The simple answer is "no". Apple has never released the information about
the Mac ROM's that would allow for direct boot as on PC's and other
machines. Even projects in which Apple has been a part, such as MKLinux,
require a minimal installation of MacOS to boot into in order to start. I
keep 5Mb on my Q800 and 10Mb on my 7100 for this purpose. That allows me to
keep a few utilities, such as mkfs, SC HD Setup, and pdisk along with a very
minimal installation of 7.1 and 7.5 respectively.

Seth Henry
jshenry@net-noise.com

----- Original Message -----
From: "Manuel Arriaga" <m.arriaga@ip.pt>
To: <port-mac68k@netbsd.org>
Sent: Thursday, October 12, 2000 4:01 PM
Subject: newbie - do I *really* need to have MacOS installed on my Mac?


> Hello,
>
> I wish to install NetBSD on my LC630 (it actually is a Quadra630, since it
has the 68040 "FPU-complete" CPU).
>
> But there is something I'm still not sure about: do I really need to keep
MacOS around?
>
> The 1.42 install-notes say:
>
> Keep in mind that NetBSD currently requires MacOS in order to boot, so it
is likely that you will want to keep at least a
> minimal install of MacOS around on an HFS partition for this purpose. The
size of this partition may vary depending on the
> size requirements for the version of MacOS you are using. Of course, if
you have MacOS on another hard drive or can boot
> from a floppy, feel free to dedicate the entire drive to NetBSD.
>
> The FAQ says:
>
> 4.4 Do I have to have a MacOS partition?
> No. If the partitioning software allows it, you can allocate all space on
a drive to BSD partitions. Note, this drive will
> not show up on your desktop. Therefore you will need the booter either on
a bootable floppy or on a MacOS partition on another
> drive.
>
>
> So, even if I dedicate my entire internal harddrive to Netbsd, I will
still have to boot from another medium on which MacOS
> is installed, right? Or has this changed in the mean time?
>
> Is there any other way in which I can "instruct" my Mac to boot directly
into NetBSD? Can't I just have my Mac run NetBSD
> as its "primary" OS? Is there any way in which I can circumvent MacOS
altogether, at least when booting?
>
> Thank you for any help,
>
> Manuel