Re: LinuxPPC and Pismo Powerbook

4 messages, 3 authors, 2000-03-29 · open the first message on its own page

Re: LinuxPPC and Pismo Powerbook

From: Ethan Benson <hidden>
Date: 2000-03-29 13:33:55

On Tue, Mar 28, 2000 at 11:03:29PM -0800, Henry Worth wrote:
quoted
* STEPS :
1.  partitioned the HD into three partititions: MacOS, Linux, Swap
I'd strongly recommend a small HFS boot partition (~32MB).
32MB??  lord no, 800K is more then enough for yaboot.

this partition should also be given a partition type of
Apple_Bootstrap to prevent Macos from mounting, and subsquently
screwing it up.  (it removes the `blessing' from anything that might
not be a valid macos system folder)
2) Set up a "blessed" system folder in the HFS boot partition
   containing yaboot and yaboot.conf. There is a link to tool
   on Ben's website to help with that (or copy the system folder
   from the LinuxPPC 2000 CD). You can then:
the tool i think you are refering to is ybin, which i wrote to format
bootstrap partitions in such a way that OpenFirmware will boot from
them with its default settings.

the following is required for this to work:

* bootstrap partition must be placed BEFORE the macos partition.

* bootstrap partition must NOT be mountable by macos, otherwise it
will undo my changes.  so you MUST use the Apple_Bootstrap partition
type.

once you have this, you can run the following command with ybin 0.11
(0.12 will be a bit better)

mkofboot --boot /dev/hda5 --magicboot /boot/ofboot.b 

you must have yaboot installed at /boot/yaboot and the yaboot.conf at
/etc/yaboot.conf, if not specify the paths with -i /path/to/yaboot and
-c /path/to/yaboot.conf 

ofboot.b is a small openfirmware script, i include 2, one is intendted
for linux only systems, the other has a mini boot menu, you need to
edit them to correct the OF partitions for macos and the bootstrap
partition.  

now what mkofboot does for you is create the HFS filesystem on the
bootstrap partition (example above is /dev/hda5, adjust for your
system) and copy yaboot, yaboot.conf, and the ofboot.b OF script to
the boot partition.  it then sets the filetype on the ofboot.b script
to `tbxi' and blesses the root directory.  this way when you reboot
you can hold down:

command option o f 

while your system boots to reset OF to default values, and up comes
the multiboot menu. neat eh? no need to enter OF at all under most
circumstances. 
   a> Set that partition as the default boot partition from
      the MacOS partition.
no need. and you can't, if macos is allowed to mount the bootstrap
partition it will remove the blessing and OF will reject the partition
as bootable.
	
   c> The OF boot-device and boot-file variables can be set to change
      the default boot partition and file. With this approach you
      don't need the system folder, see the maillist archives.
if you must set the boot-device (i have not had to on my blue g3, you
might for a scsi system) set it to:

hd:<#>,\\:tbxi

where <#> is the partition number of the bootstrap partition.
3) There are examples of some slick dual-boot OF scripts in the
   recent mail archives. I need to find them again myself (there was
   a thread with a good writeup), and set my system up that way, it's
there is a simple one with ybin, fancier ones may be found elsewhere,
just drop whichever one you prefer in /boot/ofboot.b and ybin will use
it.

ybin is available at my web page (.sig) or at
http://www.linuxppc.org/ybin/


-- 
Ethan Benson
http://www.alaska.net/~erbenson/

Re: LinuxPPC and Pismo Powerbook

From: Olaf Hering <hidden>
Date: 2000-03-29 13:58:34

On Wed, Mar 29, Ethan Benson wrote:
On Tue, Mar 28, 2000 at 11:03:29PM -0800, Henry Worth wrote:
quoted
quoted
* STEPS :
1.  partitioned the HD into three partititions: MacOS, Linux, Swap
I'd strongly recommend a small HFS boot partition (~32MB).
32MB??  lord no, 800K is more then enough for yaboot.
What about different kernel images? 32 MB is a good value.
And it is more secure, even for older Macs with BootX.
I don't trust the hfs.o
this partition should also be given a partition type of
Apple_Bootstrap to prevent Macos from mounting, and subsquently
screwing it up.  (it removes the `blessing' from anything that might
not be a valid macos system folder)
There is nothing on that partition that can be screwed up and the user
can change the yaboot.conf and the os-chooser file from the MacOS side.

I had never problems with my faked system folder, I move it around, to
CDs, to netatalk servers and where ever I want. This can be a "feature"
of OS9 that it doesn't remove the information, I don't know.

What makes this blessing so special??

I have the Finder from MiBoot.smi, I changed the type/creator to
FNDR/MACS. The System is the same from MiBoot, unchanged. There is a
faked RomFile = yaboot and its .conf. Thats all.

You have to move the Finder file out of that folder and move it back
onto the closed folder icon and it is bootable. All you have to do now
is to open the control panel Startup volume and you are done.

I don't see the problem. What we really need is an app that creates the
os-chooser file, what we need is the partition number and the path to a
bootable SCSI device. I could do that from the Linux side via a bootable
CD, but it would be nice to do it with a Mac application.

Gruss Olaf

--
 $ man 1 current_release

BUGS
       Users never read manuals...

** Sent via the linuxppc-dev mail list. See http://lists.linuxppc.org/

Re: LinuxPPC and Pismo Powerbook

From: Benjamin Herrenschmidt <hidden>
Date: 2000-03-29 16:50:16

On Wed, Mar 29, 2000, Olaf Hering [off-list ref] wrote:
I have the Finder from MiBoot.smi, I changed the type/creator to
FNDR/MACS. The System is the same from MiBoot, unchanged. There is a
faked RomFile = yaboot and its .conf. Thats all.

You have to move the Finder file out of that folder and move it back
onto the closed folder icon and it is bootable. All you have to do now
is to open the control panel Startup volume and you are done.

I don't see the problem. What we really need is an app that creates the
os-chooser file, what we need is the partition number and the path to a
bootable SCSI device. I could do that from the Linux side via a bootable
CD, but it would be nice to do it with a Mac application.
The good news is that I have the algorithm for writing to NVRAM on new
machines. That means that I'll be able to make a version of nvsetenv (or
nvtool) that works on all supported macs, probably this week-end.

There's still the problem of figuring out the correct OF path however.
Note that in my latest trees (and in bk 2.3.x), I've changed ide-pmac.c
to set it's own interface type so that /proc returns "mac-io" instead of
generic IDE. This should help differenciate the mac-io built-in IDE and
the CMD646 on B&W G3.

Ben.


** Sent via the linuxppc-dev mail list. See http://lists.linuxppc.org/

Re: LinuxPPC and Pismo Powerbook

From: Olaf Hering <hidden>
Date: 2000-03-29 19:42:19

On Wed, Mar 29, Benjamin Herrenschmidt wrote:
On Wed, Mar 29, 2000, Olaf Hering [off-list ref] wrote:
quoted
I don't see the problem. What we really need is an app that creates the
os-chooser file, what we need is the partition number and the path to a
bootable SCSI device. I could do that from the Linux side via a bootable
CD, but it would be nice to do it with a Mac application.
The good news is that I have the algorithm for writing to NVRAM on new
machines. That means that I'll be able to make a version of nvsetenv (or
nvtool) that works on all supported macs, probably this week-end.

There's still the problem of figuring out the correct OF path however.
Note that in my latest trees (and in bk 2.3.x), I've changed ide-pmac.c
to set it's own interface type so that /proc returns "mac-io" instead of
generic IDE. This should help differenciate the mac-io built-in IDE and
the CMD646 on B&W G3.
I did a small update to the show_of_path.sh script, it display now
everything correct. It assumes that ultra0 is always the first hd,
ultra1 is the second. hdb can also be a cdrom drive, we have it in on of
our iMacs. The OF to SCSI devices is "guessed" from bootpath.
I think there is no real need for the exact path to an IDE controller.

It is available from
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/ppc/update/BETA/show_of_path.sh

Everybody is invited to send us the output of
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/ppc/update/BETA/suse_hw_info.sh

It is a little tar.gz file, 30kb.

New kernels with the status from linux-pmac-benh monday morning will
arrive tomorrow, we do some internal tests. It includes also pcmcia
support. They will support pmac, chrp and prep machines.

A newer quik.rpm for RS/6000 booting is available from
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/ppc/update/6.3/a1/quik-2.0-7.ppc.rpm
It scans now every partition on sda for quik.conf, take the kernel from
that partition and mount it as the root device if there is no root=
argument.


Gruss Olaf

--
 $ man 1 current_release

BUGS
       Users never read manuals...

** Sent via the linuxppc-dev mail list. See http://lists.linuxppc.org/
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