From owner-freebsd-ppc@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Jul 21 21:02:23 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: ppc@FreeBSD.org Delivered-To: freebsd-ppc@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 478C316A4E0 for ; Fri, 21 Jul 2006 21:02:23 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from marcel@xcllnt.net) Received: from ns1.xcllnt.net (209-128-86-226.bayarea.net [209.128.86.226]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id EF6C843D5D for ; Fri, 21 Jul 2006 21:02:22 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from marcel@xcllnt.net) Received: from [192.168.5.252] (dhcp52.wlan.xcllnt.net [192.168.5.252]) by ns1.xcllnt.net (8.13.6/8.13.6) with ESMTP id k6LL2MKD004493 for ; Fri, 21 Jul 2006 14:02:22 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from marcel@xcllnt.net) Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v752.2) Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <709598C1-D05C-42D0-96D4-EC8E076E5BE3@xcllnt.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed To: ppc@FreeBSD.org From: Marcel Moolenaar Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 14:02:20 -0700 X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.752.2) Cc: Subject: Setting up a bootable disk from scratch X-BeenThere: freebsd-ppc@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Porting FreeBSD to the PowerPC List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 21:02:23 -0000 All, I'm trying to setup my iMac for FreeBSD. I replaced the MacOS X disk with an empty disk to preserve my Mac OS X for now. So, what I have currently is a netbooting FreeBSD machine, with / over NFS and an empty ATA disk. See for an almost up-to-date dmesg output and a pciconf output: http://www.xcllnt.net/~marcel/machines/imac/ My first step was to get a Mac partition table on the disk. I ended up hacking parted to compile on FreeBSD, with hardcoded values for the ATA disk in my iMac. With parted I put an empty partition table on the disk. It's seen by the kernel: imac% sysctl -b kern.geom.conftxt 0 DISK ad0 9115288064 512 hd 16 sc 63 1 APPLE ad0s2 9115254784 512 i 1 o 32768 ty Apple_Free sn Extra 1 APPLE ad0s1 32256 512 i 0 o 512 ty Apple_partition_map sn Apple What I want to do is add one or more FreeBSD partitions, of which one is formatted in such a way that I can use it to boot. I read that OpenFirmware boots from HFS and CD9660 filesystems, so I'm thinking of creating an CD9660 partition with boot related stuff, a regular UFS2 partition for / and a swap partition. I tried using sysinstall, but that wasn't fruitful. It sees the free partition, but doesn't seem to create more partitions or even sub-partitions (i.e. BSD label) under the free-partition. My questions: 1. Am I getting lost in the woods and am I better off abandoning this venture in favor of established methods? 2. Is sysinstall broken WRT to partitioning currently or is it supposed to work? 3. Am I correct when I say that all I need is an image of /boot on some OFW recognized partition in order to make the machine boot FreeBSD? Thanks in advance, -- Marcel Moolenaar USPA: A-39004 marcel@xcllnt.net