MOL reports "File is too large. Failed to load mkext!" with MacOSX 10.3.7

[Mattias Nissler]

Hi Matthew,

On 04.07.2005, at 19:09, Matthew Denner wrote:
>
>
>>> ==================================================
>>> MacOS X Boot Loader 0.9.70
>>> Candidate boot volume: /mol-scsi/disk at 0:3
>>> /mol-scsi/disk at 0:3,\mach_kernel (3867776 bytes)
>>> /mol-scsi/disk at 0:3,\System\Library\Extensions.mkext
>>> File is too large.
>>> Failed to load mkext!
>>> Loading from /mol-scsi/disk at 0:3,\System\Library\
>>> ==================================================
>>>
>

I've had that as well some time ago, but with my disk installation.  
The workaround was to just delete the file and do a native OS X boot,  
but that's obviously no option with your disk ;-)

I've looked around a little and I think I found the problem to be in  
the bootx loader that actually loads OS X. Those mkext files contain  
drivers that the kernel can't load until the filesystem machinery is  
up, so they are loaded into memory by the loader and passed to the  
kernel that way.

The MOL version of the bootx loader is derived from Apple's version  
(which is open source). Now it seems that Apple actually changed it  
some time ago. In the old version they assumed the machine had  
minimally 32 MB of memory, now they are assuming 96 MB (which happens  
to be the amount the MOL machine has by default). So there is more  
space now for large mkexts in the Apple loaders, but the MOL loader  
has not caught up with that development yet.

I already have the necessary source around, so I will try and make a  
memory-constraint-relaxed version later this evening or tomorrow you  
can try to drop into your installation. Hopefully this works without  
problems ;-)

If you are curious, refer to http://www.opensource.apple.com/ 
darwinsource/10.4.1/BootX-74.1 and the bootx-mol bitkeeper repository  
found via the developers section of the MOL website.

Cheers,

Mattias