[Duo2400] 8.6 and 10

[Ivan Drucker]

Nope, but I do switch back and forth between X and 8.6. Here's how:

First, make sure you've got individual partitions for X, 9.1, and 8.6.

First, the basic 9 and X setup:

Install with 9.1 and get everything running.

Set Open Firmware auto-boot? to false, either with XPF (one oef the menu 
items) or manually in Open Firmware (hold down cmd-opt-OF after chime, at 
OF prompt type "setenv auto-boot? false").
When Open Firmware comes up at startup, I type "bye" to go to OS 9 or 
"boot" to go to OS X.

Once I've got all that working, I can then go to 9 and use the Startup 
Disk control panel *from Mac OS 8.6*, which is the old-school one that we 
all used from the System 6 days. I can then choose 8.6. When I restart, 
and OF comes up, if I type "bye" it will go to 8.6 instead of 9.1. "boot" 
still goes to OS X. If you want to switch back to 9.1, use the same 
control panel.

If you don't want OF coming up every time you turn on the machine, you 
could set auto-boot? to true (manually or via XPF running in 9) and it 
will boot into X by default, but if you want to go to 8.6 you can hold 
down cmd-opt-OF during startup. Don't select the 8.6 System Folder in the 
X Startup Disk control panel because it'll mess up Open Firmware and 
you'll be unable to run XPF to fix it without booting into 9.1 first.

(explanation follows, optional reading)

I think what is going on -- I am not an expert -- is that when you type 
"bye," the Mac just ignores Open Firmware and boots from the same ROM 
instructions that have been in every Mac until the iMac, which look in 
PRAM to see which volume to boot from. The PRAM is set by the Startup 
Disk control panel.

XPF programs Open Firmware to support booting X, and these instructions 
are followed when you type "boot". The 9.1 Startup Disk (and the X 
Startup Disk) control panel also messes with Open Firmware, since it 
itself is designed to support booting X on newer systems, so if you use 
it to switch to 8.6, you'll make X unbootable. However, the 8.6 Startup 
Disk control panel only changes PRAM and leaves Open Firmware alone. Thus 
when you type "bye" and it begins to boot from the ROM, it just starts 
from 8.6. The X startup instructions that are executed when you type 
"bye" still work fine.

If auto-boot? is set to true, the PowerBook automatically executes a 
"boot" instruction. If X is installed, it boots (LinuxPPC uses the same 
technique). For most users who don't have an alternate OS, it does the 
exact same thing as "bye".

Hope this helps,
Ivan.


----------------

>
>Has anyone here sucessfully gotten XPF to work in 8.6 (install
>and boot)?
>
>jake
>
>
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