[Bug 956481] Re: ppc: YabootInstaller doesn't handle USB drive installation so well

[Tormod Volden]

ojordan, thanks for investigating this!

> Also, another thing to consider is if installation to USB worked correctly, then nvram would be updated to boot the USB drive
> by default. Is this what people would want since I would think most USB instalations would be temporary or for testing/trying
> out purposes? It would be good if the installer gave the user an option to update nvram or not.

Agree. If installing to a USB drive it should not change NVRAM (or the
internal HD for that matter). Ideally it should just make the USB drive
bootable so that it can be chosen with the Alt key when powering up.

> In post#1 you wrote "because I am installing to an external USB drive which does not have any AppleBootstrap partition". How
> were you intending booting if you didn't set up a boot partition? What were you going to call from openfirmware?

My USB drive is a firewire combo drive. Obviously I would prefer to use
firewire plugged straight into the PowerBook. However there is a
firmware/software bug so that the firewire firmware gets totally messed
up by current Linux setups
(https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=42914), I have to disable
/lib/udev/scsi_id and even then there is something run by e.g. ubiquity
(partman?) that makes it unusable. So I have resorted to USB, but this
Powerbook has only USB 1.x so I am using a PCMCIA card with USB 2.0. Of
course, openfirmware cannot see my USB drive through this PCMCIA card,
so either I have to do a replugging dance when booting, or simply copy
yaboot+kernel+initrd to somewhere where openfirmware can see it (and
make sure my initrd has the needed yenta-socket module for the PCMCIA
card). I just use a folder on the internal all-MacOSX-hfs+ drive for
this, and just type "boot hd:\myfolder\yaboot" in openfirmware. Surely
not your grandma's setup, and I hope to have the kernel/udev/firmware
issues sorted out one day so I can simply boot the firmware drive, at
which point I will probably make an AppleBootstrap partition to have the
convenient Alt key magic work.

** Bug watch added: Linux Kernel Bug Tracker #42914
   http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=42914

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/956481

Title:
  ppc: YabootInstaller doesn't handle USB drive installation so well

Status in “yaboot-installer” package in Ubuntu:
  Triaged

Bug description:
  Just the "Installation Complete" dialog was left hanging, otherwise
  things looks fine. Apport made me file this bug. Installation of
  yaboot failed, because I am installing to an external USB drive which
  does not have any AppleBootstrap partition. I will boot yaboot from
  openfirmware anyway.

  I did not attach the debug log because I was warned that it contains
  my password. Is that true? I could not find it in syslog or
  installer/debug.

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
  Package: ubiquity 2.9.28
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-18.28-powerpc 3.2.9
  Uname: Linux 3.2.0-18-powerpc ppc
  ApportVersion: 1.94-0ubuntu1
  Architecture: powerpc
  Date: Thu Mar 15 22:44:14 2012
  InstallCmdLine: ro ramdisk_size=1048576 boot=casper rootdelay=10 live-media-path=Users/Tormod/casper file=/cdrom/Users/tormod/casper/preseed/lubuntu.seed break=mount ignore_uuid
  ProcEnviron:
   TERM=unknown
   PATH=(custom, no user)
   LANG=en_US.UTF-8
   SHELL=/bin/bash
  SourcePackage: ubiquity
  UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

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