It may also be worthwhile to consider (force-)booting from Optical Drive on PMacs/ppc64 as selectable from the GRUB menu. The (former) Yaboot has this option. Discs of a Linux-nature may or may not be detected from OF, I have found.
It’s probably quite lofty already to consider FireWire and USB-booting from the GRUB, but maybe optical/super-drive-booting as a minimum? Thank you, MB > On Oct 21, 2017, at 5:59 PM, Mark Balantzyan <mark.balantz...@gmail.com> > wrote: > > My bad, correction on my last reply-all: > >> P.S. I understand that the new GRUB is likely not going to replace >> OpenFirmware, so I am requesting just to be able to still boot from USB + >> Firewire on the G5 Quad and USB on the G5 Dual 2.0 from the bootloader, and >> not have to manually drill into OF to do that. > > > I meant still boot from USB + FW on the Quad and still boot from FireWire on > the G5 Dual 2.0, not still boot from USB on the G5 Dual! Arr, so confusing. > Sorry. Thanks. > > Mark > > > >> On Oct 21, 2017, at 5:53 PM, Mark Balantzyan <mark.balantz...@gmail.com >> <mailto:mark.balantz...@gmail.com>> wrote: >> >> Hello everyone, >> >> Long time no…erm. >> >> "We are actually working on making GRUB the default bootloader for Debian >> powerpc and ppc64. It is already the default bootloader when installing >> on PREP/CHRP PowerPC machines. >> >> There is still some work to do for Apple NewWorld machines though but >> I am confident that this will be finished within the next few weeks.” >> >> For added compatibility, I would please like to put forward that my >> (NewWorld?) G5 PMacs, have not been designed to be able to boot from USB. >> Firewire yes, but not USB. Most definitely one of them, that’s for sure. >> Therefore, this may affect OpenFirmware awareness(es) required for >> implementation in the new GRUB code. Namely, I would like to say please >> implement whatever’s needed to allow say, a G5 Pmac Quad to still boot from >> USB + Firewire, and a G5 Pmac Dual 2.0 to still boot from firewire from both >> bootloader and OF (open firmware). >> >> I would like to clarify that I haven’t tried any of the installer images >> yet, so this is not a report of the project’s current functionality, but of >> stuff as recent as a stuffed-up wheezy Jessie combo installation that I >> still have (not under use). >> >> P.S. I understand that the new GRUB is likely not going to replace >> OpenFirmware, so I am requesting just to be able to still boot from USB + >> Firewire on the G5 Quad and USB on the G5 Dual 2.0 from the bootloader, and >> not have to manually drill into OF to do that. >> >> Thanks, >> Mark >> >> >>> On Oct 21, 2017, at 12:03 PM, John Ogness <powe...@ogness.net >>> <mailto:powe...@ogness.net>> wrote: >>> >>> On 2017-10-21, Tony Breeds <t...@bakeyournoodle.com >>> <mailto:t...@bakeyournoodle.com>> wrote: >>>>> This reverts commit f7a364631f2a8975ecca56668a19ee0a66c1ddcd. >>>>> >>>>> An iBook G4 (PowerBook6,5) was unable to boot when linking to the >>>>> lower address. Revert back to 2MB. >>>>> >>>>> Signed-off-by: John Ogness <powe...@ogness.net >>>>> <mailto:powe...@ogness.net>> >>>>> --- >>>>> I could not find any references about _why_ yaboot was moved >>>>> from 2MB to 1MB. I did not bother to see how low I could get >>>>> it on my iBook. If 2MB is too high for some machine, I can >>>>> investigate to see how low I can go. >>>> >>>> This was done as 'large' kernels couldn't be loaded as the RMA was too >>>> fragmented. Moveing it down to 1MB reclaimed just enough that we were >>>> fine. >>>> >>>> I assume that the yaboot-mainline and 1.3.17-4 tests we made with the >>>> same kernel/intrd combination. >>> >>> Yes. From Debian/sid, linux-image-4.13.0-1-powerpc version 4.13.4-2. >>> >>>> Can you get me a dump of your RMA memory properties and sizes of the >>>> kernel and initrd? >>> >>> I'm not sure what you mean by "RMA memory properties" or how best to >>> "dump" them. Here is some information retrieved from OpenFirmware... >>> >>> excerpt from 'printenv': >>> real-mode? false >>> real-base -1 >>> real-size -1 >>> load-base 0x800000 >>> virt-base -1 >>> virt-size -1 >>> ram-size 0x30000000 >>> >>> excerpt from 'dev /memory' '.properties': >>> available 00003000 2fbed000 >>> >>> The initrd.img is 18,543,719 bytes. >>> The decompressed initrd.img is 48,723,456 bytes. >>> The vmlinux is 11,868,000 bytes. >>> >>> John Ogness >>> >>> >> >
