Ubuntu
yaboot-installer package

  1. Bug #956481
  2. Comment #13

Comment 13 for bug 956481

Revision history for this message
Tormod Volden (tormodvolden) wrote :

ojordan, thanks for investigating this!

> Also, another thing to consider is if installation to USB worked correctly, then nvram would be updated to boot the USB drive
> by default. Is this what people would want since I would think most USB instalations would be temporary or for testing/trying
> out purposes? It would be good if the installer gave the user an option to update nvram or not.

Agree. If installing to a USB drive it should not change NVRAM (or the internal HD for that matter). Ideally it should just make the USB drive bootable so that it can be chosen with the Alt key when powering up.

> In post#1 you wrote "because I am installing to an external USB drive which does not have any AppleBootstrap partition". How
> were you intending booting if you didn't set up a boot partition? What were you going to call from openfirmware?

My USB drive is a firewire combo drive. Obviously I would prefer to use firewire plugged straight into the PowerBook. However there is a firmware/software bug so that the firewire firmware gets totally messed up by current Linux setups (https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=42914), I have to disable /lib/udev/scsi_id and even then there is something run by e.g. ubiquity (partman?) that makes it unusable. So I have resorted to USB, but this Powerbook has only USB 1.x so I am using a PCMCIA card with USB 2.0. Of course, openfirmware cannot see my USB drive through this PCMCIA card, so either I have to do a replugging dance when booting, or simply copy yaboot+kernel+initrd to somewhere where openfirmware can see it (and make sure my initrd has the needed yenta-socket module for the PCMCIA card). I just use a folder on the internal all-MacOSX-hfs+ drive for this, and just type "boot hd:\myfolder\yaboot" in openfirmware. Surely not your grandma's setup, and I hope to have the kernel/udev/firmware issues sorted out one day so I can simply boot the firmware drive, at which point I will probably make an AppleBootstrap partition to have the convenient Alt key magic work.