Re: OldWorld ROM Macintoshes

On Tue, 2025-08-26 at 11:14 -0600, Stan Johnson wrote:
> 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?

Would you send your xorg.conf, etc., please?  I can only seem to get
Xorg to launch by passing in video=ofonly.  I can't get it to work with
fbdev either.

> 
> 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.