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Re: MacOSX & Debian dual boot questions...



On (16/03/05 07:18), Daniel E. Jonsen wrote:
> I have Debian and Panther on a G4/350, but I have the luxury of having 2 
> internal HDs, which might be more difficult with a PowerBook.  Anyway, I 
> first installed Panther on hdb and used Disk Utility to wipe hda clean of 
> all partitions.  Then I unplugged hdb so that there was no way the Debian 
> installer could *$!@ with it, and installed from a set of 14 Sarge testing 
> CDs.  After reconnecting hdb, the small bootstrap partition on hda is still 
> the first blessed partition on the system, so yaboot is loaded first and I 
> get the dual-boot menu.
> 
> The main reason I'm writing this note is because I got into a little bit of 
> nastiness when I needed to upgrade OS 9, which I use 99% of the time from 
> the Classic environment in Panther.  In order to update QuickTime in OS 9, 
> I had to use the "Startup Disk" control panel and choose the OS 9 system 
> folder to reboot into pure OS 9.  The problem is that this process 
> "unblessed" the bootstrap partition on hda, and I no longer had the 
> dual-boot menu to get into Linux.
> 
> I found a "bless" shell command in Panther, but found its man page 
> confusing and I didn't really want to fry my whole system.  I'm not even 
> sure if this command would bless a non-Apple OS partition, anyway.  So I 
> booted from the first Debian install CD, started the installer, and went 
> through to the partitioning phase.  At that point, I chose manual 
> partitioning, and told it NOT TO TOUCH any of the existing Linux (or 
> Panther) partitions except swap, then went to the next step, which is, I 
> think, the point where you must give the final OK to install the base 
> system.  At this point, I kept selecting "Go Back", until I had the option 
> to abort the installation, which I did.  After that, I rebooted, and voila! 
> the bootstrap partition was re-blessed, and I had my dual-boot menu 
> back.  Phew.
> 
> I admit that the process is a little hairy, and I probably wouldn't have 
> done it if I had anything really important on that machine.  Does anyone 
> out there know of a "less hairy" way to reliably re-bless a bootstrap 
> partition?  New-world macs, as far as I know, won't boot from an external 
> USB floppy drive, so the only way I can think of is to make a bootable 
> Debian CD with yaboot on it, set to boot the root partition on the HD.  Any 
> hints on how one would create such a "rescue disk"?
>From memory, I'm pretty sure that resetting the PRAM will put
everything back to where it was: Apple+Alt+P+R as you boot up; hold them
down through a couple of chime sequences and it should take you back to
the yaboot menu.

HTH

Clive

-- 
www.clivemenzies.co.uk ...
...strategies for business




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