miboot documentation? (really minimal BootX)

[Eddie Bindt]

On Tue, 8 Apr 2003, Alexander Holst wrote:

Alexander and others,

I have just some small points left after this rather complete HOWTO from 
Alexander :-)

I run miboot on all the oldworld machines I have (unless they are able to 
run quik, like my ANS) ...

Holding down some keys while starting miboot (I discovered while holding 
<Delete><Option><Command><Shift> to boot from a miboot partition) will 
show you that miboot is actually looking for a couple of different config 
files on differnet places on the hfs partition.

This how my miboot /boothfs partition looks (Desktop shit removed for 
clearer reading) this partition is 20MB. 

[root@aws9650 boot-hfs]# tree
.
|-- System Folder
|   |-- Finder
|   |-- Preferences
|   |-- README
|   |-- System
|   |-- yaboot
|   `-- yaboot.conf
|-- System.map
|-- System.map-2.4.18-0.8a
|-- System.map-2.4.18-ben0
|-- System.map-2.4.19-ben0
|-- first.b
|-- kernel.h
|-- module-info
|-- module-info-2.4.18-0.8a
|-- second
|-- second.b
|-- vmlinux
|-- vmlinux-2.4.18-0.8a
|-- vmlinux-2.4.18-ben0
`-- vmlinux-2.4.19-ben0

as you can see, miboot is called "yaboot" here and the conf is called 
"yaboot.conf" inside the "System Folder"
The real kernel stuff is in the root off /boot-hfs

This is how my "yaboot.conf" looks :

[root@aws9650 System Folder]# cat yaboot.conf
init-message = "\nWelcome to YellowDog!\Press <TAB> for boot options.\n\n"
timeout = 100
default = vmlinux-2.4.18-ben0-s

image = vmlinux
label = vmlinux
append = "video=imsttfb:vmode:17,cmode:8 devfs=nomount"
root = /dev/sdb9

image = vmlinux-2.4.18-0.8a
label = vmlinux-2.4.18-0.8a
append = "video=imsttfb:vmode:17,cmode:8 devfs=nomount"
root = /dev/sdb9

image = vmlinux-2.4.18-ben0
label = vmlinux-2.4.18-ben0-s
append = "console=ttyS0,38400 console=tty0 video=imsttfb:vmode:17,cmode:8 devfs=nomount"
root = /dev/sdb9

image = vmlinux-2.4.19-ben0
label = vmlinux-2.4.19-ben0-s
append = "console=ttyS0,38400 console=tty0 video=imsttfb:vmode:17,cmode:8 devfs=nomount"
root = /dev/sdb9



The syntax is mostly the same as in other popular bootloader config files 
like yaboot, quik or even lilo ...

BUT, be carefull not to make the "label = xxxxxxxxxxx" to long, I am not 
exactly sure, but making it longer than perhaps 24 chars, your config will 
not work anymore and miboot is not good in error-messages ....

You can pass all kernel arguments you want in the "append" tag, I guess 
there is also an length limit on that but don't now how long it might be 
in miboot (should look into the source for that)

And YES, I am using the IMSTTFB video card and it works fine, it did from 
YDL2.0 til now in YDL3.0. This is the original Apple OEM 4MB IMSTT card 
that came in the AWS9650 machines.

I hope YDL puts this HOW-TO from Alexander with perhaps some add-on on 
there web-site and award Alexander with some nice T-Shirt, I think he 
deserves it ;-)

Have fun,

Eddie

-- 
Eddie Bindt