automatic startup hardware detection in MacOS when booted from mol

[Y-Lan Boureau]

Hi,
 
 I don't exactly get how MOL is working with hardware, and especially, automatic hardware detection. Is hardware detected even if support for it has not been compiled into the kernel, or is it "filtered" through linux ?
 
 This is crucial for me, as I'm trying to rescue a G4 TiBook where Firewire (after being damaged by a firewire CD drive) prevents Mac OS9 from booting (I get a freeze on the last starting screen). Most linux LiveCD I've tried got frozen as well while trying to detect firewire :
 
 -- -Ubuntu (or Kubuntu as well) freezes after this line :
   ohci 1394 : "Unexpected PCI resource length of 1000!". No cheatcode works.
  
  -- Knoppix PPC (http://mailman.linuxtag.org/pipermail/debian-knoppix/2003-July/003428.html) : works well with "nohwsetup" but 
   doesn't work with most cheatcodes together (nofirewire nousb nopcmcia noapic etc), freezes after "autoconfiguring devices", printing two seemingly irrelevant errors (I have pasted details at the end of the mail):
 
 --Gentoo freezes after a line that states approximately "coldplugging firewire" (and no ok appears, so that's where the problem lies) . 
 However booting is successful with either "nodetect" or "nohotplug", but fails with "nofirewire". 
 Here is the relevant output of lspci -vvx : 

0002:24:0e.0 Class ffff: Apple Computer Inc. UniNorth FireWire (rev ff) (prog-if ff) \n
    !!! Unknown header type 7f 
00: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff 
10: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff 
20: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff 
30: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff \n

(and here is the device tree it gives :
-+-[24]-+-0b.0  Apple Computer Inc. UniNorth Internal PCI 
 |      +-0e.0  Apple Computer Inc. UniNorth FireWire 
 |      \\-0f.0  Apple Computer Inc. UniNorth GMAC (Sun GEM) \n
 +-[10]-+-0b.0  Apple Computer Inc. UniNorth PCI 
 |      +-17.0  Apple Computer Inc. KeyLargo Mac I/O 
 |      +-18.0  Apple Computer Inc. KeyLargo USB 
 |      +-19.0  Apple Computer Inc. KeyLargo USB 
 |      \\-\n1a.0  Texas Instruments PCI1211 
 \\-[00]-+-0b.0  Apple Computer Inc. UniNorth AGP 
        \\-10.0  ATI Technologies Inc Rage Mobility M3 AGP 2x  )

So I think that\'s where the problem lies : the header seems to have gotten completely scrambled. I thought the problem might be related to the fact that firewire has DMA or something. So I wondered if it could help to disable firewire booting by setting a password in Open Firmware, but I\'m a bit afraid of the consequences in case I don\'t manage to disable the password afterwards, and anyway I guess Firewire would get enabled by the OS in the end, thereby getting an opportunity to freeze the system anyway.\n

    -- -Ubuntu (or Kubuntu as well) freezes after this line :
ohci 1394 : "Unexpected PCI resource length of 1000!". No cheatcode works.

    -- Mandrake gets stuck strangely, no error message
\n
    --Stupidly enough, I haven\'t thought of trying Yellow Dog, while it is the only natively PPC linux distro I know of. I might give a try, but I guess it will get stuck also (and right now as I said the computer is busy compiling KDE)\n",1] );  //-->Once booted, I get a system freeze with no error message if I try : "modprobe ohci1394", ohci1394 being the module for Firewire support.
 
 Here is the relevant output of lspci -vvx, which shows that the header of the Firewire port has seemingly been damaged  : 
 
 0002:24:0e.0 Class ffff: Apple Computer Inc. UniNorth FireWire (rev ff) (prog-if ff)  
     !!! Unknown header type 7f 
 00: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff 
 10: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff 
 20: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff 
 30: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  
 
 
 So trying to detect firewire completely prevents any system from booting ; as Gentoo made it with "nohotplug", I finally installed it for good, disabling firewire, coldplug and hotplug in the kernel, and it's running fine.
 
 And of course, I emerged mol at once -- hoping that somehow it might be possible to configure it to prevent Mac OS from trying to detect firewire. I have no idea if this can work, as I don't understand the particulars of how mol functions ; and I cannot try yet, because as of now I have no Mac OS system installed on my disk (quite dumbly I installed Gentoo without keeping space for Mac OS) ; installing one would require me to resize my Linux partition, create a HFS one and installing Mac OS.
 
 So... I'd like to know if it is hopeless, or if it seems possible that MOL might manage to prevent Mac OS from freezing while scanning firewire...
 
 Many thanks in advance
 
Y-Lan 
 
 
 Output of the Knoppix PPC before the freeze :
  MODPROBE: MODPROBE : CAN'T LOCATE MODULE CHAR-MAJOR-4  
   MODPROBE: MODPROBE : CAN'T LOCATE MODULE CHAR-MAJOR-4(has to do  with virtual consoles)
   MODPROBE: MODPROBE : CAN'T LOCATE MODULE BLOCK-MAJOR-2 
   MODPROBE: MODPROBE : CAN'T LOCATE MODULE BLOCK-MAJOR-2(has to do with floppy, and I have none). 
   Putting all those cheatcodes together : noapic noagp noapm nodma nomce nofirewire nopcmcia noscsi noswap nousb nosmp noaudio acpi=off
   I still get the error.
   Once I have booted with "nohwsetup", I get the freeze and the "can't locate module" messages again if I run : "kudzu", which basically does the hwsetup (so that's not that surprising ; but I lose the hand and cannot change terminals to kill the "kudzu" process). 
 
 (and here is the device tree  :
  -+-[24]-+-0b.0  Apple Computer Inc. UniNorth Internal PCI 
   |      +-0e.0  Apple Computer Inc. UniNorth FireWire 
   |      \-0f.0  Apple Computer Inc. UniNorth GMAC (Sun GEM)  
   +-[10]-+-0b.0  Apple Computer Inc. UniNorth PCI 
   |      +-17.0  Apple Computer Inc. KeyLargo Mac I/O 
   |      +-18.0  Apple Computer Inc. KeyLargo USB 
   |      +-19.0  Apple Computer Inc. KeyLargo USB 
   |      \- 1a.0  Texas Instruments PCI1211 
   \-[00]-+-0b.0  Apple Computer Inc. UniNorth AGP 
          \-10.0  ATI Technologies Inc Rage Mobility M3 AGP 2x  )
 
 
		
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