Re: [PATCH] Revert "Link yaboot at 1MB"

It may also be worthwhile to consider (force-)booting from Optical Drive on PMacs/ppc64 as selectable from the GRUB menu. The (former) Yaboot has this option. Discs of a Linux-nature may or may not be detected from OF, I have found.

It’s probably quite lofty already to consider FireWire and USB-booting from the GRUB, but maybe optical/super-drive-booting as a minimum?

Thank you,

On Oct 21, 2017, at 5:59 PM, Mark Balantzyan <mark.balantzyan@gmail.com> wrote:

My bad, correction on my last reply-all:

P.S. I understand that the new GRUB is likely not going to replace OpenFirmware, so I am requesting just to be able to still boot from USB + Firewire on the G5 Quad and USB on the G5 Dual 2.0 from the bootloader, and not have to manually drill into OF to do that.

I meant still boot from USB + FW on the Quad and still boot from FireWire on the G5 Dual 2.0, not still boot from USB on the G5 Dual! Arr, so confusing. Sorry. Thanks.

Mark

On Oct 21, 2017, at 5:53 PM, Mark Balantzyan <mark.balantzyan@gmail.com> wrote:

Hello everyone,

Long time no…erm.

"We are actually working on making GRUB the default bootloader for Debian
powerpc and ppc64. It is already the default bootloader when installing
on PREP/CHRP PowerPC machines.

There is still some work to do for Apple NewWorld machines though but
I am confident that this will be finished within the next few weeks.”

For added compatibility, I would please like to put forward that my (NewWorld?) G5 PMacs, have not been designed to be able to boot from USB. Firewire yes, but not USB. Most definitely one of them, that’s for sure. Therefore, this may affect OpenFirmware awareness(es) required for implementation in the new GRUB code. Namely, I would like to say please implement whatever’s needed to allow say, a G5 Pmac Quad to still boot from USB + Firewire, and a G5 Pmac Dual 2.0 to still boot from firewire from both bootloader and OF (open firmware).

I would like to clarify that I haven’t tried any of the installer images yet, so this is not a report of the project’s current functionality, but of stuff as recent as a stuffed-up wheezy Jessie combo installation that I still have (not under use).

P.S. I understand that the new GRUB is likely not going to replace OpenFirmware, so I am requesting just to be able to still boot from USB + Firewire on the G5 Quad and USB on the G5 Dual 2.0 from the bootloader, and not have to manually drill into OF to do that.

Thanks,
Mark

On Oct 21, 2017, at 12:03 PM, John Ogness <powerpc@ogness.net> wrote:

On 2017-10-21, Tony Breeds <tony@bakeyournoodle.com> wrote:
This reverts commit f7a364631f2a8975ecca56668a19ee0a66c1ddcd.

An iBook G4 (PowerBook6,5) was unable to boot when linking to the
lower address. Revert back to 2MB.

Signed-off-by: John Ogness <powerpc@ogness.net>
---
I could not find any references about _why_ yaboot was moved
from 2MB to 1MB. I did not bother to see how low I could get
it on my iBook. If 2MB is too high for some machine, I can
investigate to see how low I can go.

This was done as 'large' kernels couldn't be loaded as the RMA was too
fragmented. Moveing it down to 1MB reclaimed just enough that we were
fine.

I assume that the yaboot-mainline and 1.3.17-4 tests we made with the
same kernel/intrd combination.

Yes. From Debian/sid, linux-image-4.13.0-1-powerpc version 4.13.4-2.

Can you get me a dump of your RMA memory properties and sizes of the
kernel and initrd?

I'm not sure what you mean by "RMA memory properties" or how best to
"dump" them. Here is some information retrieved from OpenFirmware...

excerpt from 'printenv':
real-mode? false
real-base -1
real-size -1
load-base 0x800000
virt-base -1
virt-size -1
ram-size 0x30000000

excerpt from 'dev /memory' '.properties':
available 00003000 2fbed000

The initrd.img is 18,543,719 bytes.
The decompressed initrd.img is 48,723,456 bytes.
The vmlinux is 11,868,000 bytes.

John Ogness