FC4 vs. MacMini (PowerPC)

[John Reiser]

I'd like to run FC4 on a MacMini, but can't get there from here.
FC4t1 was dead-on-arrival because the install CD/DVD would not boot
( https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=151234 ).
Now FC4t2 cannot be trusted to partition the harddrive
( https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=154479 ).
Multibooting Mac OS X is a requirement, but neither DiskDruid
nor fdisk recognizes the existing partitions as shipped by Apple
[Ubuntu-5.04 fdisk does] so I'm very leery.

If anyone has set up FC4t2 successfully to multiboot with Mac OS X,
(using no external drives or additional Mac hardware) then
please share your method and experiences.  Thanks.

-- 
John Reiser, jreiser(a)BitWagon.com

[Paul Nasrat]

On Tue, 2005-04-12 at 07:55 -0700, John Reiser wrote:
>  I'd like to run FC4 on a MacMini, but can't get there from
> here.
>  FC4t1 was dead-on-arrival because the install CD/DVD would not boot
>  ( https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=151234 ).
>  Now FC4t2 cannot be trusted to partition the harddrive
>  ( https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=154479 ).
>  Multibooting Mac OS X is a requirement, but neither DiskDruid
>  nor fdisk recognizes the existing partitions as shipped by Apple
>  [Ubuntu-5.04 fdisk does] so I'm very leery.
>  
>  If anyone has set up FC4t2 successfully to multiboot with Mac OS X,
>  (using no external drives or additional Mac hardware) then
>  please share your method and experiences.  Thanks. 
You should be able to just edit yaboot.conf as appropriate afterwards -
it's nothing to do with the partitioning tool, just how we configure the
bootloader.

Paul

[John Reiser]

> >If anyone has set up FC4t2 successfully to multiboot with Mac OS
> X, 
>  You should be able to just edit yaboot.conf as appropriate afterwards
> - 
Aha, knowing to look at /etc/yaboot.conf is the essential key that
was not mentioned anywhere.

I suggest that the existence of an hfs+ partition should cause the
"macosx=/dev/hdaX" and "brokenmacosx" lines to be added to
yaboot.conf,
just like the existence of a bootable FAT partition on x86 causes
an "other; chainloader +1" entry in grub.conf.  Oh, and change the
"delay=5" to "delay=15" for multibooting Fedora Core and MacOS X.
Many DDC monitors cannot wakeup from DPMS sleep and come to full
brightness in 5 seconds, which means that the multibooting choice
will be missed.  [I'll make sure bugzilla sees this.]

--

[Paul Nasrat]

On Thu, 2005-04-14 at 10:37 -0700, John Reiser wrote:
>  >>If anyone has set up FC4t2 successfully to multiboot with Mac
> OS X,
>  
>  > You should be able to just edit yaboot.conf as appropriate afterwards -
>  
>  Aha, knowing to look at /etc/yaboot.conf is the essential key that
>  was not mentioned anywhere.
>  
>  I suggest that the existence of an hfs+ partition should cause the
>  "macosx=/dev/hdaX" and "brokenmacosx" lines to be added to
> yaboot.conf, 
That's the plan, ditto for os9 detection.

Paul

[Alan Cox]

On Thu, Apr 14, 2005 at 08:22:43PM +0100, Paul Nasrat wrote:
>  
>  That's the plan, ditto for os9 detection. 
Please make sure its always called "MacOS 9", "OS/9" is something else
and
might cause confusion

[Colin Charles]

On Tue, 2005-04-12 at 07:55 -0700, John Reiser wrote:
>  I'd like to run FC4 on a MacMini, but can't get there from
> here.
>  FC4t1 was dead-on-arrival because the install CD/DVD would not boot
>  ( https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=151234 ). 
Try FC4t2. I think the CD boots. Otherwise do it via nfs and boot.iso

>  Now FC4t2 cannot be trusted to partition the harddrive
>  ( https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=154479 ). 
That's just the tool, fdisk not reporting it. Linux/ppc distros tend to
include pdisk actually

The partitioning tool actually "just works". Try "parted /dev/hda
print"

>  Multibooting Mac OS X is a requirement, but neither DiskDruid
>  nor fdisk recognizes the existing partitions as shipped by Apple
>  [Ubuntu-5.04 fdisk does] so I'm very leery. 
Well, it would help if you had a free partition. Currently you don't. We
don't resize hfs+ partitions for you

>  If anyone has set up FC4t2 successfully to multiboot with Mac OS X,
>  (using no external drives or additional Mac hardware) then
>  please share your method and experiences.  Thanks. 
http://www.bytebot.net/geekdocs/ibook/fedorappc.html

I just set it up yesterday and my dual-boot experience works. Save for
the fact that yaboot.conf needs macosx=/dev/hdaX in it
-- 
Colin Charles, byte(a)aeon.com.my
http://www.bytebot.net/
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, 
then you win." -- Mohandas Gandhi

[John Reiser]

>  http://www.bytebot.net/geekdocs/ibook/fedorappc.html 
Thanks for the pointer.  Eventually I booted from Apple DVD
and used Apple Disk Utility to repartition the harddrive into
"3 partitions" (27MB hfs+ Journaled, 1GB free [for swap], and
11GB free [for FC4 root]).  Then I fresh-installed Mac OS X,
got Apple's current updates, then fresh-installed FC4t2.
DiskDruid said there was only 1 Apple_Free partition of 12GB.
I kept going, and took the required detour when DiskDruid said
I had to have an Apple_Bootstrap partition.  Installing FC4t2
succeeded; total time (Apple Disk Util repartition, Mac OS X
install, Mac OS X update, FC4t2 install) was about 2.5 hours,
almost evenly split between Apple and Fedora.

--