At 7:41 PM -0500 9/3/2000, Peter wrote:
[...]
>Maybe I should clarify, I meant to have bootblocks so that one doesn't need
>any MacOS partition at all. Ie only a few blocks in the beginning of the
>drive that tells the Mac/m68k how to boot NetBSD.

I toyed with this idea a while last time I was hacking at the Penguin
Linux/Mac68k booter, but inevitably I determined that it wasn't really
possible.

First off, there's the interesting challenge that the state that the mac is
in before MacOS gets loaded off the disk is hideously buggy and entirely
undocumented.

Secondly, and most importantly, is NuBus. Right now the Penguin booter (and
I assume the BSD booter does the same thing) relies on there being some
sort of MacOS around in a relativley non-buggy state to be able to turn off
all the NuBus cards in the system to prevent the slot interrupts from
locking up hard and irrecoverably. Until such an unlikely time where
there's drivers implemented for each and every last NuBus card in the known
universe, the only way to have a snowball's chance in hell of booting on a
randomly-equipped mac is to do so from MacOS.

If you don't like it, go timetravel back to before 1987 and kick Jean Louis
Gasee's butt for implementing NuBus in such a retarded way. :)


Cheers - Tony 'Nicoya' Mantler :)


--
Tony "Nicoya" Mantler - Renaissance Nerd Extraordinaire - nicoya@apia.dhs.org
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada           --           http://nicoya.feline.pp.se/