Re: OldWorld Mac-specific problems; perhaps drop?

[Rick Thomas <rbthomas55@pobox.com>]

On Jul 15, 2006, at 4:21 AM, Holger Levsen wrote:

> Hi,
>
> On Friday 14 July 2006 14:55, Rick Thomas wrote:
> > This bug (258545) can be closed as "wont fix".  It's not reasonable
> > (or possible -- I think) to do what I wanted and what your revised
> > bug title asks for.
>
> We can detect hfs-partitions, thats where bootx lives. os-prober  
> already does
> this. Now the thing left to do is to find bootx :) IIRC (please  
> correct / add
> more details) it's in a directory called bootx? And there is a  
> bootx binary
> of which name?
>
> > What has been done recently (making d-i install
> > quik instead of yaboot on OldWorld machines, and accommodating BootX
> > users by making "install bootloader" skip-able in "expert" mode) is
> > an acceptable substitute.
>
> Ok, if it's not possible to detect an existing bootx installation,  
> what I
> somewhat doubt, I'll close it then. But first I'll wait for your  
> reply :)

There are various ways to invoke BootX from MacOS-{8,9}.  It could be  
pretty much anywhere in the HFS filesystem.  It need not even be  
called "BootX" (though that would be bizarre).  But even if it's  
present, it's not necessarily being used.  The only way to be sure  
what's in the user's mind as far as bootloader is to ask her.  That's  
essentially what d-i does by providing the "skip installing quik"  
option for OldWorld Macs.

My recommendation is to leave it as-is and be careful that the  
documentation properly explains the situation.  If I get some time  
this Summer, I'll take a look at that part of the problem.

Rick