Re: installing on PPC Mac Mini without any OS installed
Just to be absolutely clear, the "NewWorld bootblock" partition I am
talking about, and I assume Gary is talking about, is the /dev/hda2
partition in the following display, with type "Apple_Bootstrap". This
is quite distinct from the "/boot" directory in your root partition.
It is only used during bootstrap and it's not normally mounted when
Linux is running. The stuff it contains is crafted by the "/usr/sbin/
ybin" program, based on what it finds in /etc/yaboot.conf .
:~# mac-fdisk -l /dev/hda
/dev/hda
# type name length
base ( size ) system
/dev/hda1 Apple_partition_map Apple 63 @
1 ( 31.5k) Partition map
/dev/hda2 Apple_Bootstrap boot 1954 @
64 (977.0k) NewWorld bootblock
/dev/hda3 Apple_UNIX_SVR2 rootbak 19531250 @
2018 ( 9.3G) Linux native
/dev/hda4 Apple_UNIX_SVR2 untitled 7812501 @
19533268 ( 3.7G) Linux native
/dev/hda5 Apple_UNIX_SVR2 root 1953126 @
27345769 (953.7M) Linux native
/dev/hda6 Apple_UNIX_SVR2 newusr 19531251 @
29298895 ( 9.3G) Linux native
/dev/hda7 Apple_UNIX_SVR2 newvar 19531251 @
48830146 ( 9.3G) Linux native
/dev/hda8 Apple_UNIX_SVR2 newtmp 39062501 @
68361397 ( 18.6G) Linux native
/dev/hda9 Apple_UNIX_SVR2 roottest 20971520 @
107423898 ( 10.0G) Linux native
/dev/hda10 Apple_UNIX_SVR2 home 191777638 @
128395418 ( 91.4G) Linux native
Block size=512, Number of Blocks=320173056
DeviceType=0x0, DeviceId=0x0
It's formatted HFS (*not* HFS-plus) even on NewWorld machines,
:~# mount -v /dev/hda2 /mnt
mount: you didn't specify a filesystem type for /dev/hda2
I will try type hfs
/dev/hda2 on /mnt type hfs (rw)
and it contains only a minimum of stuff -- specifically:
:~# ls -lA /mnt
total 151
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2865 Feb 17 19:37 ofboot.b
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 149832 Feb 17 19:37 yaboot
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 928 Feb 17 19:37 yaboot.conf
Which easily fits into 800KB.
What the files do:
ofboot.b -- an open-firmware script that loads yaboot and passes it
control
yaboot -- the "real" Linux bootloader. It reads yaboot.conf and does
what it says to do based on user input and options.
yaboot.conf -- a copy of /etc/yaboot.conf that was in effect when
"ybin" was last run.
Yaboot knows how to parse an ext[23] filesystem{1} given an OF
description of where it's located. Yaboot then finds and loads the
kernel and initrd files mentioned in yaboot.conf, then passes off
control to them.
{1} but, apparently, *not* ext4 -- at least it didn't work when I
tried it{2}. I've never tried XFS, ReiserFS, JFS, or any of the more
exotic variants, so I can't say about them.
{2} The work-around is to create a /boot partition where you put your
kernel and initrd files and format it as ext2. This partition may
need to be fairly large (some tens of MB: do "du -ms /boot" on your
running system to get an idea.)
Enjoy!
Rick
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