| 1 |
On 05 Mar 2004, at 09:13, Sven Vermeulen wrote: |
| 2 |
|
| 3 |
> On Thu, Mar 04, 2004 at 08:08:39PM +0100, Pieter Van den Abeele wrote: |
| 4 |
>> http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?p=924986#924986 |
| 5 |
> [...] |
| 6 |
> |
| 7 |
> lcs wrote: |
| 8 |
>> 2) The manual is confusing to a Mac and Linux/PPC newbie like me. I |
| 9 |
>> created the Apple_Bootstrap partition per the instructions. Then, in |
| 10 |
>> the next chapter, I mounted this partition as /boot, which is not |
| 11 |
>> really a good idea, since there is no way the kernels will fit! |
| 12 |
> |
| 13 |
> Okay; so I assume the Apple_Bootstrap partition doesn't need to be |
| 14 |
> mounted as |
| 15 |
> /boot. Could you give me a bit more information on how this is handled |
| 16 |
> then? |
| 17 |
> I based the instructions on the gentoo-ppc-install.xml and comments I |
| 18 |
> received from #gentoo-ppc (plus had PPC ppl review the instructions) |
| 19 |
> so I |
| 20 |
> guessed the instructions were correct. |
| 21 |
> |
| 22 |
> Is it sufficient to tell the PPC user that the Apple_Bootstrap |
| 23 |
> partition |
| 24 |
> doesn't need to be mounted? |
| 25 |
> |
| 26 |
> I'll add the yaboot-G5 stuff to the handbook asap. |
| 27 |
|
| 28 |
I'll ask pylon to write up a nice text about the bootstrap partition. |
| 29 |
My explanation: |
| 30 |
|
| 31 |
Mac machines don't use a bios but something called openfirmware. When |
| 32 |
booting from the hard disk openfirmware looks for bootable hfs or hfs+ |
| 33 |
partitions. OS X partitions are bootable because they are hfs or hfs+. |
| 34 |
When multiple hfs partitions are found, the first is booted. To get |
| 35 |
linux booted on a mac machine, we need to have a bootable hfs partition |
| 36 |
installed as the first bootable hfs partition. Mac-fdisk is able to |
| 37 |
create a bootable 800k hfs partition. When this partition is installed |
| 38 |
before the OS X partition, it gets booted first When the 800k partition |
| 39 |
gets booted, it launches an openfirmware extension, this extention |
| 40 |
displays a menu: |
| 41 |
|
| 42 |
x) boots macosx |
| 43 |
l ) boots linux |
| 44 |
c) boots cdrom |
| 45 |
n) netbook |
| 46 |
o) boot into openfirmware |
| 47 |
|
| 48 |
This menu gets configured using a yaboot.conf file which is also placed |
| 49 |
on the bootstrap partition, by running mkofboot (for the first time) or |
| 50 |
ybin (all other times) after the partition was created by mac-fdisk. |
| 51 |
This extention is able to boot linux, besides macos or macosx, ... |
| 52 |
|
| 53 |
The hfs bootstrap partion does not need to be mounted ever. |
| 54 |
|
| 55 |
Pieter Van den Abeele |
| 56 |
|
| 57 |
|
| 58 |
-- |
| 59 |
gentoo-releng@g.o mailing list |
Archives