Booting YDL form CD on Old- & NewWorld Macs [was Re: Question: Booting YDL 3.0 - miBoot - ext3]
Alexander Holst
yellowdog-general@lists.terrasoftsolutions.com
Fri May 16 15:11:01 2003
Hi List,
upon the confusion about the boot procedure with miBoot / yaboot and
the apropriate naming of the .conf file, I did some more investigation:
The miBoot version included in the BootX 1.2.2 archive is basically the
same as the on I was using from the LinuxPPC2kQ4 CD. At least the
version string is the same: miBoot 1.0.a3
However, they are not the same. Whether something got lost or it was
deliberately changed, I can't tell - I guess, only benh could answer
this question (he is mentioned as the creator in a ReadMe file from the
LPPC2kQ4 CD). The difference between the two "System" files is that the
on included in the BootX archive is smaller in size and misses some
stuff in its resource fork:
BootX included "System" file's size: 91 kB <-> LPPC2kQ4 CD "System"
file's size 238 kB
The differences (that I found by quickly comparing the two in ResEdit)
are:
The on I used from the LPPC2kQ4 CD has an additional resource named
PICT with the "landscape with Tux" boot screen and an additional entry
in the STR#s resource with ID 130 named "Config file Name" with
"boot.conf" as contents. Hence my success with having a boot.conf file
in the root level of my boot volume.
Funny enough, if that file (the boot.conf file) is missing, it will
fall back to the yaboot.conf file found inside the "System Folder". On
the LPPC2kQ4 CD inside the System Folder, another file can be found
named yaboot. It is of type tbxi and creator is chrp, and needed for
NewWorld machines. It resembles the MacOS ROM image. The empty "Finder"
file is also present in the LPPC System folder on the CD - with the
correct type of FNDR and MACS as creator.
Having all three files (System, an empty Finder file and the yaboot
file with creator chrp and type tbxi) inside a System folder, will let
the Mac belive this to be a bootable Systemfolder - on OldWorld Mac as
well as NewWorld Macs. Therefore you will be able to choose it in the
Startup Disk control panel as boot volume as well as from within MacOSX
in the System Settings. To my surprise, the so configured HFS volume
did _not_ show up in the boot manager (hold down <alt> when booting). I
don't know what it needs for a volume to be listed there. It did boot
from it though when selected as boot volume frmom the System Settings.
Funny.
That means, with this trick, one could setup a CD that will boot on
OldWorld and NewWorld Macs! YDL people, maybe the next release will be
bootable on OldWorld machines as well !!! ;))) And maybe it will enable
people to have a Linux only installation on OldWorld machines if they
desire so.
In order to verify this, I created a disk image with all the neccessary
stuff on it for booting and installing YDL 2.3 and YDL 3.0 and tested
it on a PM7500/100 and my Dual 1GHz mirror drive door G4 by copying its
contents to an empty HFS volume on both of the machines, unalterd - and
both successfully booted into the YDL 3.0 installer without a hickup
!!! :) One using the miBoot (the System file) and the other one using
yaboot, the fake MacOS ROM image (it was the yaboot file from the
LPPC2kQ4 CD! not the one included on the YDL 3.0 CD).
I have written a quick and dirty documentation that can be found at:
http://apple.fh-pforzheim.de/YDL/
page with links to:
http://apple.fh-pforzheim.de/YDL/files/README.Boot_Linux.html
README file in HTML
http://apple.fh-pforzheim.de/YDL/files/Boot_Linux.comp.ro.img.sit the
actual stuffed disk image file
Download the disk image file, unstuff it and mount it. Copy all the
contents onto your, preferably HFS formatted and not HFS+, boot volume
and follow the README. Its a quick and dirty writeup of my testing and
for sure it has to be improved. Due to all the neccessary
ramdisk-images and kernels for YDL 2.3 and 3.0 the image is 14.9 MB -
sorry. It was just too much hassle to create several ones - it's
Friday, 23:15 - weekend!
The yaboot.conf file has six presets:
boot-YDL-2.3
a preset for booting into an allready existing YDL 2.3 installation
(here the root filesystem resides on partiton 8 of the first IDE drive,
the video settings are for my beige G3 and will boot you into a
1152x870 screen with 24bit depth, using the driver for the ATI Rage II
chip)
install-YDL-2.3-X11
boot into the X11 installer, to install YDL 2.3 on a drive
install-YDL-2.3-text
boot into the text based installer, to install YDL 2.3 on a drive
boot-YDL-3.0
boot into an allready existing YDL 3.0 installation (here the root
filesystem resides on partiton 8 of the first IDE drive, the video
settings are for my beige G3 and will boot you into a 1152x870 screen
with 24bit depth, using the driver for the ATI Rage II chip)
install-YDL-3.0
boot into the new YDL 3.0 installer in graphical mode - hint: insert
the YDL 3.0 install CD1 into CD drive _before_ hitting enter!
(confirmed success on PM7500/100 and Dual 1GHz mirror drive doors G4 :)
install-YDL-3.0-safe
boot into the new YDL 3.0 installer in text mode and with safe video
settings - hint: insert the YDL 3.0 install CD1 into CD drive _before_
hitting enter! (confirmed success only on PM7500/100)
All the neccessary kernels for installing and booting YDL 2.3 & 3.0 are
included in the image. The yaboot.conf file is included in Mac style
line breaks as well as Linux style Line breaks. It certainly needs to
be edited to suit your purposes.
Hope you can get something out of this. Any comments, improvements
appreciated,
Alex
Am Mittwoch, 14.05.03, um 20:01 Uhr (Europe/Berlin) schrieb
yellowdog-general-request@lists.terrasoftsolutions.com:
> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 18:03:07 +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
>
>> Was the folder called "Linux Kernels" - mind the space and the s at
>> the
>> end. Any other name will cause it to be ignored.
>>
>
> Yes. I am used in BootX since Championserver 1.2 ;-)
>
>>
>> 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.
>>
>
> I only used the files from the disk image and copied them to an empty
> "System Folder". I don't know why they put a separate system file
> inside the
> miBoot folder. I had to place the kernel file on the root level of
> the hd
> and the ramdisk file too. If you use ResEdit and add the path "System
> Folder:zIamge" it might work if placed in the sytem folder too.
>
> Unfortunately I did not find "boot.conf" or "Linux Kernel" strings in
> miBoot's system file (wonder wonder).
>
>>
>> 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.
>
> This would be very very nice because I do not have to crawl through
> the loft
> to find it.
>
>> to test for bad blocks, but on older equipment, it certainly is worth
>> the wait.
>
> Think the disk was bad before. Tested old drives today and found still
> good
> ones by testing blocks. Some others failed (50/50).
>
>
>>
>> Greetings,
>> Alex
>
> Cheers,
>
> Thomas
Alexander Holst
Pforzheim University of Applied Sciences
<holst@fh-pforzheim.de>
ph: +49 [0]7231 28-6837
fx: +49 [0]7231 28-6040