On Sat, 6 Jul 1996, Wayland Smith wrote:

> Date: Sat, 6 Jul 1996 08:11:10 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Wayland Smith <alannon@cafe.net>
> To: Jell-O <wookie@us.net>
> Cc: port-mac68k@NetBSD.ORG
> Subject: Re: Bootable disk...
>
> On Sat, 6 Jul 1996, Jell-O wrote:
> > I haven't tried mklinux yet.  How does it boot up?  Any code from there
> > that might help us on this part of the project?
>
> 	mklinux works with a control panel that lets you change which
> kernel boots at startup.  I'm not sure how you switch back FROM linux
> though.  I've not used it either (I don't have a powermac yet)
>
> alannon@cafe.net

If in linux mode, will give you ten seconds at startup to click a button
to boot MacOS, otherwise mklinux boots (or doesn't, as the case may be).
If in macos mode, unfortunately, there's no box.  Pity, really.

This has come up at least three times now.  To my knowledge, no code has
come of it, but it's been considered.  Basically, the existing booter code
would need to be inserted into a control panel or an init, and called only
if NetBSD is chosen from a window shown at startup.  Then, the Booting
preferences box could be placed in a separate control panel, doing nothing
but modifying the prefs file.  There need be no memory residency after
booting unless the CP is open.

Unfortunately, I don't have a C compiler for the mac (unless THIN C, not
THINK, counts...), nor do I know much about the distinctions between
control panel startup code and application code.  There's the big change,
is in the front end, and even that should be possible.

IMHO, it is better to use this method than a LILO disk, and for that
matter, you could delete those resources that display a message when the
macintosh type is wrong for the version of the system software, and create
a LILO disk.  After all, it's not like you'd be running anything under
MacOS after the first half-second or so.  It would need to be a
super-pared-down system 7, though, 'cause I think part of the booter
requires it.  If you did that, you'd have to make the prefs file editable
with SimpleText or something, though, or you'd have a heck of a time
changing the settings.

Just some way-out-there ideas,

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