[ydl-gen] Problem with yaboot/YDL 4.0.1

[Keith Mitchell]

For the record (in case someone else runs into this) the problem had 
nothing to do with the partitioning of the system.  The problem was 
actually related to NFS and the hfsutils package.  In our network the 
home directory servers are setup so that root does not have write 
permissions (i.e. maproot=nodbody).  I had also previously used hfsutils 
from my normal user account (i.e. not root) and thus it created a .hcwd 
file in my home directory.  Then, when I tried to run 'ybin' or 
'mkofboot' as root, the hfsutils was trying to write to that .hcwd file 
in my home directory... Due to the permissions it got an EPERM error 
code back and was the cause of the failure I was seeing.

Apparently if I hadn't previously run hfsutils or if nfs was setup 
differently I wouldn't have run into this...

In any case, thanks to strace for showing me what was going on :-)

Derick Centeno wrote:
> Ok.
>
> I'm not clear what "I told YDL" actually means in this context.
>
> Does it mean that you bought the system directly from Terra Soft and 
> spoke to someone there regarding what you wanted?
> That however may be unlikely, as they are very good at not making this 
> kind of error.
>
> Or do you mean you merely started the YDL installation on the Mac 
> without preparing the installed mac hardware to be able to use YDL?
> My intuition tells me that this is probably what you did.
>
> You did not boot your Mac so that it ran from your Installer disk.  
> You also did not invoke Disk Utility as instructed.
> You did not tell Disk Utility to partition the entire hard drive so 
> that there would be 1 partition called Untitled and that partition 
> would be formatted by Disk Utility as Free Space.
>
> As you did not do the above that is why you are where you are as 
> regards this difficulty.
>
> Linux needs to see that partition created by Disk Utility which Disk 
> Utility formats as Free Space.
> Then the installation proceeds.
>
> You may not need to know this but the Unix format option within Disk 
> Utility exists for an older version of what was years ago known as 
> Apple Unix; which is different and predates OS X.  That version of 
> Unix doesn't know ext2 or ext3 which Linux does use.  Sometimes a 
> little more information helps; sometimes it doesn't.
>
> In this situation, you merely started with the Unix format option in 
> Apple's Disk Utility or you thought that merely installing YDL onto a 
> Mac whose hard drive is preformatted and loaded with OS X (expecting 
> YDL to merely erase it) would just somehow work.
>
> The fault here is a mere lack of understanding the nuances of hard 
> drive formatting procedures.  Every Linux installation needs something 
> on the hard drive it can see or recognize telling it that it can 
> proceed to do things it's way.  If it doesn't see what it expects, it 
> doesn't know why and it won't care, nor will it complain or tell you 
> something.  It will work as best it can with what it thinks you want 
> it to do.  This is exactly where a little knowledge is a dangerous 
> thing because you understand one thing and it another and this can go 
> on for months and you won't have a clue as to why your installation is 
> so odd from every other Linux installation.
>
> Every company, Apple included, formats their hard drive in a 
> proprietary manner which only that operating system may use.
>
> Linux by definition is open source which means it's for everyone.  No 
> Linux utility has the proprietary codes which each company keeps to 
> itself; rather Linux can see when it is allowed to format a drive it's 
> way.
>
> In Apple's case, the signal or data Linux needs to see is that the 
> hard drive is prepared for Linux as Free Space by the Disk Utility 
> application.  Linux doesn't see the information the same way Disk 
> Utility does, but it will recognize the Free Space formatting 
> structure and treat it differently from the Unix formatting structure.
>
>   If Linux doesn't see the Free Formatting structure as prepared by 
> Disk Utility, we arrive where you already are.
>
> It is quite possible that I'm completely wrong but the output you 
> originally reported got there somehow, and it is not a normal Linux 
> installation, pure and simple.  The directions I supplied prior to 
> this email applies for installing only YDL (replacing Mac OS X with 
> YDL) -- although sadly Terra Soft's explanation does not emphasize 
> that.  Maybe they will highlight or elaborate upon that one day; 
> meanwhile I've also wiped out OS X replacing it with YDL (several 
> times); the steps I'm discussing and emphasizing -- works.
>
> Best wishes ...
>
> On Feb 28, 2006, at 8:00 AM, Keith Mitchell wrote:
>
>>
>>  This machine does *NOT* have Mac OSX installed on it.  I told YDL to 
>> clear the partition table and use the whole disk.
>
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