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Re: Why it's so difficult to fix PowerMac booting for good



Hello,

On June 1, 2023 1:01:49 PM EDT, Stan Johnson <userm57@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Would this solution allow both PowerPC and Intel Macs to boot Mac OS?
> Whichever solution is used would need to be supported by the GRUB
> developers or Debian (perhaps through a GRUB patch or a separate package?).

This script would not work on an Intel Mac as it's run by Open Firmware which was replaced by UEFI on the Intel devices. As stated before, there is nothing preventing GRUB from simply chainloading macOS' UEFI bootloader just as rEFInd, systemd-boot, etc would do. The only problem is that the boot entry os-prober generates for macOS is faulty in some way. Either fix os-prober or write your own boot entry for macOS with the correct EFI file, and you've solved the problem. Here's a hint: On macOS, there is no separate EFI partition, and the bootloader is stored in /System/Library/CoreServices/boot.efi on the main HFS+ root.

As for how this script could be integrated into Debian, it should definitely not be put into the GRUB package. As Glaubitz has said, the goal is for as little PowerPC-specific patches to be put into these core packages as possible. GRUB's also not really the right place for a script that runs before it to enable booting other OSes more easily. It also wouldn't make sense to create a whole separate package just for one script file. Since the script is unnecessary for those who don't want to dual-boot, I don't know if it should really be included in Debian at all.

--
Ben Westover

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