Re: Dual boot NetBSD and Leopard

["Liam J. Foy" <liamjfoy%googlemail.com@localhost>]

Michal Suchanek wrote:
> On 09/02/2009, Liam J. Foy <liamjfoy%googlemail.com@localhost> wrote:
>> Hey folks,
>>
>>  Currently my trusty Mac Mini is running Leopard (whole disk is dedicated
>>  to Leopard). Has anyone managed to Dual Boot NetBSD with Leopard? Or
>>  does anyone have any suggestions on how? I see a few google results but
>>  none seem to make me feel 'secure' :-)
>>
>>  Any suggestions/advice?
> 
> I had NetBSD running with OS X 10.4 in dualboot.

What version of NetBSD was this? I was planning on using 4.

> 
> If you do not mind OS X calling it "Windows" you can use the procedure
> to install Windows using bootcamp (if that still exists).

No problems :)

> 
> Failing that you should upgrade to a bootcamp-compatible version of
> firmware (the latest for your machine) so that you get PC BIOS
> emulation. Alternatively you might want to try the experimental GRUB 2
> for EFI.
> 
> The PC BIOS emulation can be used to load plain PC NetBSD bootblocks,
> GRUB should be able to load the kernel directly.
> 
> The Apple BIOS is broken so do not count on keyboard working until
> NetBSD boots. That is, you likely won't be able to select kernel or
> kernel parameters with the bootblocks. GRUB uses the Apple EFI which
> is somewhat better  - only some keys are broken (or was it not
> possible to press multiple keys at once?).
> 
> Since OS X cannot repartition disks you have to attach a removable
> disk, boot from the install CD, copy your disk to external disk,
> partition, and copy back. Bootcamp can do that for you in-place.
> 
> You can also stop after copying your OS X to an external disk, it
> works from there just fine, and the internal disk is likely so slow
> there won't be any noticeable difference.
> 
> However, PC BIOS emulation on Apple hardware cannot load system from
> an external disk.
> 
> Depending on your hardware you might want NetBSD 5 for hardware
> support (intel graphics requires agp support in kernel for the X
> server to work reasonably). However, NetBSD 5 installer does not work
> on Macs because they have two partition tables. The kernel recognizes
> both but allows accessing the disk only through one of them (dk* ?),
> and the installer insists on using the devices that correspond to the
> other (wd*).

Mmmm, I could install 4 and move to 5 I think. So, can I just follow the
instructions for settings up Windows but obviously replace this with NetBSD?

> 
> HTH
> 
> Michal


-- 
Liam J. Foy
NetBSD Developer <liamjfoy%netbsd.org@localhost>