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Re: iMac kernel?



On Tue, Nov 16, 1999, Ethan Benson <erbenson@alaska.net> wrote:

>really i want a bootloader that has the same capability as LILO, 
>multiple images all in the standard locations on ext2fs.  password 
>protection like LILO has would be helpful too... (yes i know not has 
>good as on x86 because of lack of BIOS security)
>
>it is possible to do as darwin reads its kernel from UFS for which 
>there is no OF support for.

I'm working on it. Actually, reading raw blocks seems to work just fine
with recent OFs when you pass the correct device name (with :0).

I've gathered all the OF bootloaders code I could find here or there
(including useful tricks used in Darwin's one) and am working on putting
together a bootloader that does all we want and more for newworld
machines. Then, I'll look into eventually back-porting it to oldworld
(but this would require Apple's OF patches which have a separate licence).

For now, the bootloader will have to be on a small HFS partition with
along it's setup file (it's easier that way and even if the kernel's HFS
support is broken, the HFS utils still work). 

The features I want (please tell me if you want more) are:

 - hfs, hfs+, iso and ext2 support for loading the kernel and an eventual
install ramdisk from hard disk and CDs.
 - can be used to make bootable CDs (newworld only)
 - graphical (hum... later...)
 - can be used to boot back to MacOS too




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