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unable to boot amd64-uefi-install from USB stick on a MacBook2,1



So for various reasons I had recently pulled an old macbook2,1 off the
shelf and booted it up, and today I thought I'd try booting NetBSD on it
just to see how well it works with NetBSD and vice versa.

I built all the various "image" files, including a live image and the
uefi-install image, from my not-very-current current source tree.

I first tried to get the live image to boot from a USB stick (using
rEFInd).  But it didn't boot.  There was some message about Apple's
compatability boot loader not working well with external disks (which
was pretty much what I expected given what I've read about booting from
USB devices on these old macbooks).

Then I moved on to try the uefi-install image on a USB stick.

This was detected (with the Option key held) as expected, and it booted
when selected, and the boot loader menu appeared as expected.

However no matter which option I selected, including a "boot netbsd -vs"
from the boot prompt, would do anything more than load the kernel (I see
the various section size numbers, with a nearly invisible spinner), then
it clears the screen, then hang solid -- just the little un-blinking
cursor in the "top middle" of the screen and the keyboard goes
unresponsive and a full multi-second press on the power switch is
necessary to shut it off.

I then tried the following:

ftp://nyftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD-daily/HEAD/201912110900Z/images/NetBSD-9.99.21-amd64-uefi-install.img.gz

with the same results.

Does anyone have any hints as to what I could try to debug this further?


One nice thing I noticed about this MacBook2,1 is that the firmware
works with a bluetooth keyboard, including in the NetBSD boot loader!
(Which is lucky for me as this machine has one dead row of keys on the
built-in keyboard.)

--
					Greg A. Woods <gwoods%acm.org@localhost>

Kelowna, BC     +1 250 762-7675           RoboHack <woods%robohack.ca@localhost>
Planix, Inc. <woods%planix.com@localhost>     Avoncote Farms <woods%avoncote.ca@localhost>

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