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Re: Floppy-less booting



On Tue, Apr 17, 2001 at 08:26:33PM -0700, Chris Tillman wrote:
> 
> Really, I do understand that. But before I have Debian, all I have is MacOS.
> All other Mac users are in the same boat. The discussion is about getting
> from here to there, and Debian would be much more accessible to Mac users if
> they could use a Mac installer to get there.

IMNSHO, the learning curve to get started is a GOOD THING.  if they
get some pretty MacOS GUI installer they will expect a MacOS GUI
apache configurator etc etc.  if one can't get past a text mode
bootloader they should not be using Debian.  (or GNU/Linux in general)

> 
> Drive Setup is a very weak program, that AFAIK allows only integral numbers
> of M to be typed in.

thats why you should NOT use drive setup to create linux partitions.
please read and follow:

http://www.alaska.net/~erbenson/doc/mac-fdisk-basics.txt

you need to create only TWO partitions with drive setup, the first is
a placeholder for ALL your linux partitions, the second is for macos.

when you boot debian you delete that place holder and create the 800K
Apple_Bootstrap and linux partitions.  you should not attempt to make
drive setup create linux partitions, i have found it tends to corrupt
the partition table if you do that.  create linux partitions with the
native linux partitioner and macos partitions with the native macos
partitioner.  just like everywhere else.  

if you don't plan to keep macos skip drive setup alltogether and make
a clean empty table with mac-fdisk (see my doc, its the `i' command).  

> Missing! From the install documentation, I thought I could put /home, /var,
> and the rest on the /user partition. Do I need another partition?

you need to go read up on linux partitioning howtos before you begin.  

> HFS+ is OK, right? I downloaded a brand spanking shiny new linux and
> root.bin from the ftp.us.debian.org. There isn't any yaboot file in the
> stable boot-floppies directory, so I downloaded 1.1.1 from your web page at

with HFS+ you can boot the kernel and ramdisk, but you CANNOT install
anything from there, so base, drivers, and rescue will have to be
fetched from http.  linux has NO support for HFS+.  

the only reason you can boot from there is because OpenFirmware
supports HFS+ once your out of Openfirwmare its game over.  

> I used BBEdit to create a Unix style file with LFs instead of CRs. This
> would probably be another little challenge for Mac users.

yaboot supposedly can handle both line endings, but mac line endings
are unreliable.  

> I'm sure glad you mentioned working up from 9! No clue from the Drive Setup
> application about the real partition number.

when you start repartitioning with mac-fdisk in debian (which you MUST
do) you will see all the garbage drive setup hides.  

> Loading kernel
>  ... kernel loaded
> Loading ramdisk
>  ... ramdisk loaded at 0x1800000, size: 1474560 bytes
> DEFAULT CATCH!, code=0300 at %SAR0: 01608158
>     %SAR1: 00003030

thats interesting.  

> Then I got the OF prompt again. I entered mac-boot, and got just an
> alternating folder symbol and question mark. Then I used the
> Control-Cmd-start key combination and it booted back into MacOS.
> 
> Suggestions? Try the 2.2.19 boot-floppies kernel & root.bin?

i don't know, i have never had that happen before.  looks like ill
have to download the 2.2.23 boot floppies and see if we hosed them
again :/

-- 
Ethan Benson
http://www.alaska.net/~erbenson/

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