At 5:22 PM -0800 2/25/00, Bob Nestor wrote:
>Henry B. Hotz  (hotz@jpl.nasa.gov) wrote:
>
>>At 4:02 PM -0800 2/23/00, Bob Nestor wrote:
>>>Dan Winship  (danw@helixcode.com) wrote:
>>>>There's no MacOS tool currently in existence that will let you set up
>>>>the disk to be NetBSD-bootable.
>>>
>>>I think this is true, but we're not far from being able to do this.  The
>>
>>I must be missing something here.  What do we need?  We can load
>>ofwboot.xcf directly from an HFS partition in OF.  We can use all the
>>mac68k and MacOS tools to create the partitions in the first place.
>>
>True, but none of the mac68k programs knows how to put a bootstrap on the
>disk since NetBSD/mac68k is always booted via the Booter application.
>The macppc port does this (I think) when the disk is dedicated to NetBSD.
> This would have to be updated to place the bootstrap or a bootstrap
>process in the proper places on the disk if it contained a mix of HFS
>partitions and NetBSD ones.  Isn't this needed for the macppc port since
>we don't have something like the Booter application?  I may be wrong, but
>I thought we'd either need to have ofwboot.* on an small HFS partition on
>the disk or we'd have some type of bootcode on the disk that would take
>us right into NetBSD from a hardware reset.

OK, I *think* you've confirmed what I thought.  If we're using mixed-format
disks then there will be an HFS partition somewhere to put ofwboot.* on.
No bootstrap is needed because ofwboot.* *is* the bootstrap.

So if you want to boot NetBSD/MacPPC on a mixed-format disk right now you
do the following:
1) Partition the disk into both HFS and FFS partitions the same way we do
it in port-mac68k.
2) Format the FFS partition(s) with Mkfs or however else you might do it
under port-mac68k.
3) Download base and etc tarballs with the Installer, or however else you
might do it under port-mac68k.
4) Put ofwboot.{xcf,elf} on an HFS partition on the disk.  Figure out which
actual partition number that is using Drive Setup or similar utility.
5) Configure the right boot command into Open Firmware.  (May require a set
loadbase command in nvram on XCOFF systems.  Definitely requires knowledge
of the quirks of the boot command on the specific version of OF on the
machine.)
6) Proceed with a "normal" *BSD-based installation.

If the above is all true then what you (Bob N) mean by needing more tools
is that we need more work on the sysinst-based tools to make more of the
above automatic.  True?

Related question for the list:  The version of Drive Setup in MacOS 9 is
reputed to allow formatting of UFS partitions, as well as two flavors of
Linux partitions.  Can this substitute for Mkfs?

>>Does ofwboot.xcf not understand Apple Partition Maps?  Does it not look in
>>the right place (TM) for /netbsd when loaded?  Both of these problems would
>>seem to be easy to fix.
>>
>I don't know what ofwboot.* supports, but I would think it shouldn't be
>too difficult to teach it the things it needs to know in dealing with a
>mixed format disk.  Obviously once we get booted the -current kernels
>know how to deal with the Apple Disk Partition Map thanks to the work
>done by Bill and others.
>
>>Is the problem with the old-version ffs code in the installer?
>>
>I don't believe this is a problem at all.  The MacOS Installer and Mkfs
>applications aren't even required any longer if we use the sysinst
>method.  It's capable of partitioning a formatted disk or one already in
>use by MacOS and setting up NetBSD compatible partitions. I know that's
>why I haven't been to keen on continuing to support the Mkfs program, and
>I suspect it's the same with Steven Brown on the Installer.  The only
>thing we can't do with sysinst/mac68k is boot into NetBSD.  Hopefully by
>the time 1.5 is released the only remaining MacOS application we'll still
>need is the Booter.

Since man sysinst doesn't exist, just where is sysinst documented?  I was
trying to find out how it did something on port-i386 and just gave up and
found it by looking directly for the feature instead.

>>Signed, Confused ;-)
>
>Did that help, or am I the confused one?

Yes it helped, but I'm still confused as noted above. :-\

Signature failed Preliminary Design Review.
Feasibility of a new signature is currently being evaluated.
h.b.hotz@jpl.nasa.gov, or hbhotz@oxy.edu