Repository navigation
Apple Driver FireWire
Abdelkader Boudih edited this page Aug 24, 2026
·
3 revisions
Upstream status: yes. firewire(4) and fwohci(4) have been in FreeBSD since 2002 and every FireWire-equipped Mac uses a standard OHCI controller. This subsystem needs documentation more than it needs code.
| Function | Driver / tool | Status |
|---|---|---|
| OHCI controller | fwohci(4) | works on every Mac with a port |
| SBP-2 storage (FW disks, iPods) | sbp(4) | works |
| IP over FireWire | fwip(4) | works, fun for machine-to-machine |
| Target disk mode | sbp exports | a Mac in TDM appears as an SBP-2 disk, works |
| DV capture (camcorders) | fwcontrol(8) | untested here, parked until hardware shows up |
| FireWire iSight video | fwcam(4), video(4) backend | upstream, converted to video(4) in 2026 |
| Apple FireWire audio (iSight mic) | fwisound(4) | upstream 2026 (protocol per Clemens Ladisch's Linux work) |
| AMDTP audio (FW audio interfaces) | none | parked, no hardware need |
Every Mac from 2000 to 2012 has FireWire, and target disk mode makes it operationally useful: hold T at power-on and the Mac becomes an SBP-2 disk enclosure. That is still the easiest way to image or rescue an old Mac from a FreeBSD box, and it exercises a code path almost nobody tests anymore.
Cleanup in flight: fwcrom string handling modernization (shared with userland, so no sbuf).
Back to Apple Hardware.