yellowdog-newbie - Booting Macs from USB

[H. Apfel]

>  >>>The main job for the iBook will be to control (and I mean control,
>>>>not only log!) heating and aircon in our new home, so the focus is
>>>>more around low power (and price) then about speed. TO be more
>>>>precise I'll try to press the kenel essentials into a 1 or 2 Gig
>>>>memory stick and boot from that with the swap partition in RAM, so
>>>>I can stop worrying about mechanical drives in the system.
>>>>
>>>
>>>I'm not an engineer, but I believe an hfs partition for yaboot is
>>>necessary as that is the portion talking with the Mac's internals.
>>
>>So where's the beef? USB sticks can be partitioned just like a CD or HD.
>
>This could be a problem with the iBook model you mention; IIRC no
>PowerPC Mac can boot from USB. Pre-Intel Open Firmware only supports
>Firewire based boot media. I have heard that this has changed with the
>Intel Macs though. They apparently swap boot support from Firewire to
>USB.

Now this would indeed be bad. I would have tried it myself but for a 
memory stick which is large enough to contain a standard system.

Ok, in this case a IDE<-> flash adapter, together with a 2 or 4 Gig 
card, might do the trick. I just don't want to put my money on some 
IDE drives which are supposed to work, say, 8 hours x 5 days/week x 5 
years - thats about 1.5 years 24/7, so to be on the safe side I'd 
have to swap the HD every 1-2 years :-0

-- 
Holger Apfel
Rauschener Str. 2a

85221 Dachau

Tel. 08131/338997