From owner-freebsd-ppc@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Mar 6 06:24:38 2012 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-ppc@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 20CD31065672 for ; Tue, 6 Mar 2012 06:24:38 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from robballantyne3@gmail.com) Received: from mail-we0-f182.google.com (mail-we0-f182.google.com [74.125.82.182]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A46D88FC15 for ; Tue, 6 Mar 2012 06:24:37 +0000 (UTC) Received: by werl4 with SMTP id l4so3734776wer.13 for ; Mon, 05 Mar 2012 22:24:36 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=mime-version:date:message-id:subject:from:to:content-type; bh=Oz9e4TNAHDzLA/Xg7jBuwNG1zG0ZN9ML5OXdl81W/G0=; b=XSGmV7O/qIypAXzlkLUtSXgFY5/XI7UZgVLc21AiVCZMUz3EOVtw62Q9/Fjf1mEdyv 3yMixhatBOzWdWqIGLYGNyjuNKyulf+rjarO3lEp6GmTTjbGNBT+yW4MBUq+JWI1xO6B 7BfjovzXcYiOZ2Nj+T+XiueRI39zSz1oRDg3WRs6ClnvBP10FrPmnXDIVeODuAOoh6Fu SrZRN2ScTCKriLmvHW0RxrW0lfUVZtB2SGKlJgHC25emTdkBpsl/3dd5D2EPntmA5hDn F+uavcVN58qd3JNZ39ozTHHk9aytEanX8J89iZMnaGv8m1U2cxFzjIQbqnC7NAMdpP5U kFaw== MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.180.90.225 with SMTP id bz1mr16547376wib.5.1331015076533; Mon, 05 Mar 2012 22:24:36 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.223.117.70 with HTTP; Mon, 5 Mar 2012 22:24:36 -0800 (PST) Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2012 22:24:36 -0800 Message-ID: From: Rob Ballantyne To: freebsd-ppc@freebsd.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Subject: Question about bootup 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: Tue, 06 Mar 2012 06:24:38 -0000 Hi All, I've been poking around trying to understand the boot up process of a ppc64 G5 machine. I was slightly surprised to still find an Apple Partition map disk. I would have thought it was an ordinary fdisk (PC) partition setup. Let me see if I have it right: 1 - OpenFirmware (OFW) load Apple_Bootstrap/boot1.elf 2 - boot1.elf runs to gain enough to understand UFS filesystems and loads FreeBSD UFS partition /boot/loader 3 - loader loads /boot/kernel/kernel ... and we're off to the races. This strikes me as fairly simplistic so I'm sure there are more details. I'm curious about /boot/*.4th OpenFirmware forth code, for example. Is it involved in a substantial way? The other thing I'm curious about is the Apple_Bootstrap partition. How is it written? I've discovered parteditor within the bsdinstall installer. I suspect that does it but it doesn't appear to let one write their own bootloader code image. As I said mostly curiosity and trying to understand. If anyone has a few words of confirmation/advice I would be glad to hear them. Thanks, Rob