Re: Request for review of partman-newworld
[No need to send me a private copy, thanks; I read debian-boot.]
On Wed, Apr 07, 2004 at 12:11:27PM +0300, Konstantinos Margaritis wrote:
> On Wednesday 07 April 2004 03:32, Colin Watson wrote:
> > I've checked in partman-newworld, which wraps up the method for
> > creating the special Apple_Bootstrap partition you need to boot
> > newworld PowerMac systems. I've tested it somewhat, although not
> > exactly with a straight-through install or all error cases because
> > I'm not in a position to trash my current disk. As such, I haven't
> > uploaded it to unstable yet.
> >
> > This was my first exposure to partman's internals, so I'd
> > appreciate it if a partman expert (Anton?) could look it over for
> > any glaring errors.
>
> Aside from the technicals, I strongly believe that a note/help text
> should be given to the users as to *what* exactly is a NewWorld boot
> partition, and a NewWorld powermac in general. I know quite a few mac
> users that would just stare at the screen at this point...
This seems like a good idea; but where? I don't think it's a good idea
to force an extra note unconditionally, and I can't see any hooks for
displaying help text.
We could document it (we should do that anyway, of course), or see if
there's some way to squeeze it into partman-auto. I haven't figured out
how autopartitioning should work yet.
> Something along the lines:
> "With regard to their low-level handling of the boot process,
> PowerMacs have been split into two categories, OldWorld and NewWorld.
> OldWorld are Macs or Mac-clones that used programs such as quik to
> boot Linux from their OpenFirmware (OF), with limited capabilities in
> that. The last OldWorld Mac series was the Beige G3.
> NewWorld Macs however, starting from the Blue & White G3, have had
> some significant changes to their OF, offering more flexibility but
> requiring new tools for booting. The new tools are namely yaboot and
> miboot."
As far as I know, miboot is for OldWorlds.
Cheers,
--
Colin Watson [cjwatson@flatline.org.uk]
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