Re: installing NETINST 20190127 on Mac mini G4
On 1/28/19 15:34, John Paul Adrian Glaubitz wrote:
On 1/28/19 3:05 PM, Frank Scheiner wrote:>> What would be the gain of implementing this? Sure, it would be possible
to implement it. But for what particular reasons and why would it be
required for Yaboot?
I believe the current d-i/yaboot-installer expects to install on a HFS
bootstrap (though I assume yaboot can also boot from FAT). If the
default bootstrap method is changed this would require changes to keep
it working.
Yes, but GRUB works with HFS, doesn't it?
Sure, did anybody question that?
But as said, as long as nobody maintains the software (i.e. yaboot and
HFS related stuff for the yaboot case or just the HFS related stuff for
the GRUB case) a development effort for that isn't justified IMHO.
I didn't say anything about HFS utilities. Those certainly need to be
kept and fixed. I was merely talking about Yaboot which some people seem
to prefer over GRUB for reasons which I am yet failing to understand.
Why is the situation different for the HFS utilities? They're not
maintained either and have problems on G5s (hfsprogs). Why fix them,
they're not needed for GRUB either?
Because there are newer upstream versions available for hfsprogs as the
code is still maintained by Apple:
https://opensource.apple.com/source/hfs/
In an earlier message I linked a discussion on Archlinux about using
newer upstream versions (see bottom of [1] for details, but don't forget
that this is for x86_64 not for powerpc/ppc64, as is the code from Apple).
[1]: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/hfsprogs/
Furthermore, if I remember correctly, we need to stay with an HFS boot
partition because apparently using FAT wouldn't work with QEMU, wouldn't
it? If I remember correctly, your suggestion to use FAT for the boot
partition was rejected in a recent discussion for this very reason.
Oh, it's new to me that it was already rejected. That is an interesting
way how decisions are made here, to say the least.
Up until now I thought there was a discussion mainly between two persons
(me and Mark) with some degree of misunderstanding on one side about
what effect a possible change will really have.
And I thought I've made it clear multiple times now that my changes
won't make it impossible to use Debian on emulated Power Macs in QEMU
(for the sake of the millions out there... ;-)). Partitioning and
bootloader installation to enable the HFS bootstrap method just have to
be done manually after the changes are applied. In addition, with the
changes applied, we would really only rely on currently maintained
software for installation and could still keep and even fix the other stuff.
Bye,
Frank
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