[gentoo-releng] doc + genkernel updates for ppc

[gentoo-releng] doc + genkernel updates for ppc

[Pieter Van den Abeele]

Genkernel developers and documentation team, please read following 
forum post :

http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?p=924986#924986

It describes a few changes for the handbook and some ppc related 
genkernel experiences,
which should help you making your project even better.

Pieter Van den Abeele


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Re: [gentoo-releng] doc + genkernel updates for ppc

[Sven Vermeulen]

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On Thu, Mar 04, 2004 at 08:08:39PM +0100, Pieter Van den Abeele wrote:
> http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?p=924986#924986
[...]

lcs wrote:
> 2) The manual is confusing to a Mac and Linux/PPC newbie like me. I
> created the Apple_Bootstrap partition per the instructions. Then, in
> the next chapter, I mounted this partition as /boot, which is not
> really a good idea, since there is no way the kernels will fit! 

Okay; so I assume the Apple_Bootstrap partition doesn't need to be mounted as
/boot. Could you give me a bit more information on how this is handled then?
I based the instructions on the gentoo-ppc-install.xml and comments I
received from #gentoo-ppc (plus had PPC ppl review the instructions) so I
guessed the instructions were correct.

Is it sufficient to tell the PPC user that the Apple_Bootstrap partition
doesn't need to be mounted?

I'll add the yaboot-G5 stuff to the handbook asap.

Wkr,
	Sven Vermeulen

-- 
 ^__^   And Larry saw that it was Good.
 (oo)                                      Sven Vermeulen
 (__)   http://www.gentoo.org              Documentation & PR

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Re: [gentoo-releng] doc + genkernel updates for ppc

[Pieter Van den Abeele]

On 05 Mar 2004, at 09:13, Sven Vermeulen wrote:

> On Thu, Mar 04, 2004 at 08:08:39PM +0100, Pieter Van den Abeele wrote:
>> http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?p=924986#924986
> [...]
>
> lcs wrote:
>> 2) The manual is confusing to a Mac and Linux/PPC newbie like me. I
>> created the Apple_Bootstrap partition per the instructions. Then, in
>> the next chapter, I mounted this partition as /boot, which is not
>> really a good idea, since there is no way the kernels will fit!
>
> Okay; so I assume the Apple_Bootstrap partition doesn't need to be 
> mounted as
> /boot. Could you give me a bit more information on how this is handled 
> then?
> I based the instructions on the gentoo-ppc-install.xml and comments I
> received from #gentoo-ppc (plus had PPC ppl review the instructions) 
> so I
> guessed the instructions were correct.
>
> Is it sufficient to tell the PPC user that the Apple_Bootstrap 
> partition
> doesn't need to be mounted?
>
> I'll add the yaboot-G5 stuff to the handbook asap.

I'll ask pylon to write up a nice text about the bootstrap partition. 
My explanation:

Mac machines don't use a bios but something called openfirmware. When 
booting from the hard disk openfirmware looks for bootable hfs or hfs+ 
partitions. OS X partitions are bootable because they are hfs or hfs+. 
When multiple hfs partitions are found, the first is booted. To get 
linux booted on a mac machine, we need to have a bootable hfs partition 
installed as the first bootable hfs partition. Mac-fdisk is able to 
create a bootable 800k hfs partition. When this partition is installed 
before the OS X partition, it gets booted first When the 800k partition 
gets booted, it launches an openfirmware extension, this extention 
displays a menu:

x) boots macosx
l ) boots linux
c) boots cdrom
n) netbook
o) boot into openfirmware

This menu gets configured using a yaboot.conf file which is also placed 
on the bootstrap partition, by running mkofboot (for the first time) or 
ybin (all other times) after the partition was created by mac-fdisk.
This extention is able to boot linux, besides macos or macosx, ...

The hfs bootstrap partion does not need to be mounted ever.

Pieter Van den Abeele


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