Re: Booting on a hfs partition for oldworld
Ethan Benson wrote:
>
> On Wed, Dec 13, 2000 at 09:26:12AM -0800, Mike Fedyk wrote:
> >
> > Great, Although, this makes me wonder. Why don't we just create a hfs partition
> > with a blessed system file like we do with the hfs boot disk?
>
> several reasons, the hfs boot floppy uses miboot, which is not a good
> general purpose bootloader at all. its incapable of dual booting
> anything. it has no text based config file so you must reconfigure it
> by editing the binary with a hexeditor. and i don't think it can even
> be packaged for debian and put in main since it cannot be compile
> within debian, it requires a non-free OS with a non-free compiler to
> build. besides that unlike newworlds you can't use the
> Apple_Bootstrap partition type to prevent MacOS from mounting a miboot
> partition which means that if you boot macos your miboot partition
> will be made unbootable as macos will see its not real and remove the
> bootblock and blessing.
>
> miboot also is incapable of reading kernels off an ext2fs.
Hmm, ok. Although, why did my hfs boot floppy still work after I mounted it on
macos?
>
> > Yeah, I found that out the hard way. The debbootstrap wouldn't even tell you
> > why it couldn't "make debian boot directly from the hard disk"... Although I
> > did find some docs that said quik needs the kernel on the same partition as
> > /etc. The symlink problem is new though, to me at least.
>
> in general you should NEVER make a seperate /boot partition, leave it
> on the root filesystem. /boot is only needed on broken x86 systems.
>
That is what I've been using for linux, up until now. I only have one on a new
computer, and that is at work.
> > Great, I just mirrored the archive a week ago. When did this new set go in?
> > Will it actually let you make a boot floppy now?
>
> you cannot make a boot floppy on powerpc, this funtion in dbootstrap
> has now been properly disabled, it now just displays a dialog telling
> you it cannot be done instead of failing obscurly.
>
> i posted my quik comments several times in the last month if you have
> november you should have it.
I'll take a look at the archives, thanks.
>
> > I have had to go through the process of hfs-boot-floppy => debian-install-root
> > => mount drives on /target => chroot /target..... to be able to work in the
> > system.
>
> if you have a seperate /boot get rid of it, get all the kernels
> properly installed in /boot on the / filesystem setup a quik.conf like
> so:
>
> partition=2
>
> image=/boot/vmlinux-2.2.18pre21
> label=Linux
> root=/dev/hda2
> read-only
>
> change root= to be your root partition, and partition= to the same
> partition number as root. then just run /sbin/quik and
> nvsetenv boot-device `ofpath /dev/hda2`
Actually, it didn't start working until I started using partition zero. I'll
have to try this again on the other 8500 and 7200s I have here.
>
> > If it won't make a boot floppy for me, how do I make one? I noticed the kernel
>
> compile the boot floppies or do it all manually, see the boot floppies
> source for how to do that.
>
I've compiled a kernel and made a boot floppy, already. Is there a way to use
one without modifying OF?
> > is 2.5 MB in my /boot after the initial install, so I won't be able to use that
> > one... maybe the one on the hfs boot floppy would work... Any ideas?
>
> i don't know how the miboot floppies actually work it just about has
> to be using either a xcoff kernel or a gzipped kernel but i don't
> think miboot supports either, i have not disected the miboot boot
> floppies to see what magic drow pulled.
>
The kernel on the floppy is much smaller, less than 1 MB. I am in the process
of compiling a new kernel now. Do I need any patches, or is stock 2.2.17 ok?
Mike Fedyk
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