How disable 4.0's GUI boot?

[Greg Hamilton]

OpenFirmware doesn't use a boot block/sector, it uses boot partitions. 
For a Linux only installation you'd have at least three partitions. A 
boot partition, a swap partition and a root partition. When you run ybin 
it writes boot code to the boot partition *and* updates the PRAM default 
boot partition value so that OF knows to boot from your yaboot boot 
partition.

If you have OS X installed too then I'm fairly sure that you'll have two 
more partitions - an OS X boot partition and your main OS X partition. 
(No swap partition because OS X uses a swap file). It's possible that 
the main OS X partition acts as it's own boot partition - I don't have 
my iBook handy to check.

If you want to you can select which OS to boot by entering OpenFirmware 
at startup (cmd-alt-o-f, I think) and manually selecting a boot 
partition. Or you can hold 'alt/option' at startup to enter a simple 
graphical boot partition selector.

Fortunately yaboot lets you specify where all your installed OSs live 
and lets you select which one you want to boot using a menu which is 
loaded from the yaboot boot partition. This means you always boot from 
the yaboot boot partition, other than on the odd ocassion when OS X 
decides to change the OF boot partition default (sometimes happens 
during software update) in which case you use OF to bypass OS X, boot 
Linux and run ybin to restore the PRAM setting.

You could read all about it here:
http://www.openfirmware.org/

Or sing along to the OpenFirmware song:
http://www.openfirmware.org/1275/misc/ofwsong.au

Cian Duffy wrote:
> writes your yaboot.conf to the boot sector/prom/whatever the hell the
> PPC verison is of the boot sector
> 
> /sbin/ybin as root
> 
> ensure your yaboot.conf is in good nick, it seems you've close to
> destroyed yours.
> 
> 
> On Thu, 24 Feb 2005 19:22:52 -0500, beartooth <beartooth at adelphia.net> wrote:
> 
>>On Fri, 25 Feb 2005 11:00:42 +1100, Greg Hamilton wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Did you run ybin after editing yaboot.conf?
>>
>>Errr .... Ummm.... Duhhhh.... ybin ...??? What's ybin? How do I run it?
>>(and why should I? what does it do?)
>>
>>--
>>Beartooth Implacable, Linux Evangelist & Gadfly
>>neo-redneck, curmudgeonly codger with FC1 & YDL 4.0
>>Pine 4.61, Pan 0.14.2; Privoxy 3.0.1; Opera 7.54, Firefox 1.0
>>Bear in mind that I have little idea what I am talking about.
>>
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> 
> 
>