Fwd: Single boot EFI Mac install

[peeter (must)]

On Wed, Mar 21, 2012 at 9:39 AM, Carsten Mattner
<carstenmattner at googlemail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 3:38 PM, Carsten Mattner
> <carstenmattner at googlemail.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 2:09 PM, peeter (must) <karu.pruun at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Mon, Mar 19, 2012 at 9:08 PM, Carsten Mattner
>>> <carstenmattner at googlemail.com> wrote:
>>>> On Mon, Mar 19, 2012 at 7:41 PM, peeter (must) <karu.pruun at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> On Wed, Mar 7, 2012 at 1:32 PM, Carsten Mattner
>>>>> <carstenmattner at googlemail.com> wrote:
>>>>>> Has anyone successfully installed DragonFly as a single
>>>>>> boot system on an EFI Mac?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> I'd be interested in this too. I failed: got the boot prompt and then
>>>>> the boot process hung.
>>>>>
>>>>> I also tried a gpt setup described on 'man gpt' but got the same
>>>>> result. I would be interested in setting up a dual boot but can't risk
>>>>> losing the main system, currently macosx.
>>>>>
>>>>> On a positive note, rEFIt recognized the DFBSD slice and gave the boot
>>>>> prompt, so something goes wrong after that.
>>>>
>>>> What I've learned for Mac 32-bit EFI and how to use it without OS X
>>>> but with rEFIt to allow booting all kinds of systems:
>>>>
>>>> - boot the OS X installer
>>>> - start Disk Util
>>>> - create a 200MB (it will actually force it to 1GB) HFS+ partition
>>>> - now you will have a 200MB unused FAT EFI protected partition and a
>>>> 1GB HFS+ partition
>>>> - boot a livecd which has a partitioning tool that can resize the HFS+
>>>> partition
>>>> - resize parition #2 (HFS+ 1GB) to 200MB, that should be enough
>>>> - reboot into the OS X installer again
>>>> - put rEFIt on the HFS+ partition
>>>> - bless --folder ... etc. (see the shell script in rEFIt for the
>>>> command) to bless refit.efi
>>>> - if the resizing tool is non-destructive you could avoid booting
>>>> twice into the OS X installer and instead extract and configure rEFIt
>>>> on the 1GB partition
>>>> - reboot
>>>> - rEFIt should show up
>>>> - if BSD or Linux doesn't properly boot, make sure the hybdrid
>>>> partition table is synced (gptsync). rEFIt's partition tool menu item
>>>> should suggest to sync if needed
>>>> - if the installed rEFIt doesn't have the partition tool menu item boot
>>>> rEFIt ISO
>>>> - depending on what OS and bootloader you use you might want to add a
>>>> 3rd partition of 1MB size and type BIOS BOOT before BSD or Linux.
>>>>
>>>> PS: I'm not subscribed to user at crater.dragonflybsd.org anymore. If
>>>> this is filtered, someone has to moderate it onto the list.
>>>
>>>
>>> Thanks a lot for this! Will try as soon as I get a moment.
>>
>> When I said you should create a HF+ partition I forgot that
>> you should - assuming you want to have a single-boot system -
>> Repartition the disk as GPT with a single HFS+ partition of 1GB
>> size and then resize that to 200MB. Now you will have a GPT
>> partition with a 200MB EFI FAT and 1GB HFS+ partition.
>
> Justin Sherrill picked up this post in his DragonFly blog.
> Let me clarify a couple things:
> --this won't EFI-boot DragonFly--
> --this will EFI-boot rEFIt--
> --rEFIt will boot DragonFly--
>
> To EFI-boot DragonFly you need to have an EFI image of either
> the native DragonFly bootmanager or a dflykernel.efi image. Linux 3.3 has
> gained support for an EFI image stub which allows you to build linux kernel
> images which can be booted directly by EFI firmware. This is only half of the
> story though. You still need to either use some kind of EFI shell or EFI boot
> manager to pass required arguments to the EFI kernel image.
>
> Disclaimer: There is a possibility of bricking your Mac firmware if you
> (mis-)use one of the non-Mac (U)EFI or unsuitable 64-bit EFI tools or
> bootmanagers. Newer Macs also have 64-bit EFI, but it's still Mac EFI and
> not UEFI which you find in non-Mac hardware. Be careful, use backups,
> don't do anything if you're not sure. Especially messing with EFI variables
> with efibootmgr or other tools from BSD or Linux is said to be dangerous
> on Macs.
>
> If you want to read about EFI adventures:
> http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/
> http://mjg59.livejournal.com/


Thanks again, partial success so far: could get refit working but
apparently refit does not boot dfly, or at least not yet.

I made two partitions for dfly as described in the README on the live
cd, a ufs partition for /boot and hammer partition for the rest. refit
recognizes the boot partition as a FreeBSD one and when I choose to
boot it in the refit many then I get a blank screen and then "No
bootable device -- insert boot disk and press any key". Then the
computer hangs.

I thought it might be since refit isn't familiar with 64bit disklablel
but using disklabel32 gives the same result.

I tried to gptsync the partition tables but refit refuses; refit sees
dfly partitions as "Unknown" and refuses to do anything with them. I
thought there might be a way to force gptsync but refit shell hasn't
got gptsync.

I wonder if there's a way to make refit recognize how to boot from the
dfly ufs partition? I was browsing around to find if grub2 might work
but haven't found the right .efi image yet.

mjg59.livejournal.com is a good read!

Peeter

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