Re: [Qemu-devel] "Apple" partition on ppc debian installer

[Laurent Vivier <Laurent.Vivier@bull.net>]

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jerome Arbez-Gindre wrote:
> Hi,

Hi,

a nice subject for my first post on this list :-P

> I'm trying to install a ppc debian on a ppc-qemu, and when Partamn makes
> the patitionning, it shows me a "Apple" partition (32.3 kB) at the very
> beginning of the disk.
> I suppose that this partition contains a bootstrap and is filled by the
> MacOS installer.
> 
> Is my supposition right ?

The first partition of an apple partition is the partition map itself
("Apple_partition_map").
"Apple partition" format is a legacy from the m68k macintosh.
Then, you can find a partition called "Apple_Driver" that is in fact the driver
to manage the disk.

On m68k macintosh, to be bootable a disk must own:
- an "Apple_Driver" partition
- an "Apple_HFS" partition
- a boot sector in "Apple_HFS"

I don't know if this mapping must be applied to ppc macintosh, but I think, for
early ones at once.

You can find more details in the HOWTO of EMILE (http://emile.sourceforge.net ,
"Install EMILE on your SCSI disk")

> And if yes, is there a way to fill this part with a working bootstrap
> before the debian installation.

You can try the tools coming with EMILE, but you must extract "Apple_Driver"
from a bootable macintosh drive. I made it to make bootable a CDROM, I didn't
try with a disk. But IMHO, the best solution is to boot a MacOS installer CDROM.

You should, also, be able to use OpenFirmware command "boot" (something like "
boot /pci@fef00000/ide@b,1/cdrom@0:\ppc\chrp\vmlinuz-chrp.initrd", this one
works on Bull Escala). But I don't know the level of implemenation of
OpenFirmware in qemu-ppc.

Otherwise, use the "-kernel", "-initrd", "-append" parameters of qemu.

Regards,
Laurent
-- 
------------- Laurent.Vivier@bull.net  --------------
       "Any sufficiently advanced technology is
  indistinguishable from magic." - Arthur C. Clarke


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