source tree, without further CVS upgrades except the usual patches. Maybe that works, if not, I’ll stay on latest snapshots until OpenBSD 4.1.

I’ll post here if there are any other important news. :-)

Tas.

Does this patch -current or 4_0_RELEASE?

I’m going to hopefully try this out this weekend.

That will change now: http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=openbsd-misc&m=116347120704233&w=2

Marvell Yukon NIC, *both* CPU cores, USB pen drives – everything I need (and even more) works now on my Mac mini! YAY! :-D

I’ll be online soon with my perfect Mac mini OpenBSD server. :-D

A happy Tas.

No success with that so far, one of the new files created by the patch doesn’t compile here (with -current source tree).

Though it works already with NetBSD, even with both CPU Cores…: http://mail-index.netbsd.org/port-i386/2006/10/07/0000.html But that’s not OpenBSD