Re: mac installation
On Tue, Feb 13, 2007 at 11:32:32PM +1100, Finn Thain wrote:
> I've been reading the debian installation guide, in particular the mac
> sections. I found a couple of problems.
>
> http://d-i.alioth.debian.org/manual/en.m68k/index.html
>
>
> --- Section 4.3.4 says "There is no MacOS application to write images to
> floppy disks"
>
> Actaully, the MacOS app to read and write raw floppy disk images is
> SUntar, though the procedure would need documenting.
> http://hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/HyperArchive/Archive/cmp/suntar-223.hqx
The same section also says it wouldn't make sense, since booting from
floppy to install on macs isn't supported currently. That's right, since
we don't support booting the installer from EMILE (yet).
> There are also tools like DropDisk and Disk Copy, for working with "NDIF"
> format image files.
> http://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_Software_Updates/English-North_American/Macintosh/Utilities/Disk_Copy/
Don't think it's going to be very sensible to explain this, as we don't
provide such image files anyway.
> --- Section 5.1.2.3 says " .../current/images/mac/penguin19.hfs is an hfs
> disk image with Penguin unpacked. Section 4.3, Creating Floppies from Disk
> Images describes how to copy this image to a floppy."
>
> This link is broken...
True. I guess it was copied from the woody installation manual, which
was also wrong in that regard, IIRC :)
Penguin is packaged, but the package doesn't have a .hqx file which
should be provided as a BYHAND thing (and that's ugly, because it means
you need ftpmaster interaction on every upload).
Perhaps we should just link to the penguin site where it can be
downloaded?
> I guess it hasn't been released. I gather the intention is to offer a
> raw disk image containing Penguin and a Penguin settings file, plus
> the kernel and RAM disk?
Personally, I dunno. That's what the manual has had since potato (when I
first tried running Debian/m68k), but it's never worked for me like
that.
I guess it'd be nice to have such a file, but I think that's going to be
hard to do from Linux (which would be a requirement, otherwise someone
would have to do it manually every time we want to do a release, and I'd
prefer not having to do that).
> Should we offer stuffit (.sit) or NDIF (.img) formats as well? These
> formats are more convenient since often a .sit can easily be unpacked or
> else the .img mounted without having to write it to a floppy first.
Might be nice. Again, is that possible from Linux?
> --- Section 7.1.2 says "...locate the kernel options line which should
> look like root=/dev/ram video=font:VGA8x16 or similar ... The
> video=font:VGA8x8 is recommended especially for users with tiny screens.
> The kernel would pick a prettier (6x11) font but the console driver for
> this font can hang the machine, so using 8x16 or 8x8 is safer at this
> stage. You can change this at any time."
[...]
I'll change this ASAP (I have this faint memory that the manual is
string-frozen at this point; if not, I'll change it immediately, but if
it is, it'll have to wait slightly)
--
<Lo-lan-do> Home is where you have to wash the dishes.
-- #debian-devel, Freenode, 2004-09-22
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