Question: Booting YDL 3.0 - miBoot - ext3

[Alexander Holst]

Am Mittwoch, 14.05.03, um 14:30 Uhr (Europe/Berlin) schrieb 
yellowdog-general-request@lists.terrasoftsolutions.com:

> Message: 9
> Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 13:01:33 +0200
> Subject: Re: Question: Booting YDL 3.0 - miBoot - ext3
> From: Thomas Kuehner <macgix@macgix-services.com>
> To: <yellowdog-general@lists.terrasoftsolutions.com>
> Reply-To: yellowdog-general@lists.terrasoftsolutions.com
>
> Hi Alex
>
>>
>> Which version of miboot are you using? All my experience is based on
>> the miboot software that was included in the LinuxPPC distro (LPPC2kQ4
>> CD) - when choosing this miboot partition in the Startup disk
>> controlpanel, it reads something like v1.0.blabla.
>
> I used the version that shipped with BootX 1.2.2 in YDL3. IMHO the 
> version
> is something like 1.02.

As far as I can remember that's what mine says too - have to boot with 
a Mac OS CD to find out though.

> [... snip ...]

>> As for the issue with the "Linux Kernels" folder your mentioned in one
>> of your earlier posts, was that folder on the root level of your HFS
>> boot partition as well? It needs to be there for the version of miboot
>> I use, not within the fake Systemfolder.
>
> Maybe this had changed from earlier version of miBoot. I placed the 
> folder
> on the root level but it was ignored. By mounting the miBoot.img i
> discovered a file called zImage ("zett" not "Y") inside. This string I 
> found
> in the Sytem file using ResEdit by following miBoot instructions from 
> the
> SuSE support database.

Was the folder called "Linux Kernels" - mind the space and the s at the 
end. Any other name will cause it to be ignored.

BTW, how did you get the miboot version from BootX 1.2.2 to boot? 
Yesterday, I tried to get it to boot, but my Mac refused to accept any 
combination of System and Finder and or miBoot.img as a bootable 
Systemfolder. I had expanded the archive under OS9 and X no difference 
(I assumed resource fork issues when I unpacked it under X). How does 
this version work? I expect the contents of miBoot.img to be a 
compressed kernel - but how would you switch kernels then? Does it boot 
like the Macs when shipped from factory, they had (when OS9 was the 
primary OS) a very similar setup on their disk:

A Systemfolder, containing only a System file and a disk image which in 
turn had a Systemfolder with the System file and a Finder which was 
actually the installer.

As for the moment, I'll stick to my proven setup :)

>> If you have any chance to test these things out, please report back, 
>> so
>> we all know if things are still the same with the latest version of
>> miboot. My YDL 3.0 installation on a PM7500 went smoothly without any
>> issues with the old miboot I used.
>
> I have to look through my CD-ROM archive. I should have the 2KQ4 CD 
> anywhere
> to try it with the miBoot version you use.

In case you can't find it, I do have the CDs so I could creat a .img or 
.smi with all the neccessary contents correctly setup (including a demo 
boot.conf) so all you needed to do was to copy that to your HFS boot 
partition and add the desired kernels and specify the appropriate boot 
arguments in the boot.conf file.

>> Hope you got your master block problem fixed!
>
> Unfortunately not. I had to reinstall completely. (Background: a 
> second SCSI
> disk with bad blocks destroyed the block by copying files under Mac OS.
> Don't know how it altered the linux partition).
>
> I don't hope that miBoot caused the problem. I had my miBoot boot 
> partition
> on the second drive while my Linux OS was on the first....

Never had any issues with it so far - all it really does, is load the 
kernel and give it the boot arguments - hard to believe that this would 
alter anything on another partition. Are you sure that the disk in 
question was/is ok? I know it takes ages, especially on old machines, 
to test for bad blocks, but on older equipment, it certainly is worth 
the wait.

> Btw. it was on an testing machine, so no data has been destroyed ;-)

Greetings,
Alex


Alexander Holst
Pforzheim University of Applied Sciences
<holst@fh-pforzheim.de>
ph: +49 [0]7231 28-6837
fx: +49 [0]7231 28-6040