PRAMBoot Selector - update

PRAMBoot Selector - update

[Joseph Garcia]

I spend some time with different devices on my powerbook, found there were some
huge gaps in the code i released.  I have released an update, and this time it
should work much better, and make more sense.  I think I have decoded the
meaning to the extent of how it effects my powerbook.  Changes can be made to
the boot selections by editing the .h file.

can be gotten at http://www.execpc.com/~jpgarcia

Any feedback/updates welcome.  Im more concerned with correctness than the
interface.  Next, I plan on implementing a partition map scan to find all
possible bootables, like MacOS does, but have little idea yet on how to do it.

--
Joseph P. Garcia      jpgarcia@execpc.com      jpgarcia@lidar.ssec.wisc.edu
CS Undergraduate                      Student Employee - Systems Programmer
University of Wisconsin - Madison                            UW Lidar Group

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Re: PRAMBoot Selector - update

[Tim Wojtulewicz]

Joseph Garcia wrote:

> I spend some time with different devices on my powerbook, found there were some
> huge gaps in the code i released.  I have released an update, and this time it
> should work much better, and make more sense.  I think I have decoded the
> meaning to the extent of how it effects my powerbook.  Changes can be made to
> the boot selections by editing the .h file.
>
> can be gotten at http://www.execpc.com/~jpgarcia
>
> Any feedback/updates welcome.  Im more concerned with correctness than the
> interface.  Next, I plan on implementing a partition map scan to find all
> possible bootables, like MacOS does, but have little idea yet on how to do it.
>
> --
> Joseph P. Garcia      jpgarcia@execpc.com      jpgarcia@lidar.ssec.wisc.edu
> CS Undergraduate                      Student Employee - Systems Programmer
> University of Wisconsin - Madison                            UW Lidar Group
>

I'm having a small problem wit h SetPRAMBoot.  This is most likely an error on my
part (doh!).  I used it to set the boot PRAM so I could boot back to macos.  The
values I used were 2 0 0 9.  I'm thinking this is /dev/hda9.  Is this incorrect?
Anyways,  I tried to use the zap-PRAM keys to reset the thing, but it doesn't
recognize that I'm holding them down, and just boots directly back to linux.
Tried to boot from a cd, computer ignores that I'm holding C down.  System is a
Pismo Powerbook, Linux PPC 2000, with Ben's 2.2.15-pre14 kernel.  Any ideas?

Tim


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Re: setpramboot problems

[Joseph Garcia]

Tim Wojtulewicz wrote:
> I'm having a small problem wit h SetPRAMBoot.  This is most likely an error on my
> part (doh!).  I used it to set the boot PRAM so I could boot back to macos.  The
> values I used were 2 0 0 9.  I'm thinking this is /dev/hda9.  Is this incorrect?
> Anyways,  I tried to use the zap-PRAM keys to reset the thing, but it doesn't
> recognize that I'm holding them down, and just boots directly back to linux.
> Tried to boot from a cd, computer ignores that I'm holding C down.  System is a
> Pismo Powerbook, Linux PPC 2000, with Ben's 2.2.15-pre14 kernel.  Any ideas?

yaBoot is probably what you use on a pismo, which is an OF booter.  setpramboot
might not effect that.  I think 'C' might be another of the MacOS ROM things,
like the PRAM boot value.  Using OF directly can bypass the ROM, but im not sure
exactly how yaBoot works.  Though a few issues have popped up with setpramboot.

This weekend, I got my hands on some other systems.  I found that the linux
kernel maps NVRAM differently on NewWorld systems (OF >= 3.0), which includes
the 101/lombard.  As a result, the 4 bytes setpramboot modifies are in a
different location.  What the kernel does also seems to break nvsetenv.  using
hexdump on /dev/nvram, the PRAM boot location is on line 0x1370 with oldworld,
and 0x1220 with newworld if i recall correctly.  Any kernel maintainers know why
this happens?  (running Paul's 2.2.15pre17, dmesg lists where various nvram
sections are mapped, so the kernel knows that the address is different)

Regarding setpramboot, its definitely still a work in progress.  I still have
yet to figure out the meaning of the code when the bus is scsi.  the ata setting
makes sense, but the SCSI setting is still cryptic.  fyi, even if scsi, 'System
Disk' still only changes those 4 bytes, so a simple cut and paste of known
correct values would work.  Maybe I should put a hexcode option in the
/etc/pramtab.

I might have a chance update setpramboot this weekend.

Thanks.

--
Joseph P. Garcia      jpgarcia@execpc.com      jpgarcia@lidar.ssec.wisc.edu
CS Undergraduate                      Student Employee - Systems Programmer
University of Wisconsin - Madison                            UW Lidar Group

"Did you ever notice how the Chinese Abacus, with 2 '5' beads and 5 '1'
beads, is perfect for hexidecimal math?"

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Re: setpramboot problems

[Benjamin Herrenschmidt]

On Mon, Apr 17, 2000, Joseph Garcia <jpgarcia@execpc.com> wrote:

>his weekend, I got my hands on some other systems.  I found that the linux
>kernel maps NVRAM differently on NewWorld systems (OF >= 3.0), which includes
>the 101/lombard.  As a result, the 4 bytes setpramboot modifies are in a
>different location.  What the kernel does also seems to break nvsetenv.
 using
>hexdump on /dev/nvram, the PRAM boot location is on line 0x1370 with
oldworld,
>and 0x1220 with newworld if i recall correctly.  Any kernel maintainers
>know why
>this happens?  (running Paul's 2.2.15pre17, dmesg lists where various nvram
>sections are mapped, so the kernel knows that the address is different)
>
>Regarding setpramboot, its definitely still a work in progress.  I still have
>yet to figure out the meaning of the code when the bus is scsi.  the ata
>setting
>makes sense, but the SCSI setting is still cryptic.  fyi, even if scsi,
>'System
>Disk' still only changes those 4 bytes, so a simple cut and paste of known
>correct values would work.  Maybe I should put a hexcode option in the
>/etc/pramtab.
>
>I might have a chance update setpramboot this weekend.

You may want to look at my latest rsync tree, in arch/ppc/pmac_support.c

(rsync -arvz linuxcare.com.au::linux-pmac-benh .)

I added code to correctly access the nvram (which is in fact a flash) on
new Core99 machines and code to detect the location of the PRAM partition
inside the nvram on all machines. I didn't yet have time to add ioctls to
return those infos to userland, I'll try to do this by next week end.

nvsetenv needs to be fixed too (by either using the same algorithm, or by
using the not-yet-added iotcls). Currently, nvsetenv works on oldworld,
and Marcus Volmer "nvtool" works on newworld for manipulating OF
environement variables.

Basically, the NVRAM is divided in 3 regions:

 - The OF environement variables
 - The MacOS XPRAM (flat region containing things like the "old" macos
boot device, time zone, mouse speed, sound volume, etc...)
 - The MacOS Name Registry persistent properies (a hackish mecanism to
add some persistent nodes to some device tree entries, used for the
backlight setting for example).

My current kernel code can find those 3 regions (thanks to Darwin source)
and had in-kernel accessors for the xpram. I plan to add support for the
Name Registry extensions too, but this is a bit more complicated since
there are at least 2 different formats for those entries and they are a
bit ugly.


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Can't find nvtool? RE: setpramboot problems

[Vladimir Simonov]

Benjamin Herrenschmidt wrote:
>nvsetenv needs to be fixed too (by either using the same algorithm, or by
>using the not-yet-added iotcls). Currently, nvsetenv works on oldworld,
>and Marcus Volmer "nvtool" works on newworld for manipulating OF
>environement variables.

I can't find nvtool. Please, help.
Thanks in advance
Vladimir Simonov


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Re: Can't find nvtool? RE: setpramboot problems

[Martin Costabel]

Vladimir Simonov wrote:

> I can't find nvtool. Please, help.

http://www.ping.de/sites/zagadka/poof/

--
Martin

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