Re: OldWorld ROM Macintoshes
On 8/26/25 8:15 AM, Cedar Maxwell wrote:
... Could you confirm how exactly your partitioning looks like?
I've gotten the kernel and initrd copied over and recognized by
BootX, but never gotten the system to actually boot into Linux.
I understand that the partitoning has to be done particularly for OS 9,
and in turn, Linux to boot correctly.
That sounds right.
I have this disk partitioning (edited slightly for readability):
# mac-fdisk -l
/dev/sda
# type name length base ( size )
/dev/sda1 Apple_partition_map Apple 63 @ 1 ( 31.5k)
/dev/sda2 Apple_Driver43 Macintosh 56 @ 64 ( 28.0k)
/dev/sda3 Apple_Driver43 Macintosh 56 @ 120 ( 28.0k)
/dev/sda4 Apple_Driver_ATA Macintosh 56 @ 176 ( 28.0k)
/dev/sda5 Apple_Driver_ATA Macintosh 56 @ 232 ( 28.0k)
/dev/sda6 Apple_FWDriver Macintosh 512 @ 288 (256.0k)
/dev/sda7 Apple_Driver_IOKit Macintosh 512 @ 800 (256.0k)
/dev/sda8 Apple_Patches Patch Partition 512 @ 1312 (256.0k)
/dev/sda9 Apple_HFS MacOSX 16775392 @ 1824 ( 8.0G)
/dev/sda10 Apple_HFS MacOS 4194304 @ 16777216 ( 2.0G)
/dev/sda11 Apple_UNIX_SVR2 Debian_7 16777216 @ 20971520 ( 8.0G)
/dev/sda12 Apple_UNIX_SVR2 Debian_sid 16777216 @ 37748736 ( 8.0G)
/dev/sda13 Apple_UNIX_SVR2 Gentoo 33554432 @ 54525952 ( 16.0G)
/dev/sda14 Apple_UNIX_SVR2 swap 1048576 @ 88080384 (512.0M)
/dev/sda15 Apple_UNIX_SVR2 data 106242608 @ 89128960 ( 50.7G)
Block size=512, Number of Blocks=195371568
DeviceType=0x0, DeviceId=0x0
Drivers-
1: @ 64 for 23, type=0x1
2: @ 120 for 36, type=0xffff
3: @ 176 for 21, type=0x701
4: @ 232 for 34, type=0xf8ff
Since I can't even get it to boot, my first thought is I partitioned my
drive wrong. I just copied what that guy did in that article, which I
can't verify is correct.
The article may be correct; I just didn't use Apple's tools to partition
the drive. I used NetBSD's pdisk in MacOS 9 (look for pdisk in the
"installation/misc" directory of a NetBSD ISO. Either the ppc or the
mac68k version will work (oddly, the mac68k version works better in some
cases).
If you're comfortable using mac-fdisk or parted in Linux, those will
also work. You'll need to initialize the disk first in Mac OS 9 or Mac
OS X to install the Apple drivers. If you only plan to run Mac OS 9 and
Linux, you can use Drive Setup from Mac OS 9 to initialize the disk. If
you are also planning to run Mac OS X, then you should use Drive Setup
from Mac OS X (Jaguar, Panther or Tiger).
How did you create a custom kernel based on your hardware? Could you
share yours?
I cross-compiled a kernel on an i86_64 system (you should be able to use
whatever system you are using as your QEMU host). I can send the
commands I use to cross-compile kernels if that would help.
I don't mind sharing my .config file, though I don't want to spam the
mailing list. And your hardware may be different, especially if you have
a 800x600 display; I have these ATI graphics options on two Wallstreets
(both 1024x768):
Wallstreet-1:
# dmesg | grep fb0:
[ 0.336988] fb0: Open Firmware frame buffer device on /pci/ATY,264LT-G
Wallstreet-2:
# dmesg | grep fb0:
[ 0.178132] atyfb: fb0: ATY Mach64 frame buffer device on PCI
What "video=atyfb..." option are you passing to the kernel from BootX?
It might make sense to install an older Debian from the ISO that Adrian
mentioned. That way, you can use dmesg to examine your system's hardware
(graphics, scsi, serial, network, etc.) and pick those same options
while configuring a custom 6.x kernel. If you pick only the options that
you need, it doesn't take all that long to build a kernel natively on a
Wallstreet.
I don't have a faster G3 with SCSI, I had been taking the drive out and
plugging it into my modern PC and doing the installation with QEMU. I
do have 512MB of RAM though in my WallStreet :-
...
That's interesting. I currently use QEMU only for m68k Macs but not for
powerpc.
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