Re: OldWorld ROM Macintoshes

On 8/26/25 8:15 AM, Cedar Maxwell wrote:
> ... Could you confirm how exactly your partitioning looks like? 
> I've gotten the kernel and initrd copied over and recognized by 
> BootX, but never gotten the system to actually boot into Linux.
> 
> I understand that the partitoning has to be done particularly for OS 9,
> and in turn, Linux to boot correctly.

That sounds right.

I have this disk partitioning (edited slightly for readability):

# mac-fdisk -l
/dev/sda
         #                type name         length   base      ( size )
/dev/sda1 Apple_partition_map Apple            63 @ 1         ( 31.5k)
/dev/sda2      Apple_Driver43 Macintosh        56 @ 64        ( 28.0k)
/dev/sda3      Apple_Driver43 Macintosh        56 @ 120       ( 28.0k)
/dev/sda4    Apple_Driver_ATA Macintosh        56 @ 176       ( 28.0k)
/dev/sda5    Apple_Driver_ATA Macintosh        56 @ 232       ( 28.0k)
/dev/sda6      Apple_FWDriver Macintosh       512 @ 288       (256.0k)
/dev/sda7  Apple_Driver_IOKit Macintosh       512 @ 800       (256.0k)
/dev/sda8       Apple_Patches Patch Partition 512 @ 1312      (256.0k)
/dev/sda9           Apple_HFS MacOSX     16775392 @ 1824      (  8.0G)
/dev/sda10          Apple_HFS MacOS       4194304 @ 16777216  (  2.0G)
/dev/sda11    Apple_UNIX_SVR2 Debian_7   16777216 @ 20971520  (  8.0G)
/dev/sda12    Apple_UNIX_SVR2 Debian_sid 16777216 @ 37748736  (  8.0G)
/dev/sda13    Apple_UNIX_SVR2 Gentoo     33554432 @ 54525952  ( 16.0G)
/dev/sda14    Apple_UNIX_SVR2 swap        1048576 @ 88080384  (512.0M)
/dev/sda15    Apple_UNIX_SVR2 data      106242608 @ 89128960  ( 50.7G)

Block size=512, Number of Blocks=195371568
DeviceType=0x0, DeviceId=0x0
Drivers-
1: @ 64 for 23, type=0x1
2: @ 120 for 36, type=0xffff
3: @ 176 for 21, type=0x701
4: @ 232 for 34, type=0xf8ff


> Since I can't even get it to boot, my first thought is I partitioned my
> drive wrong.  I just copied what that guy did in that article, which I
> can't verify is correct.
> 


The article may be correct; I just didn't use Apple's tools to partition 
the drive. I used NetBSD's pdisk in MacOS 9 (look for pdisk in the 
"installation/misc" directory of a NetBSD ISO. Either the ppc or the 
mac68k version will work (oddly, the mac68k version works better in some 
cases).

If you're comfortable using mac-fdisk or parted in Linux, those will 
also work. You'll need to initialize the disk first in Mac OS 9 or Mac 
OS X to install the Apple drivers. If you only plan to run Mac OS 9 and 
Linux, you can use Drive Setup from Mac OS 9 to initialize the disk. If 
you are also planning to run Mac OS X, then you should use Drive Setup 
from Mac OS X (Jaguar, Panther or Tiger).


> How did you create a custom kernel based on your hardware?  Could you
> share yours?


I cross-compiled a kernel on an i86_64 system (you should be able to use 
whatever system you are using as your QEMU host). I can send the 
commands I use to cross-compile kernels if that would help.

I don't mind sharing my .config file, though I don't want to spam the 
mailing list. And your hardware may be different, especially if you have 
a 800x600 display; I have these ATI graphics options on two Wallstreets 
(both 1024x768):

Wallstreet-1:
# dmesg | grep fb0:
[    0.336988] fb0: Open Firmware frame buffer device on /pci/ATY,264LT-G

Wallstreet-2:
# dmesg | grep fb0:
[    0.178132] atyfb: fb0: ATY Mach64 frame buffer device on PCI

What "video=atyfb..." option are you passing to the kernel from BootX?

It might make sense to install an older Debian from the ISO that Adrian 
mentioned. That way, you can use dmesg to examine your system's hardware 
(graphics, scsi, serial, network, etc.) and pick those same options 
while configuring a custom 6.x kernel. If you pick only the options that 
you need, it doesn't take all that long to build a kernel natively on a 
Wallstreet.


> 
> I don't have a faster G3 with SCSI, I had been taking the drive out and
> plugging it into my modern PC and doing the installation with QEMU.  I
> do have 512MB of RAM though in my WallStreet :-  
> ...

That's interesting. I currently use QEMU only for m68k Macs but not for 
powerpc.