Loader/installer problems - can't load 'kernel'

[Torfinn Ingolfsen]

On Sat, 29 Oct 2011 23:03:21 -0400
Chris Carr <carrch at mac.com> wrote:

> I have been able to get 'ls' from the boot loader to show the  
> filesystem on the USB stick.
> The only way I was able to get that to even was by settings the OF  
> devalias for cd to the device path of the USB stick.

Strange. It has worked for me in the past, using a ud alias. Perhaps the ROM on your machine is too old to recognize / use an ud alias?
(No, that doesn't sound likely)

> I finally got the optical drive on the Powerbook to read the BSD  
> install disc and the install CD worked flawlessly.

Good!

> Seems to me that the boot loader just won't cooperate, since I'm  
> taking files that are supposed to be for a CD-ROM and everything built- 
> in to the boot process on the live cd or install cd are assuming  
> you're using an optical drive.

FWIW, it has worked for me in the past. My procedure:
1) use dd (on a FreeBSD machine) to write the *.iso image to a memory stick (usb)
2) plug the memory stick into the G4 PowerBook, and use OF to figure out where it is connected
3) make a 'ud' alias, example: devalias ud /pci at f2000000/usb at 1b,1/disk at 1
4) boot from ud, example: boot ud:,\boot\loader ud:0

As you can see, I used the iso image; the machine didn't care that I put it on a memory stick.

> Perhaps I can just figure out how to modify the boot loader on .rc or  
> conf files to make them work?

IMHO, there shouldn't be anything to modify; this should just work.
Perhaps the image / snapshot you are using is broken? (This has happened in the past)

> Does BSD require a root filesystem at boot, similar to how a linux  
> liveCD will use a RAM disk?

Yes - root file system (and it is on the image).

> the live CD and install CD iso images are all HFS standard partitions  
> on the CD.

The ppc iso image is a hybrid iso9660 / HFS image (I know because I can mount it with -t cd9660).


> asr is the apple system restore utility for cloning (block-level or  
> file-level.)

Ok.
-- 
Torfinn