Re: Why it's so difficult to fix PowerMac booting for good
On 5/28/23 3:36 PM, Linux User #330250 wrote:
> One more (quite long) follow-up: (sorry for the length!)
>
> On 05/27 2023 20:05, Stan Johnson wrote:
>> The partition should be Apple_Bootstrap, type Apple_Bootstrap. That way
>> it's HFS but not normally accessed via Mac OS X.
>
> In my experience any partition of type Apple_Boot is also hidden from
> Mac OS X, as it is used e.g. for Software RAID setups to boot Mac OS X
> (and therefore shouldn't be seen on the desktop either).
I don't know anything about Apple_Boot, but you are likely right that it
is also hidden from Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X. It appears Apple_Bootstrap is
used only by NewWorld PowerPC Macs. It's just an HFS-formatted partition
that is type Apple_Bootstrap instead of Apple_HFS, so while it can be
mounted manually by Mac OS X, it isn't accessible by default. And I
don't think it shows up in the boot selector menu (option key at boot).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Partition_Map
The last time I installed Debian SID with GRUB on a PowerBook Pismo, the
Apple_Bootstrap partition was mounted as /boot/grub (it might have been
/boot, I don't remember now). But it was a persistent mount. Everything
worked, except Mac OS and Mac OS X volumes could not be boot from the
menu (booting Mac OS X also doesn't work on an Intel Core 2 Duo system).
Unfortunately, I don't have the programming skills to fix it. If anyone
has found or developed working grub.cfg entries that allow booting of
Mac OS X and Mac OS 9, please let me know, as I would prefer to use GRUB
if I can. Also, if anyone has GRUB working on a PowerBook Lombard,
please let me know (AFAIK, that's the only NewWorld PowerMac that
doesn't work at all with GRUB; its Firmware version may be too old for
something that GRUB is doing.)
-Stan
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