Re: Second round of powerpc subarch investigation : boot-loaders.
On Mon, Oct 20, 2003 at 12:02:17PM +0200, Goswin von Brederlow wrote:
> Sven Luther <sven.luther@wanadoo.fr> writes:
>
> > On Sun, Oct 19, 2003 at 12:31:15PM -0700, Chris Tillman wrote:
> > > On Sun, Oct 19, 2003 at 11:29:38AM +0200, Sven Luther wrote:
> > > > Hello,
> > > >
> > > > In order to continue work on making debian-installer subarch friendly, i
> > > > now launch a second round of investigation concerning the way different
> > > > subarches boot. The situation as i understand it is :
> > > >
> > > > newpmac: uses yaboot (uncompressed kernel + separate initrd) or OF
> > > > (.coff kernel, don't know about initrd). Debian-installer will boot with
> > > > yaboot, and the CDrom can be made to be auto-bootable, altough i don't
> > > > know how.
> > >
> > > The bootability of the CD is taken care of by mkisofs. It gives the
> > > CD an HFS 'blessing' which makes it bootable, and it boots according
> > > to the ofboot.b script which yaboot supplies.
> >
> > Ok, altough i will let this part of it to the newpmac DDs working on
> > debian-installer.
>
> Can somebody please confirm that the images from my branch boot (with
> rootskel from cvs in localudebs)? Sven did build images fine but he
> doesn't have the hardware for yaboot.
>
> > > We have tried to avoid getting users into OF in the past, probably
> > > because it's hard to provide Forth-based support in an installation
> > > manual. I don't know how .coff booting works either.
> >
> > :))
> >
> > > > oldpmac: uses bootx, miboot, quik or serial console OF. OF uses the
> > > > .coff kernel, don't know about initrd. miboot uses floopy for kernel
> > > > (compressed) and initrd. bootx can use a kernel and separate initrd, and
> > > > quik cannot be used for cdrom boot. It is said that it is possible to
> > > > use miboot to cdrom boot or ssomething such, but i have not confirmed
> > > > these rumors. debian-installer will be installable from either bootx
> > > > (uncompressed kernel + separate initrd) altough we will not provide
> > > > bootx on the CD, or miboot (two or more floppy images).
> > >
> > > We do provide BootX in the archive now, it should still be on the CD.
> > > But it's there as a Stuffit archive; it's not usable directly from the
> > > CD and must be installed on the user's hard disk. Someone said
> > > mkisofs could put BootX on the CD as a double-clickable MacOS
> > > application, but I'm skeptical. If it could, then the kernels could
> > > also be placed in the same folder with BootX, and BootX might find
> > > them.
> >
> > This would be great. Let's try to do this, and a similar thing could be
> > done for apus also.
>
> For apus there should be an Icon that directly calls it from the
> CD. Should be no different then the normal Amiga m68k.
>
> Same "freeness" problems too that allways got ignored silently in the past.
Well, the whole amiboot/apusboot stuff is free (GPLed even if i remember
well), we ust didn't the work needed to cross build it from debian, that
is all. It could go into contrib though.
Friendly,
Sven Luther
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