Re: mac installation
On Wed, 14 Feb 2007, Wouter Verhelst wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 13, 2007 at 11:32:32PM +1100, Finn Thain wrote:
> > I've been reading the debian installation guide, in particular the mac
> > sections. I found a couple of problems.
> >
> > http://d-i.alioth.debian.org/manual/en.m68k/index.html
> >
> >
> > --- Section 4.3.4 says "There is no MacOS application to write images
> > to floppy disks"
> >
> > Actaully, the MacOS app to read and write raw floppy disk images is
> > SUntar, though the procedure would need documenting.
> > http://hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/HyperArchive/Archive/cmp/suntar-223.hqx
>
> The same section also says it wouldn't make sense, since booting from
> floppy to install on macs isn't supported currently. That's right, since
> we don't support booting the installer from EMILE (yet).
Even if you don't ship a raw image with a bootloader on it, then this para
should at least be corrected (that is, the app really does exist;
potential Emile users might benefit from it).
> > There are also tools like DropDisk and Disk Copy, for working with
> > "NDIF" format image files.
> > http://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_Software_Updates/English-North_American/Macintosh/Utilities/Disk_Copy/
>
> Don't think it's going to be very sensible to explain this, as we don't
> provide such image files anyway.
OK.
> > --- Section 5.1.2.3 says " .../current/images/mac/penguin19.hfs is an
> > hfs disk image with Penguin unpacked. Section 4.3, Creating Floppies
> > from Disk Images describes how to copy this image to a floppy."
> >
> > This link is broken...
>
> True. I guess it was copied from the woody installation manual, which
> was also wrong in that regard, IIRC :)
>
> Penguin is packaged, but the package doesn't have a .hqx file which
> should be provided as a BYHAND thing (and that's ugly, because it means
> you need ftpmaster interaction on every upload).
>
> Perhaps we should just link to the penguin site where it can be
> downloaded?
Probably. But how to provide a Penguin Settings file pre-configured for
the install? If we are going to provide that, we might as well provide the
app too.
> > I guess it hasn't been released. I gather the intention is to offer a
> > raw disk image containing Penguin and a Penguin settings file, plus
> > the kernel and RAM disk?
>
> Personally, I dunno. That's what the manual has had since potato (when I
> first tried running Debian/m68k), but it's never worked for me like
> that.
>
> I guess it'd be nice to have such a file, but I think that's going to be
> hard to do from Linux (which would be a requirement, otherwise someone
> would have to do it manually every time we want to do a release, and I'd
> prefer not having to do that).
If you wanted to automate this from linux, you'd need hfs-utils:
# dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/install.hfs count=1440 bs=1k
1440+0 records in
1440+0 records out
1474560 bytes (1.5 MB) copied, 0.019566 seconds, 75.4 MB/s
# modprobe loop
# losetup /dev/loop0 /tmp/install.hfs
# hformat -l Install /dev/loop0
Volume name is "Install"
Volume was created on Wed Feb 14 21:32:58 2007
Volume was last modified on Wed Feb 14 21:32:58 2007
Volume has 1448960 bytes free
If you convert the app and prefs to macbinary (or get me to do it), you
could then copy them with,
# hcopy -m Penguin.bin Install:
# hcopy -m Penguin-Settings.bin Install:
It could be easier just to format a floppy on the mac, set up Penguin &
its settings file, test it, then rip it. Then you could just hmount the
rip loop device and copy a kernel onto it.
# hcopy vmlinux.gz Install:
# humount /dev/loop0
The alternative, as you point out, is to provide a link to the penguin
download on sourceforge (plus give the instructions to set up the pengiun
settings).
The hardest part would be getting that stuff onto the mac. But the RAM
disk image I have here doesn't fit on a floppy anyway (I think it is a
sarge one). So a raw floppy image might not help anyway.
If all you have is links to downloads, all you need is instructions for
configuring the bootloader. Most of the Penguin instructions are already
there; what is missing is the "root=/dev/ram0 fbcon=font:VGA8x8".
Hmm. root=/dev/ram0 doesn't work!
...
Kernel command line: fbcon=font:VGA8x8 root=/dev/ram0 debug=ser console=tty0
...
RAMDISK: Compressed image found at block 0
RAMDISK: incomplete write (-28 != 32768) 4194304
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem) readonly.
ADB keyboard at 2, handler 1
Detected ADB keyboard, type ANSI.
ADB HID on ID 3 not yet registered
ADB HID on ID 3 not yet registered
input: ADB keyboard as /class/input/input1
ADB mouse at 3, handler set to 2
input: ADB mouse as /class/input/input2
adb: finished probe task...
Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init!
That's weird, the initrd.gz mounts fine on my laptop. Anyone seen this
before? Does anyone have an Etch initrd.gz?
-f
> > Should we offer stuffit (.sit) or NDIF (.img) formats as well? These
> > formats are more convenient since often a .sit can easily be unpacked
> > or else the .img mounted without having to write it to a floppy first.
>
> Might be nice. Again, is that possible from Linux?
Not as far as I know.
> > --- Section 7.1.2 says "...locate the kernel options line which should
> > look like root=/dev/ram video=font:VGA8x16 or similar ... The
> > video=font:VGA8x8 is recommended especially for users with tiny screens.
> > The kernel would pick a prettier (6x11) font but the console driver for
> > this font can hang the machine, so using 8x16 or 8x8 is safer at this
> > stage. You can change this at any time."
> [...]
>
> I'll change this ASAP (I have this faint memory that the manual is
> string-frozen at this point; if not, I'll change it immediately, but if
> it is, it'll have to wait slightly)
>
Thanks.
-f
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