Re: Questions about Open Firmware
On Tue, Jan 25, 2005 at 08:19:15PM +0000, Joerg Sommer wrote:
> some questions about Open Firmware.
>
> Can Open Firmware read a msdos partition table?
Doesn't look like my G5 has it, but I think my 7600 had it. I don't have
it online at the moment.
> Is it true, that OF can read ext2?
> http://www.kernelthread.com/mac/osx/arch_boot.html (Section "Bootloader"
> or search for ext2)
I don't think so. My G5 seems to have the following list:
HFS
HFS+
FAT
ISO9660
> If so, why yaboot needs an extra partition?
There are some differences between what yaboot itself needs, what various
OF versions need, and what the recommended practice is. On a mac, one
reason for putting yaboot on an HFS/HFS+ partition is to be able to use
the \\:tbxi shortcut which is built into a bunch of Apple's stuff due to
the way the macos boots. The OF on any mac that can run yaboot just needs
it in a file on a filesystem it can read on a drive where it can find the
partitions. Anything else is just figuring out how to specify the file.
Some other OF versions from other manufacturers (and oldworld OF versions
from Apple) can read a bootloader directly out of the beginning of a
disk or disk partition.
Brad Boyer
flar@allandria.com
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