8.0_BETA on Mac Mini G4 with bad CD drive...

[Havard Eidnes <he%NetBSD.org@localhost>]

Hi,

tl;dr; "Managed to install booting from a USB stick, but there's still
an issue with graphics initialization on this Mac Mini G4."


I recently took delivery of two Mac Mini G4 systems, one of them was
quickly turned into a bulk builder for 8.0/2017Q2, and the partial
results of that (4.3GB / 3658 packages at this moment) has been
uploaded already to ftp.netbsd.org and will continue to be as the
build progresses.

The second one was a little more troublesome getting going, because it
appeared it had a CD player which was failing, causing among other
things the size of the main hard drive to be misinterpreted, as well
as the ID string of the drive being scrambled.  So the CD drive had to
come out.

Now, I usually install via the CD drive, but that was now not
possible.  So I tried booting via the Ethernet interface.  However, I
could not get that to work -- it managed to load ofwboot.xcf, but
apparently ofwboot.xcf needed to do another "get IP address" cycle,
and it never managed to complete that, either complaining that it
could not get the IP address, or that it could not get the FILENAME (I
did tcpdump, and the boot file name (ofwboot.xcf) was being
transmitted).  Maybe I should have tested with ofwboot.elf, I did not,
but can probably do that later.

So...  What options are then left?  I could halt one of my bulk builds
and install after mounting the disk in that other machine, but "nah,
too much hassle!"

Instead, it appears that the Mac Minis can be booted from a USB stick
(which isn't documented in our release notes).  So once again I pulled
out "pdisk", created a 20M "Boot" Apple_HFS partition, and used
hfsutils to put ofwboot.elf, ofwboot.xcf and the install kernel on the
Boot partition:

  hformat -l Boot /dev/rsd0a
  hmount /dev/sd0a
  cd /usr/mdec
  hcopy ofwboot.* Boot:
  cd to-wherever-the-uncompressed-install-kernel-sits
  hcopy netbsd Boot:
  humount

and after plugging in the USB drive, breaking into OFW, and inspecting
the output of "dev / ls" (to find where the "disk" device was located)
and "devalias", I managed to boot into the installer with

  boot usb1/disk@1:,\ofwboot.xcf netbsd

and managed to finish the install, which I did in "my own style",
since 1) I want the entire disk for NetBSD, and 2) I do not want to
use any non-OpenFirmware or non-NetBSD stuff to aid in the install,
so I did:

  Exit into the shell
  Use pdisk to partition the harddrive:
  1 Apple_HFS 20MB boot partition (for ofwboot.* files)
  1 Apple_UNIX_SVR2 swap partition of 1.3GB
  1 Apple_UNIX_SVR2 root partition with the rest of the disk

(The use of "Apple_UNIX_SVR2" is required to get pdisk to ask what
type of partition this is going to be on the Unix side.)  Inspect the
output of "disklabel wd0" and verify that the root partition is 'a',
and then make the new file system:

  newfs -V 2 -O 2 /dev/rwd0a

and then run "sysinst" and do a normal install, using "keep existing
partition sizes".  I tweaked the root FS to do FFSv2 and WAPL logging
(this is with a normal rotating disk).  Then at the end, after having
transferred and unpacked pkgsrc as part of the "configure extra stuff"
sysinst menu:

  mount /dev/wd0a /mnt
  chroot /mnt
  cd /usr/pkgsrc/sysutils/hfsutils
  make install

Now look carefully at the output of "disklabel wd0" and find the HFS
boot partition, in my case partition letter 'd':

  hformat -l Boot /dev/rwd0d
  hmount /dev/wd0d
  cd /usr/mdec
  hcopy ofwboot.* Boot:
  humount
  
followed by a wrapup & reboot:

  exit
  reboot

and return to OFW by Command-Option-O-F and do

  setenv boot-device hd:\ofwboot.elf netbsd
  reset-all

and it *should* boot all the way.

However, there still appears to be some magic missing, as in my case
in this manner I end up with a mostly-white screen with a black or
grey horizontal line 2-3 pixels wide approximately 1cm down on my
screen, and no kernel messages or other visible output on the screen.
The system is booting, though, and can be logged into over the network
after a brief waiting period if you remembered to create a user and
enable sshd to start in the "configure extra stuff" sysinst menu.

To get that fixed (um, no, "worked around"), I apparently need to
break into OFW and do "boot" from there instead.  Help to get that
last piece dealt with would be much appreciated.  I don't think the
two boxes I have which run 7.1 and 6.1 fail in this manner.  ...and it
doesn't look like this is box-specific, because I recently took over
care of a PowerMac G4 "mirror drive doors" system which exhibits
basically the same symptom.  But that's a tale for another message,
this is long enough already.

Best regards,

- Håvard