miboot on a 6400
nathan
yellowdog-general@lists.terrasoftsolutions.com
Fri, 30 Jul 2004 21:03:14 +0300
Thanks.. I have been learned right proper. I wasn't aware there was a no OS
option avail for the oldworld macs...
Thanks
-nathan
On 7/30/04 7:12 PM, "sadfsdf" <ydl@augustmail.com> wrote:
> Currently im getting a tux with a red X on there. Ive been reading your
> guide from april of last year
> (http://lists.terrasoftsolutions.com/pipermail/yellowdog-general/2003-April/00
> 6938.html)
> but nothing seems to work, I press space and nothing happens I press tab
> still nothing happens, i do command+alt+shift+del and I get miboot
> saying "open error -43"
>
>
> Alexander Holst wrote:
>
>>> Message: 10
>>> Date: Fri, 30 Jul 2004 09:14:48 +0300
>>> Subject: Re: miboot on a 6400
>>> From: nathan <nathan@incirlik.net>
>>> To: "yellowdog general lists.terrasoftsolutions.com"
>>> <yellowdog-general@lists.terrasoftsolutions.com>
>>> Reply-To: yellowdog-general@lists.terrasoftsolutions.com
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> AFAIK, miBoot is really hard to get to work on the PPC/Performa
>>> machines.
>>
>>
>> Not really ;) - All my OldWorld Macs (5 in total) boot through it,
>> even my beige G3 and my Performa 5200 :)
>>
>>> Why not get a copy of BootX 1.2.x. In my experience it's the easiest to
>>> setup and use on the oldworld machines...
>>
>>
>> Some people like their machines to be Mac OS free to save some disk
>> space and to avoid licence issues ;)
>>
>> Hi sadfsdf,
>>
>>> My directory tree for the miboot partition is like this
>>> |-- System Folder (note: Mac OS has blessed the folder)
>>> | |-- Finder
>>> | |-- System
>>> | |-- boot.conf
>>> |-- Linux Kernels
>>> | |-- vmlinux-2.4.22-2f
>>> | |-- vmlinux-2.24.22-2fBOOT
>>> |-- ramdisk.image.gz
>>> |-- boot.conf
>>
>>
>> You have _two_ boot.conf files! Use one or the other - I assume miboot
>> gets confused which one to use. I usually erase the one in the System
>> Folder and use one at the root level of the HFS partition. It is
>> easier to manage from the Linux side then, as you avoid the space in
>> the "System Folder" in its path, which can cause some problems when
>> using the command line.
>>
>>> My boot.conf is thus:
>>>
>>> init-message = "\n Welcome to YDL!\Press <TAB> for boot options.\n\n"
>>> timeout = 50
>>>
>>> default = bootYDL
>>>
>>> image = vmlinux-2.4.22-2f
>>> label = bootYDL
>>> root = /dev/hda6
>>> append = "video=valkyriefb3:vmode:14,cmode:8"
>>>
>>> image = vmlinux-2.4.22-2fBOOT
>>> label = install_YDL
>>> initrd = ramdisk.image.gz
>>> initrd-size=16384
>>> root = /dev/ram0
>>> append = "video=valkyriefb3:vmode:14,cmode:8 text"
>>
>>
>> Have you tried without any append = "video=..." line? It should work
>> without that line. It will usually use 640x480 then, or the settings
>> which have been left in the PRAM from the last time you had booted
>> into Mac OS. 640x480 is enough to run the installer, after that you
>> can try several commands (fbset, nvvideo | read the man pages of those
>> two) to tweak video settings and find out about your graphics chip by
>> consulting /var/log/dmesg. Also, as already pointed out by another
>> poster, the video line should only read valkyriefb and not
>> valkyriefb3, in case the machine does have a valkyrie chipset.
>>
>> Do you get a boot-screen with a landscape and TUX? If so, at least
>> some part of miboot has loaded successfully. Increase the "timeout =
>> 50" to "timeout = 100" so you'll have 10 secs of boot delay. This
>> should suffice in most cases to get the monitor warmed up and to
>> display the initial boot screen. Hitting the space bar during that
>> first boot scree will get you into a boot menue.
>>
>> Your problem might also be, that miboot ignores the "default =
>> bootYDL" line and will always boot the first set of entries in
>> boot.conf after the timeout, which in your case would be the attempt
>> to boot an installation that isn't there as of yet (or did you
>> allready get YDL installed). From within the boot menue, you will be
>> able to choose from your presets in boot.conf and customly add append
>> parameters. After installation, put your preferred set of parameters
>> as the first set into boot.conf, then automatic boot will start after
>> the timeout period.
>>
>> Also, "root = /dev/hda6" seems a too early partition to hold a linux
>> fs to me, as I assume you also have your mibbot partition on the same
>> drive. A typical Mac partitioned drive looks as follows:
>>
>> Partition map (with 512 byte blocks) on '/dev/sda'
>> #: type name length base ( size )
>> 1: Apple_partition_map Apple 63 @ 1
>> 2: Apple_Driver43*Macintosh 54 @ 64
>> 3: Apple_Driver43*Macintosh 74 @ 118
>> 4: Apple_Driver_IOKit Macintosh 512 @ 192
>> 5: Apple_Patches Patch Partition 512 @ 704
>> 6: Apple_HFS "Boot_Linux" 204800 @ 1216 (100.0M)
>> 7: Apple_UNIX_SVR2 swap 524288 @ 206016 (256.0M)
>> 8: Apple_UNIX_SVR2 backup 3448560 @ 730304 ( 1.6G)
>> 9: Apple_Free Extra 10 @ 4178864
>>
>> The the earliest partition, in my above example, to hold a Linux fs
>> would be partition 7 and onwards. The root=... line specifies the
>> partition which holds the file system that is mounted on / under
>> Linux, _not_ the partition that holds the miboot loader. My example
>> shows a drive that I only use to boot, hold my secondary swap space
>> and a backup partition, as my Linux installation is on an IDE drive
>> attached to an IDE controller (Promise Ultra 100 TX2), that is only
>> visible to the Linux kernel, but not to the Mac (a PM 7500/100)
>> itself. So I am forced to use a SCSI disk to hold my miboot partition.
>>
>> I hope that helps and "un-hardens" the use of miboot on a PPC/Performa.
>>
>> BTW, the Performa 6400 is a PCI machine, isn't it? If it is still a
>> NuBus architecture machine, you need a different kernel. The kernels
>> supplied on the YDL CDs won't work on a NuBus type machine. In that
>> case, go to http://nubus-pmac.sf.net to get a kernel. You won't be
>> able to follow the "normal" installation procedure though. Feel free
>> to contact me in that case. I managed to get YDL-3.0 installed on my
>> Performa 5200 from scratch. It needs some tricks though.
>>
>>
>> Greetings,
>> Alex
>>
>>
>>
>> Alexander Holst
>> Pforzheim University of Applied Sciences
>> <holst [at] fh-pforzheim [dot] de>
>> ph: +49 [0]7231 28-6837
>> fx: +49 [0]7231 28-6040
>>
>>
>
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