Re: Why yaboot is NOT for oldworld macs, Oldworld owners please read! (was Re: StarMax and yaboot...)
Okay, I've clearly bitten off more than I can chew. But let's give this a try...
Geert Uytterhoeven wrote:
> On Tue, 6 Jun 2000, Adam C Powell IV wrote:
> > Ethan Benson wrote:
> > > because there is no way to find out that
> > > /dev/hda3 == /yucky/openfirmware/device/path/ata/@0:0
> > >
> > > this would require kernel modifications becuase the kernel does not
> > > know either, and there is no reliable way to figure it out. every
> > > hardware is a bit different.
> >
> > What about /proc/device-tree, which is copied from OF on boot? (I think that's the
> > name, I'm not at my home machine now.)
>
> But how to match the contents from /proc/device-tree with your disk? If you have
> an algorithm for that, feel free to share it with us.
Okay, just looked through /proc/device-tree on my machine, you're right, this is quite
non-trivial.
Ethan Benson wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 06, 2000 at 11:42:56AM -0400, Adam C Powell IV wrote:
>
> > > Usage: nvsetenv variable value
> >
> > Cool. I'll try this a bit later, and contribute to the docs on this if I get a
> > chance. Maybe even an ncurses front-end matching Boot Variables' functions, or
> > debconf for quik? Other ideas? (To make it user-friendly.)
>
> well ideally if there were a way to match /dev/ nodes with OF device
> paths quik could be modifed to set the boot-device as a part of its
> installation procedure (with an option in quik.conf to disable of
> course) i want to do this with ybin, but in addition to the node ->
> OF path problem nvsetenv does not work on newworld
> machines. fortunatly you don't need to set the boot-device at all on
> newworlds if you use IDE disks (the defaults will do just fine)
Right, and newworlds don't use quik, right? So what's the probem? Is there a way to
determine whether a machine needs quik or yaboot, and act accordingly?
> > What about /proc/device-tree, which is copied from OF on boot? (I think that's the
> > name, I'm not at my home machine now.)
>
> its there, but that only gives us the OF device tree, we still have no
> idea what /proc/device-tree/foo/bar is in /dev.
Right, sorry, I was wrong about this.
> SuSE wrote an extremely obfuscated shell script to try and figure this out,
Cool! And SuSE's a good company that releases things like this as OSS/DFSG compliant,
right? Where can I get it and test it on my machine? (Nothing obvioous on the web
site, and the support database search gives nothing for "quik" or "open firmware".) Is
it part of the quik rpm? There's one in:
http://download.sourceforge.net/pub/mirrors/suse/suse/ppc/update/BETA/
> but when i tested it on my blue G3 it always comes up with
> incorrect OF paths. I am certian this is because they are making hard
> coded assumptions about too many things. (which there is no way
> around currently, that is not a good enough solution for an automated
> system) all we could do at this point is guess, and i think guessing
> and coming up with the wrong answer most of the time is less helpful
> then just making the user figure it out themself.
I'm confused- does your G3 use quik? (Is there such thing as an "Oldworld G3"?)
Thanks for the clarifications!
-Adam P.
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