On Sat, Dec 21, 2024 at 08:13:12PM -0600, A. Wilcox wrote:

On Dec 21, 2024, at 3:42 PM, Arnd Bergmann [off-list ref] wrote:

quoted

From: Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de>

Support for KVM on 32-bit Book III-s implementations was added in 2010
and supports PowerMac, CHRP, and embedded platforms using the Freescale G4
(mpc74xx), e300 (mpc83xx) and e600 (mpc86xx) CPUs from 2003 to 2009.

Earlier 603/604/750 machines might work but would be even more limited
by their available memory.

The only likely users of KVM on any of these were the final Apple
PowerMac/PowerBook/iBook G4 models with 2GB of RAM that were at the high
end 20 years ago but are just as obsolete as their x86-32 counterparts.
The code has been orphaned since 2023.

There is still a need to support 32-bit guests in order to better
debug problems on ppc32 kernels. This should work in theory on both
64-bit booke and on 64-bit book3s hosts, but it would be good to
confirm that this is still the case before the known working option
gets removed.

[...]

That said, I would like to keep the support alive for more than just
ppc32 kernel testing.  There are plenty of Power Macs with enough
memory to run some environments within KVM.  Adélie’s new release
boots a full XFCE desktop in under 300 MB RAM, so even a 1 GB machine
has enough memory to run AmigaOS, Mac OS 9, or another XFCE in KVM.

FWIW, I second this. I do intend to get KVM to run on my e300-based
board for some relatively light guests such as Mac OS 9. I suspect I
won't be able to contribute much to the maintenance, though.

Best regards,
J. Neuschäfer