Subject: Re: Switching from BootX to yaboot
From: Hollis R Blanchard (hollis+@andrew.cmu.edu)
Date: Wed Feb 21 2001 - 21:04:52 MST
On Wed, 21 Feb 2001, Paul J. Lucas wrote:
> On Thu, 22 Feb 2001, Graham Leggett wrote:
>
> > Documentation is a bit scattered,
>
> Yes, annoyingly so. I tried to find documentation for making
> Open Firmware scripts and didn't find anything except the stock
> ones that people use.
Given that we (Terrasoft) cannot document *everything*, we try to document the
easiest methods to get things working. The people who *need* documentation are
the ones who can't boot. They don't want to know how to write a bootscript;
they want installation instructions that are simple and work.
People who want to write their own boot scripts can figure it out from others
or from reading and comparing existing ones.
> I played with this stuff briefly and I found that I couldn't get
> Open Firmware to recognize yaboot as something it can run unless
> I used the hfsutils and set the proper type/creator to make it
> appear as a MacOS ROM file.
That's not correct; the installation guide describes exactly how to install
and use yaboot without performing these steps.
> You might also try playing with Apple's System Disk utility
> instead of yaboot. See:
>
> http://til.info.apple.com/techinfo.nsf/artnum/n60217
>
> Also search the TIL for "System Disk."
>
> - Paul
>
> P.S.: This lack of documentation is a gripe about Terrasoft.
> They /should/ have all this stuff right on their web page and
> in their documentation. Instead, they have a mailing list
> archive that is fairly broken (double search results, or none)
> and a poor FAQ (where the stuff isn't even in the form of a
> question -- would never fly on Jeopardy).
Are you referring to
http://www.yellowdoglinux.com/support/faq_solutions.shtml?
> "What? System Disk
> can be used to boot Linux on a Mac? Quick! Update our web
> pages with the info!" But no... Sigh...
Most users just want a booting solution that works. We would be doing the
majority of our custormers and users a great disservice by running around
trying to document every possible boot solution to satisfy a few. Power users
can generally fend for themselves.
I'm not personally offended, but please remember the constraints on our time
and resources before criticizing. There are far more important things for us
to be doing other than documenting how one might use System Disk to boot.
-Hollis
This archive was generated by hypermail 2a24 : Wed Feb 21 2001 - 21:06:12 MST