Bug#273986: Quasi-successful Installation - Sarge netinst rc1 on Beige G3

[Duane Cottle <duane@thecottles.net>]

On Wed, Sep 29, 2004 at 11:49:17PM -0400, Rick Thomas wrote:
> 
> On Wednesday, September 29, 2004, at 02:56 AM, Duane Cottle wrote:
> 
> >Partition notes:
> >  As I was playing around in the partitioner, I decided to delete the
> >32.2K partion #1 on the scsi drive called Apple. After the partitions
> >were displayed once again on the screen, I noticed a 32.2K hole on the
> >IDE Master disk at partition #1! It's a new dance I'm learning called
> >the Mac Twist. I'm not experienced with the OF, but maybe that's really
> >a space on the /AAPL/ROM??
> >  Also, I fooled around and selected the entire scsi disk and followed
> >the installer to delete all the partions. Guess what didn't go away!
> >That 32.2K _'taint_meat_ pinch!
> 
> You've stumbled on an interesting feature of the Apple Macintosh 
> disk partition scheme -- as implemented in MacOS{789}, MacOS-X, and 
> the Linux partitioning tools "mac-fdisk" and it's cousin "pdisk".
> 
> Specifically, there *must* always be a partition 1 on any Macintosh 
> physical disk.  That's where the partition table lives.  The 
> lowest-level bootstrap firmware expects it to be there, and won't 
> work without it!  (Floppy disks and ISO9660 CD-roms are 
> "interesting" exceptions...).
> 
> Yes, there are some interesting philosophical questions surrounding 
> the partition table being inside a partition.  Ignore them!  You'll 
> only get a headache.
> 
> The other Macintosh partitions (2-5 on one of my disks -- YMMV) are 
> also needed if you ever intend to boot MacOS9 off of the disk.  
> They hold some low-level driver software needed in the boot 
> process.  I've heard someone say that MacOS-X doesn't need these 
> "driver" partitions.  I don't know for sure.
> 
> Hope this helps!
> 
> Rick

Hi Rick,

Sure does. I spent five hours reading your posts since March today. It's 
already saved me a lot of trouble testing this stuff. Been working with 
boot floppies this evening, as you have.

I just completed a successful install from Sven's daily 2.6 disks. There 
were some really different/welcome phenomena. I'm sure you'll see it, if 
you haven't already.

Do you know how I could test the netboot images. I'm not there yet. Do 
they allow mounting a source nfs export? I've been inching my way there 
because I'll eventually load up all my cluster nodes in this fashion.

Thanks,
Duane