Re: Boot delay when using grub.efi on Mac Mini

[Grant Edwards <grante@visi.com>]

On 2009-03-13, Peter Cros <pxwpxw8@gmail.com> wrote:

> A brief read of the mininmyth docs suggests it can also run on
> a fat partition on the gpt hard disk.

No, the minimyth kernel doesn't support EFT/GPT partitioned
disks.  It also doesn't support SATA hard drives.  Currently,
it doesn't even know the hard-drive is there. If it did, it
wouldn't know what to do with it.

> You can put an hfs+ partition on a msdos disk, or a fat32
> partition on a gpt disk and grub.efi can handle both. plus
> linux ext2/3.

Right, but the MiniMyth kenel can only handle msdos parition
tables, and Macs will only boot from GPT partioned disks.

> Have you installed the rEFIt boot manager
> http://refit.sourceforge.net/ It simplifies testing and the
> web site has good information on Apple efi booting and some
> history.

Thanks.

> You need to read the Mac OSX bless manual closely to compare
> the options, and experiment.

I've read that man page dozens of times.  It's pretty vague. One
thing that's confusing it talks a lot about "the volume" --
always in the singular.  I can't figure out to what "volume"
refers such that there is never more than one in a system.

> Seems to me the key issue is getting your kernel and system
> running, identity any grub development issues, the other stuff
> can be optimised later.

At this point, there aren't any grub development issues.  Grub
works fine.  The current issues are caused by:

  1) Mac firmware not being able to boot from anything other
     than an HFS+ partion on a GPT partioned drive.

  2) MiniMyth kernel lacks support for EFI/GPT parition tables
     and SATA hard drives.

I'm going to try rebuilding MiniMyth with GPT support so that I
can GPT partition a USB flash drive in hopes of getting the Mac
to boot from it.  I'm also going to try adding AHCI SATA
controller support to MiniMyth so that I can spin down the
hard-drive.
  
> My experience has been with other users of Apple Intel Macs
> bootng Debian/Ubuntu linux and Mac OSX, using grub-pc and
> grub-efi. It helps to have a linux installation on the hard
> drive.

That's sort of heading the wrong direction.  My goal is not to
have to touch the Mac hard-drive at all.  So far, that's not
been possible, but I'm getting closer.

-- 
Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow! We just joined the
                                  at               civil hair patrol!
                               visi.com