On Wed, Oct 15, 2003 at 08:47:01PM -0400, Nathanael Hasbrouck wrote:
> Ok, let me know if I'm completely wrong, but I have an old LinuxPPC
> (2KQ4) disc which will boot my 7600 and my parents iMac (rev. A) by
> holding down the 'c' key like any other bootable mac CD. It uses
> miboot/yaboot, and IMVHO, it beats floppys on an oldworld hands down.
> ;) Is this not an option? Or do we need proprietary software (i.e.,
> Toast under MacOS) to burn a bootable image like this? I eagerly
> await enlightenment. :^)
Yes, the LinuxPPC 2000 CDs are burned using Toast, which has the
drivers for making it bootable on an oldworld box. If you look at
the partition map on the CD (yes, Mac CDs are partitioned) you'll
find something like this (this is the LinuxPPC 2000 MacWorld edition):
/dev/cdrom
# type name length base ( size
) system
/dev/cdrom1 Apple_partition_map MRKS 8 @ 1 (
4.0k) Partition map
/dev/cdrom2 Apple_Driver43 Macintosh 20 @ 68 (
10.0k) Driver 4.3
/dev/cdrom3 Apple_Extra 0 @ 88 (
0.0k) Unknown
/dev/cdrom4 Apple_Driver43_CD Macintosh 23 @ 22 (
11.5k) Unknown
/dev/cdrom5 Apple_Patches Patch Partition 32 @ 36 (
16.0k) Unknown
/dev/cdrom6 Apple_Driver_ATAPI Macintosh 20 @ 180 (
10.0k) Unknown
/dev/cdrom7 Apple_Driver_ATAPI Macintosh 92 @ 200 (
46.0k) Unknown
/dev/cdrom8 Apple_HFS Toast 3.5.6 PPC HFS Optimizer 1268641 @ 293
(619.5M) HFS
In particular, I believe the Apple_Driver* and Apple_Patches partitions
are required to be able to boot these machines. If you do a direct boot
from OF, you don't need them, but on these older boxes, the ROM was the
boot device. It gets control very early, so if you hold down 'c', it's
already thinking MacOS, not OF. Since miboot is effectively a fake
MacOS system, you need the full Mac style setup.
While it might be possible to make a CD that could boot from OF on
these old boxes, it would defintely require changing the NVRAM settings,
which makes it almost useless as an installer anyway.
Brad Boyer
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
