At 6:44 AM -0500 10/27/00, Bob Nestor wrote:
>David Brownlee wrote:
>
> >On Thu, 26 Oct 2000, Bob Nestor wrote:
> >
> >> I had the same experience with System Disk that Henry describes.  After
> >> that I'm kind of leary about using it again since I have no idea what it
> >> will modify.  I'd feel much more comfortable dealing with a set of
> >> instructions that tell me how to get into OF and set variables by hand
> >> and why I'm doing it.  That way I can keep a record of what they were
> >> before I changed them and have some hope of getting my system back if
> >> things don't work out.
> >>
> >	Would it make sense to provide a modified version of System Disk
> >	that just makes the NetBSD required changes?
>
>This makes sense, but System DIsk is an Apple product that is delivered
>in executable form.  I don't know if they've distributed the source or if
>they'd allow modified forms to be distributed.

I don't know if the license allows redistribution in modified form, 
but even if it does coming up with our own set of modifications would 
probably be a task on the same scale as what MW has already taken on. 
I'll help, but I won't volunteer for the job.

As to the modifications:  you only need to use ResEdit to modify the 
nvram forth code that SD contains, not modify the application proper. 
In the case of OF 1.0.5 machines there are more known useful patches 
than will fit into nvram so the selection of which ones to include 
may need to be done on a case-by-case basis depending on what boot 
method you are using and whether your machine exhibits the particular 
hardware issue that is addressed by a particular patch.

One other thing:  can you save nvram contents in a bootvars 
configuration file?  If so then that app would be a legitimate way to 
distribute our recommended configurations.  Of course it doesn't work 
on a G4 under MacOS 9, as I just proved.

I seem to have both said we should not do this and said how we should 
do this in the same email.  Oh, well.


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