From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 In-Reply-To: <19991123105212.F16540@hq.fsmlabs.com> Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1999 19:08:01 +0100 To: Cort Dougan CC: linuxppc-dev@lists.linuxppc.org, paulus@linuxcare.com From: Benjamin Herrenschmidt Subject: Re: bootloader & head.S weirdness (patch) Message-Id: <19991123190801.029609@mailhost.mipsys.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-linuxppc-dev@lists.linuxppc.org List-Id: On Tue, Nov 23, 1999, Cort Dougan wrote: >Have you tried the rs6000 quik on the g3's? I've heard people have had >success with the modifications I made but haven't been able to get ahold of >a g3 for long-term tests. I'd like to combine the two if we could. rs6000 quik is quik2.0 in ELF package ? I think I tried it but i failed finding the boot device. I'll look at it again tomorrow. When I tried to do what quik does in my bootloader (memmove'ing the kernel to 0 before booting it), I ended up in a default catch. On the new Macs, OF doesn't seem to map all the memory by default and won't let you claim low-memory vectors so easily. I managed to map them without doing a claim, but I had then problems instanciating RTAS from the kernel then. Also, quik lacks support for the initrd. Since BootX doesn't work on the new iMac DV (and I may not find a fix soon, it's a weird problem with MacOS shutdown), there is need for an OF bootloader with initrd support for installing on those machines. (kernel with piggyback initrd may work too, but I heard of several people who failed building them, so I added an option to load it from a separate file). Basically, my bootloader contains bits of quik, bits of poof, and a simple abstract mecanism for ading file systems to it (currently, only ext2 is built-in, iso will come soon and I'm thinking about UFS for netbsd for example). Once it works, I plan to make it graphical with some way to "detect" the possible boot devices (I already have an almost working algorithm for that). >I think Yellowdog already has their cd bootable from macs. I discussed with them about this and they didn't manage to make this work. The mini-ISO filesystem I'll add to yaboot comes from them. I'll do more tests with CDs later, when we have a definitive solution to those kenrel entry problems. >} Ultimately, this will allow bootable CDs for Macs (with the help of >} miBoot for oldworld machines), and with a bit more GUI and the help of an >} installer, we'll be, I hope, the primary bootloader for newworld Macs. I >} plan to slowly abandon BootX support for those machines since it involves >} too many hacks to work around various issues related to getting rid of >} MacOS and problems with devices MacOS put in a non-reset state). Did you had a chance to test my new head.S/prom.c patch ? ** Sent via the linuxppc-dev mail list. See http://lists.linuxppc.org/